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Meili Steele

Professor

Office: 206 Humanities Office Building,
(803) 777-2045

steelem@sc.edu

Education

Ph.D.,University of North Carolina, 1984

Specialization Areas
  • literary theory,
  • political theory,
  • philosophy and literature,
  • modern European literature, and
  • American literature
Recent Courses

See Course Descriptions for detailed information.

  • ENGL 734     Modern Literary Theory 
  • History and Memory
  • Inquiry in the Humanities
  • Literature and Politics
  • Modernism
  • Literary Theory: Plato to the Present

Current Research Project(s)


Pathways to the Present: Critical Theory Since Kant

Rights as Principles or Social Imaginaries?

Participant in 2006 NEH Institute, “Human Rights in Conflict: Interdisciplinary Perspectives”

Selected Publications

Books

xxHiding from History: Politics and Public Imagination. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005.

Hiding from History is an excellent book on a very important issue. It concerns the nature of practical reason, how we deliberate about good and bad, right and wrong. Of course, we deliberate as individuals too, but the issue here is how we deliberate in common. Meili Steele addresses the nature of public reason, highlighting the way that literature can contribute to rational debate, sometimes in ways that philosophical argument cannot match.” Charles Taylor, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy,
McGill University

“Meili Steele has written a great book, tightly argued, but expansive in scope. He shows how contemporary political thought and action have been handcuffed by the persistent attempt to transcend historical and cultural specificity. His compelling alternative of ‘public imagination’ avoids multiculturalism’s identity fetishism by understanding culture as a process through selves can reflect upon, reason about, and revise their lives with others.” John McGowan, University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill, author of Democracy’s Children

xxxxxCritical Confrontations: Literary Theories in Dialogue. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997.

“An illuminating and cogent re-thinking of critical theory by an elegant and inclusive logic, Steele recasts tradition, the villain in so many cultural scenarios, as the heroic defender of democratic ideals.” Carol Bernstein, Byrn Mawr College

“For anyone interested in the fundamental principles of the various theoretical positions advanced over the last half-century and their backgrounds in prior philosophical discussions, Steele offers an excellent introduction. Critical Confrontations presents more than that, however. It suggests the ways in which the best characteristics of theoretical arguments that seemingly conflict with one another can be brought together and aligned...Moreover, [it] is a delight to read” Robert Spector, World Literature Today





xTheorizing Textual Subjects: Agency and Oppression. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

“This book offers a substantial contribution to the debate on the relationship between ethics, politics and literature.” Anthony Cascardi, Univ of California- Berkeley

“An excellent guide to [agency after poststructuralism].” Carlos Alonso, Columbia University

“This is a serious and thought-provoking work of extraordinary range in philosophical, critical and cultural terms.” Nicola Bradbury, University of Reading, Modern Language Review

“[Steele] enters fruitfully into a dialogue that has remained static for too long. Theorizing Textual Subjects is consequently essential reading for anyone interested in critical thought. Steele’s ability to formulate and then critique contemporary critical problems makes for a provocative and admirable study.” Priscilla Walton, American Literature

“With admirable attention to methodological detail, Steele reviews a formidable array of theorists and the contemporary political/ethical debates they have generated. Through his suggestive narrative reading he illustrates the relevance of fictional strategies to his presiding concern with agency and its dynamics” Richard Macksey, Johns Hopkins University, MLN

xxxRealism and the Drama of Reference: Strategies of Representation in Balzac, Flaubert, and James. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988.

“A significant contribution to the way in which we read the works of three major novelists.” Walter Putnam, University of New Mexico, Rocky Mountain Review of Language and Literature

“Brilliant.” William Stowe, Wesleyan University, The Henry James Review

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

Refereed Articles

"The Social Imaginary and Public Reason." Divinatio: Studia Culturologica (forthcoming).

“History and Public Reason.” Soundings 88 (2005): 239-264.

"Ontologie linguistique et dialogue politique chez Bakhtine. " Bakhtine et la pensée dialogique. Eds. Clive Thomson et André Collinot. London (Ontario): Mestengo Press, 2005. 23-31

“Hiding from History: Habermas’s Elision of Public Imagination.” Constellations: A Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 12 (2005): 409-436.

“Introduction.” Intertexts . Special issue on “The Future of Cultural Memory.” 7 (2003): 111-15.

“Ricoeur versus Taylor on Language and Narrative.” Metaphilosophy, 34 (2003): 224-46..

“Three Problematics of Linguistic Vulnerability: Gadamer, Benhabib, and Butler.” Feminist Interpretations of Hans-Georg Gadamer. Ed. Lorraine Code. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. 335-66.

“Why Survivor Testimony Is Not Enough.” History in Dispute. Volume 11 “The Holocaust.” Columbia: Manly Inc., 2003. 231-34.

“Ellison versus Arendt on Little Rock: The Role of Language in Political Judgment.” Constellations: A Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 9 (2002): 184-206.

“Lyotard’s Politics of the Sentence.” Maps and Mirrors. Ed. Steve Martinot. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2000.

“The Problematics and Politics of Cultural Memory: The Theoretical Dilemmas of Said’s Culture and Imperialism.” Methods for the the Study of Literature as Cultural Memory. Ed. Raymond Vervliet and Annmarie Estor. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000. 269-278.

“Language and African-American Culture: The Need for Meta-philosophical Reflection.” Philosophy Today 40 (1996): 169-78.

"Democratic Interpretation and the Politics of Difference." Comparative Literature 48 (1996): 326-42.

"Meta-Theory and the Subject of Democracy in the Work of Ralph Ellison." New Literary History 27 (1996): 473-502.

"Explanation, Understanding, and Incommensurability in Psychoanalysis." Analecta Husserliana 41 (1994): 367-76.

"How Philosophy of Language Informs Ethics and Politics: Richard Rorty and Contemporary Theory." boundary 2 20 (1993): 140-72.

"The Ontological Turn and Its Ethical Consequences: Habermas and the Poststructuralists." Praxis International 11 (1992): 428-46.

"Value and Subjectivity: The Dynamics of the Sentence in James's The Ambassadors." Comparative Literature 43 (1991): 113-33.

"Anxiety and the Face of Narration in James's 'The Beast in the Jungle.'" Analecta Husserliana 28 (1990): 421-28.

"L'Education sentimentale and the Bildungsroman: Reading Frédéric Moreau." The Romanic Review 78 (1987): 84-101.

"The Drama of Reference in James's The Golden Bowl." Novel: A Forum on Fiction 21 (1987): 73-88.

"The Dangers of Structuralist Narratology: Genette's Misinterpretation of Proust." Romance Notes 26 (1986): 1-7.

"Romantic Epistemology and Romantic Style: Emerson's Development from Nature to the Essays." Studies in the American Renaissance (1983): 187-202.

"Sartre and the Drama Character: Theory and Practice." Postscript 1 (1983): 34-41.