REAL - Yearbook of Research in English and American Literature, Volume 15 (1999)

American pragmatism has recently had a remarkable revival as one of the few philosophical traditions that escapes the current radical critique of Western thought. In literary and cultural studies, a pragmatist perspective has emerged as one of the alternatives to the dominant poststructuralist paradigm. However, while poststructuralism has focused almost exclusively on the unmask-ing of linguistic and discursive regimes, pragmatism seems to allow for the possibility of explaining literary texts and aesthetic objects in ways that go beyond an increasingly monotonous ritual of critical deconstruction. Instead, pragmatism holds the promise of describing aspects such as representation, rhetorical performance, signifying, providing an aesthetic experience and self-fashioning in terms that do not have to ignore the constructive and creative dimension of these acts.