130.

3 ]

theories and
methodologies

Latour and
Literary Studies
I AM INTERESTED IN QUESTIONS OF READING AND INTERPRETATION.
I AM ALSO DRAWN TO ACTOR-NETWORK THEORY AND THE WORK OF rita felski
Bruno Latour. Can these attractions be brought into alignment? To
what extent can a style of thought that describes itself as empiricist
and rejects critique speak to the dominant concerns of literary stud-
ies? Can actor-network theory help us think more adequately about
interpretation? Might it inspire us to become more generous read-
ers? How do literary studies and Latourian thought engage, enlist,
seduce, or speak past each other? What duels, rivalries, intrigues,
appropriations, or love afairs will ensue?
While Latour acknowledges a debt to the Greimasian model of
actor or actant, his explicit references to literature have been largely
a matter of passing observations and lapidary remarks. Meanwhile,
Latour’s work ignores or explicitly rejects many of the themes that
have occupied literary scholars in recent decades: representation, the
linguistic turn, textuality, the symbolic, negativity, alterity. In certain
respects, it seems to resist being taken up as a generalizable method
at all. In the dialogue at the center of Reassembling the Social, a hap-
less doctoral student drops in on a Latour avatar during oice hours,
seeking advice about how to apply actor-network theory to his disser-
tation, only to encounter obstacles at every turn. Actor-network the-
ory, it turns out, is a theory not so much about how to study things
as about “how not to study them—or rather, how to let the actors
have some room to express themselves” (142). How might this radical
empiricism, as Latour calls it with a nod to William James, be recon-
ciled with the theory- and text-based orientation of literary studies?
In particular, how could it help us reimagine practices of reading and
interpretation? he prospects, at irst glance, do not look promising.
RITA FELSKI is William R. Kenan, Jr., Profes-
Yet this pact of mutual noninterference is reaching its end, as
sor of English at the University of Virginia
Latour’s work receives ever more attention in literary studies. he
and editor of New Literary History. Her
most lively ields in literary criticism include animal studies, thing most recent book is The Limits of Critique
theory, ecological thought, the posthuman—all ields premised on (U of Chicago P, 2015), and she is starting a
the intertwinement and codependence of human and nonhuman new book on attachment and attunement.

© 2015 rita felski

PMLA 130.3 (2015), published by the Modern Language Association of America 737
 738 Latour and Literary Studies [ PM L A

actors. Given obvious affinities and shared care about? How could it help us read? To be
theories and methodologies

concerns between these fields and Latour’s sure, actor-network theory has certain aini-
work, it is becoming harder to avoid actor- ties to the growing ield of cultural ecology
network theory, whether as an ally to be em- as well as to cultural studies and its method
braced or a rival to be denounced. Rejecting of articulation.1 At first glance, however, it
the divisions of subject/object, nature/cul- seems removed from the traditional concerns
ture, thought/matter, and language/ world, and methods of literary studies, including a
Latour’s work presumes the equal ontological focus on interpretation. he interaction be-
salience of all classes of being in a mutually tween Latour and literary studies thus looks
composed world. Hence the rhetorical force like one of those one-sided wrestling matches
of the “Latour litany” (Bogost): the quasi- that canny promoters rigged in advance. Ei-
surrealist lists of disparate entities—straw- ther themes from actor-network theory are
berries, stinkbugs, quarks, corgis, tornadoes, incorporated into existing practices of close
Tin-Tin and Captain Haddock—that convey, reading (the critic traces out the movement
through their promiscuous entanglement and and interconnection of actants within the
equinanimous copresence, the equal footing conines of a literary work), or actor-network
of nonhuman and human actors. Actor, in theory draws us toward a sociology of net-
this sense, is not freighted with assumptions works that can be exceptionally illuminating
about intention, consciousness, or autonomy but seems remote from the interpretative con-
but designates any and all phenomena whose cerns of literary studies. Is it possible to come
existence makes a diference. up with a less lopsided form of interaction?
Actors exist not in themselves but only Latour’s most recent book speaks di-
through their networks of association. Ties, rectly to this question. Relecting on the in-
in a Latourian framework, are not limits to luence and legacy of actor-network theory,
action but a fundamental condition for ac- Latour ruefully notes that the anthropologist
tion. he relevant distinction is not between of networks “has lost in speciicity what she
freedom and bondage but between kinds has gained in freedom of movement. . . . As
of linkage: “As to emancipation, it does not she studies segments from Law, Science, he
mean ‘freed from bonds’ but well-attached” Economy or Religion, she begins to feel that
(Reassembling 218). Actor-network theory she is saying almost the same thing about all
is thus a matter of tracing out the paths by of them: namely that they are ‘composed in
which entities of all kinds—from scallops a heterogeneous fashion of unexpected ele-
to subway trains, from springboks to box- ments revealed by the investigation’” (Inquiry
springs—are constituted by their relations. 35). Here Latour speaks to the problem at
Given the hybridity of networks, whatever hand: that an overemphasis on the varying
is transmitted is also translated, transposed, associations among multiple actors results in
and transformed. It is hardly surprising, a lattening of persistent diferences. How can
then, that actor-network theory is sometimes we acknowledge the plurality and intercon-
described as a sociology of mediation. nectivity of phenomena while also honoring
Yet this leveling of phenomena through the salient differences between networks?
their incorporation into networks also poses How do we attend to both mixtures and con-
a difficulty for the uptake of actor-network trasts? Such a reorientation would seem nec-
theory as a method in literary studies. What, essary if Latour’s work is to speak well to the
then, accounts for the distinctiveness of lit- concerns of literary critics.
erature? How might a Latourian style of Latour develops the notion of “mode of
thought connect to what most literary critics existence” (taken from Étienne Souriau) to
130.3 ] Rita Felski 739

speak about what distinguishes science, law, through which they are constituted. In this

theories and methodologies

technology, religion—and art. In contrast to sense, poems and paintings possess as much
cartographic metaphors such as ield or do- ontological reality as nitrogen or Napoleon:
main, with their connotations of discrete and they are actors knotted into forms of asso-
bounded spaces, mode of existence identiies ciation that enlist our interest and help make
diferences without delineating borders. We things happen. he beings of iction, Latour
can agree, for example, that literary texts are remarks, do not “direct our attention toward
connected to countless things that are not lit- illusion, toward falsity, but toward what is
erature, while also acknowledging that there fabricated, consistent, real” (Inquiry 238).
cluster around literature certain ways of talk- As such phrasing suggests, for actor-network
ing, experiencing, acting, interpreting, and theory realness and fabrication are connected
evaluating. It is crucial, Latour remarks, to rather than opposed; that Emma Bovary was
speak about a mode of existence in its own made by Gustave Flaubert and a subsequent
language: to engage its criteria of veriication stream of critics, translators, commentators,
and value, its conditions of felicity and unfe- ilmmakers, and audiences does not decrease
licity. At the same time, however, his project or diminish her reality but makes it possible.2
is also one of redescription: the theories we Because agency is composite, actor-
hold about these various modes of existence network theory also steers us away from
oten do not match up very well with our ex- monocausal explanations of what and how
periences and practices. a text signifies. Who is fabricating whom?
These arguments speak to my interest Agency is distributed, uncertain, and hard
in the uses of literature: the forms of attach- to pin down. Against a view of meaning as
ment through which texts entice and enlist determined only by readers or interpretative
us, surprise and seduce us (Felski, Uses). Such communities or social ields, Latour also in-
attachments testify to our lives as social be- sists on the unmistakable pressure and power
ings, while inviting us to relect on the dis- of the text: “A work of art engages us, and if it
tinctive qualities of works of art: what spurs is quite true that it has to be interpreted, at no
us to pick up a book or to become engrossed point do we have the feeling that we are free
in a ilm. I share Latour’s conviction that pre- to do ‘whatever we want’ with it. . . . Someone
vailing styles of scholarly analysis oten fail to who says ‘I love Bach’ . . . receives from Bach,
capture the nature of our entanglement with we might almost say ‘downloads’ from Bach,
texts, as a precondition for forging better ac- the wherewithal to appreciate him” (Inquiry
counts of why these texts matter. For exam- 241). Works of art invite and incite us, in ways
ple, Latour emphasizes the realness of works that we do not always expect and may not be
of art as well as that of the ictional characters able to predict. hey orient us in certain ways
that inhabit them—honoring intuitions that and draw us down interpretative or percep-
are oten waved away as naive by professional tual paths. hey possess their own ontological
critics. We have already noted his lack of in- dignity instead of just being screens on which
terest in the language-world distinction; the we project our preexisting fantasies and ide-
question of whether fiction reflects or dis- ologies. In this way, Latour provides a way of
torts a social context disappears from view. accounting for the sturdiness and liveliness
Neither, however, are we sealed of from re- of texts as nonhuman actors that move across
ality by an impermeable screen of signiica- time as well as space (Felski, “Context”).
tion or textuality. Rather, the task of the critic And yet works of art also need our de-
is to follow the actors along the networks of votion. Their existence depends on their
words, things, ideas, images, and practices being taken up by readers or viewers, as
 740 Latour and Literary Studies [ PM L A

intermediaries through which they must pass, without ties, of breaking free of restraints to
theories and methodologies

without whom they will soon be reduced to achieve emancipation. he choice, however,
“failure, loss, or oblivion: abandoned stage is not between attachment and detachment,
sets, rolled up canvases, now useless acces- between determination and freedom, but
sories, incrusted palettes, moth-eaten tutus” between good and poor attachments, those
(Inquiry 248). Hence the real and irresolvable that help us and those that seek to do us harm
ambiguities of agency: we make works of art (“Factures” 22).
even as they make us. What is the diference What might this mean for questions of
between being carried away by a narrative and literature and interpretation? Actor-network
by a subway train? It is not that one experi- theory emphasizes both the necessity and the
ence is false or illusory while the other is real, sheer diiculty of description, of attending to
remarks Latour: rather, the former requires an empirical world that oten resists or refutes
our solicitude and active participation in a our assumptions. Objectivity is not owned by
way that the latter does not. A critical ethos of the positivists, Latour remarks; that we are
attentiveness, respect, and generosity comes shaped by our situation does not prevent us
to the fore, though shorn of any transcenden- from giving better or worse accounts of things
tal trappings. Aesthetic experience does not at hand (Reassembling 146). his means tak-
oppose or reject society (this language makes ing care not to conjure textual meanings out
no sense in a Latourian framework) but is of preexisting assumptions or explanations—
created out of networks of association: an art- honoring and detailing the singular features
work acquires its singularity from its social of a text as well as the specific routes along
ties, not from being opposed to them. which it travels. Actor-network theory does
Attachment is thus an indispensable term not exclude the political—it is deeply inter-
in the Latourian lexicon. We become attached ested in conlicts, asymmetries, struggles—
to art objects in a literal sense: the dog-eared but its antipathy to reductionism means
paperback that rides around town in a jacket that political discourse cannot serve as a
pocket, the lyrics streaming through the metalanguage into which everything can be
headphones glued to a person’s ears, the translated. he task is to account for as many
Matisse postcard propped up on a desk that actors as possible, to be speciic about forms
is transported from one sublet to the next. of causation and connection (which are also
Such texts form part of an Umwelt: a body- forms of translation), instead of hitching a
centered web of relations to phenomena that free ride on a preexisting theoretical vocabu-
bear meaning for us. Attachment, of course, lary: the familiar isms waiting eagerly in the
also points us toward the adhesiveness of af- wings, all too ready to take on a starring role.3
fect: being entranced by a work of fiction, Description, however, is not opposed to
dreaming in front of a painting—or falling in interpretation. Latour is certainly impatient
love with the protocols of critical theory and with a hermeneutic philosophy that brags
academic reading. Reason cannot be iltered about the interpretative ingenuity of the hu-
out from the ebb and swirl of moods and dis- man subject vis-à-vis a mute and inert world.
positions: matters of fact are also matters of Still, he does not reject interpretation so
concern. hrough diction and tone as much much as expand and extend it: “hermeneu-
as argument, Latour draws us away from the tics is not a privilege of humans, but, so to
prototype of the knowing, ironic, detached speak, a property of the world itself ” (Reas-
critic. And inally attachment is an ontologi- sembling 245).4 hat is to say, countless enti-
cal fact, an inescapable condition of existence. ties are engaged in interaction, mediation,
Critical thought often dreams of a subject adaptation, and translation: the world is not a
130.3 ] Rita Felski 741

dead zone of reiication but as rife with ambi- squabbling, jostling, interconnected actors

theories and methodologies

guity as any modernist poem (Connor). And playing their parts. If we take the lessons of
yet, within this expanded frame, how human actor-network theory to heart, we are thus less
beings make sense of poems or paintings inclined to pore over a single text to draw out
retains its salience, for it ofers clues to art’s its hidden plenitude of aesthetic, philosophi-
speciic mode of existence. Interpretation, we cal, or sociopolitical truth—to buy into the
might say, constitutes one powerful mode of ethical charisma of the literary critic as privi-
attachment, whose mechanisms are not well leged messenger (Love). Yet actor-network
captured by the prevailing assumptions of theory also pulls out the rug from under the
literary studies. Within a Latourian frame- sociologist’s dispassionate analysis of a liter-
work, we do not probe below the surface of ary system: from such a bird’s-eye view, ev-
a text to retrieve disavowed or repressed erything looks remarkably similar, things blur
meanings, nor do we stand back from a text together, and essential details are lost. Neither
to “denaturalize” it and expose its social close reading, then, nor distant reading but
constructedness (Felski, “Digging Down”). what we can call mid-level reading:6 an ap-
The distinction between a knowing critic proach not grounded in the revelatory value
and an unknowing text—or a naive reader— of a single work or in a general notion of soci-
crumbles away. Reading becomes a matter of ety or literary system but positioned on a scale
composing and cocreating, of forging links between the two. Interpretation? Yes, without
between things that were previously uncon- a doubt—but of objects and mediations as well
nected. (hink, for example, of the impact of as literary works, a practice of lateral reading
the “madwoman in the attic” trope on the re- across multiple texts rather than deep and
search agenda of early feminism, forging new intensive reading of a single text (Outka). On
and powerful networks of attachments be- the one hand, a more capacious view of what
tween a cohort of female critics entering the counts as relevant to literary analysis; on the
academy and a certain corpus of nineteenth- other hand, an insistence that a text cannot be
century texts.) To interpret something is to manhandled into the role of a mirror, index,
add one’s voice to that of the text: to negoti- or symptom of a social whole.
ate, appropriate, elaborate, translate, and re- The alliance of actor-network theory
late. he emphasis is on acts of making rather and literary studies, like all alliances, re-
than unmaking, composition rather than cri- quires translation, tinkering, and diplomacy.
tique, substantiating rather than subverting; Rather than apply Latour to literary studies
as Graham Harman remarks, negativity plays in one-sided fashion, we do better to elucidate
virtually no role in Latour’s thinking.5 overlapping interests and common concerns.
The emphasis on distributed agency, And here, I have argued, questions of reading
moreover, has implications for the frame and interpretation are not inimical to actor-
of analysis. What counts as relevant to the network theory, even if they take on difering
meaning of a work of art? Numerous pos- guises. Instead of engaging in a hermeneutics
sibilities crowd into view: “the whims of of suspicion, we conceive of interpretation as
princes and sponsors . . . as well as the quality a form of mutual making or composing. In-
of a keystroke on the piano, the reactions of a stead of stressing our analytic detachment, we
public to an opening night performance, the own up to our attachments, shrugging of the
scratches on a vinyl recording or the heart- tired dichotomy of vigilant critic versus na-
aches of a diva” (Latour, Inquiry 243). In- ive reader. Instead of demystifying aesthetic
stead of a wall separating the inside of a text absorption, we see that experience as a key to
from its outside, we are faced with a crowd of the distinctive ways in which art solicits our
 742 Latour and Literary Studies [ PM L A

attention. In this scenario, in short, literary ———. “Digging Down and Standing Back.” English Lan-
theories and methodologies

guage Notes 51.2 (2013): 7–24. Print.

studies is neither safeguarded nor subverted;
———. Uses of Literature. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008. Print.
it is reoriented and recomposed.7
Frow, John. “On Mid-Level Concepts.” New Literary His-
tory 41.2 (2010): 237–52. Print.
Harman, Graham. Bruno Latour: Reassembling the Politi-
cal. London: Pluto, 2014. Print.
———. “he Importance of Bruno Latour for Philosophy.”
NOTES Cultural Studies Review 13.1 (2007): 31–49. Print.
Kelleter, Frank. Serial Agencies: he Wire and Its Read-
1. See, e.g., Kelleter’s illuminating account of The
ers. Winchester: Zero, 2013. Print.
Wire as a text coauthored by a network of agencies.
Latour, Bruno. “Coming Out as a Philosopher.” Social
2. On the reality of iction, see also Warner’s helpful
Studies of Science 40.4 (2010): 599–608. Print.
discussion.
———. “Factures/ Fractures: From the Concept of Net-
3. For good accounts of the political dimensions of
work to the Concept of Attachment.” Res: Anthropol-
Latour’s work, see Piekut; Harman, Bruno Latour.
ogy and Aesthetics 36 (1999): 20–31. Print.
4. In recent essays and interviews, Latour points to
———. An Inquiry into Modes of Existence. Cambridge:
the inluence of his doctoral training in biblical exegesis
Harvard UP, 2014. Print.
on his subsequent thinking (e.g., “Coming Out” 601).
———. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-
5. As Harman puts it with his usual verve, “he very
Network-heory. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005. Print.
idea of a Latourian treatise on negativity makes me burst
Love, Heather. “Close but Not Deep: Literary Ethics and
into laughter” (“Importance” 34).
the Descriptive Turn.” New Literary History 41.2
6. I coin this phrase by analogy with Frow’s discus-
(2010): 371–92. Print.
sion of mid-level concepts in the sociology of literature.
Muecke, Stephen. “Motorcycles, Snails, Retour: Criticism
7. Muecke ofers an interesting example of such re-
without Judgement.” Cultural Studies Review 18.1
composition. I am thankful to Stephen Muecke, Benja-
(2012): 40–58. Print.
min Piekut, and Bill Warner for their helpful comments.
Outka, Elizabeth. “Dead Men, Walking: Actors, Net-
works, and Actualized Metaphors in Mrs. Dalloway
and Raymond.” Novel 46.2 (2013): 253–74. Print.
WORKS CITED Piekut, Benjamin. “Actor-Networks in Music History:
Clariications and Critiques.” Twentieth- Century Mu-
Bogost, Ian. Alien Phenomenology; or, What It’s Like to Be sic 11 (2014): 1–25. Print.
a hing. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2012. Print. Warner, William B. “Reality and the Novel: Latour and
Connor, Steven. “Spelling hings Out.” New Literary His- the Uses of Fiction.” Latour and the Eighteenth Cen-
tory 45.2 (2014): 183–97. Print. tury. Ed. Christina Lupton and Sean Silver. Spec. is-
Felski, Rita. “Context Stinks!” New Literary History 42.4 sue of Eighteenth Century: heory and Interpretation
(2011): 573–91. Print. 57.2 (forthcoming 2016).