Editing Terry Eagleton (section)

==Career==
Eagleton began his literary studies with the 19th and 20th centuries, then conformed to the stringent academic Marxism of the 1970s. He then published an attack on his mentor Williams's relation to the Marxist tradition in the pages of the ''[[New Left Review]]'', in the mode of the French critic [[Louis Althusser]]. In the 1960s, he became involved with the left-wing Catholic group ''[[Slant (journal)|Slant]]'', authoring a number of theological articles (including ''A Marxist Interpretation of [[Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament|Benediction]]''), as well as a book ''Towards a New Left Theology''. A major turning point was his ''Criticism & Ideology'' (1976) in which Eagleton discusses various theorists and critics from [[F.&nbsp;R. Leavis]] and (his tutor) Raymond Williams to [[Pierre Macherey]]. This earliest response to Theory is critical and substantive with Eagleton supplying a dense web of categories for "a materialist criticism" which situates the author as well as the text in the general mode of production, the ''literary'' mode of production and particular ideologies. In chapter 4 he gives a thorough overview of one theme in the English context&nbsp;– "organicist concepts of society" or "community"&nbsp;– as worked by petty-bourgeois Victorian writers, from [[George Eliot]] to [[D.&nbsp;H. Lawrence]], and how this determines textual form in each instance.

===''Literary Theory'' and ''After Theory''===
In ''[[Literary Theory: An Introduction]]'' (1983, revised 1996), Eagleton surveys the history of theoretical approaches to literature, from its beginnings with Matthew Arnold, through formalism, psychoanalysis, and structuralism, to post-structuralism. In the process, he demonstrates what is the thesis of the book: that theory is necessarily political. Theory is always presented as if it is unstained by point of view and is neutral, but in fact it is impossible to avoid having a political perspective. Peter Barry has said of the book that it "greatly contributed to the 'consolidation' of literary theory and helped to establish it firmly on the undergraduate curriculum".<ref>Barry, Peter. ''Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory''. Manchester University Press, 2009, p. 273.</ref> Eagleton's approach to literary criticism is one firmly rooted in the Marxist tradition, though he has also incorporated techniques and ideas from more recent modes of thought as [[structuralism]], [[Jacques Lacan|Lacanian analysis]] and [[deconstruction]]. As his memoir ''The Gatekeeper'' recounts, Eagleton's Marxism has never been solely an academic pursuit. He was active in the [[Socialist Workers Party (UK)|International Socialists]] (along with [[Christopher Hitchens]]) and then the [[Workers' Socialist League]] whilst in Oxford. He has been a regular contributor to the ''[[London Review of Books]]''.<ref>[https://www.lrb.co.uk/contributors/terry-eagleton LRB archive]. But only six contributions from 2014 to 2017.</ref>

''After Theory'' (2003) was written two decades later, after the end of the great period of High Theory&nbsp;– the cultural theory of Foucault, the postmodernists, Derrida, et al. Looking back, Eagleton evaluates its achievements and failures, and proposes new directions needing to be pursued. He considers that among the great achievements of Theory were the expansion of objects of study (to include gender, sexuality, popular culture, post-colonialism, etc.), and the wide-ranging self-reflective criticism of traditional assumptions. But in Eagleton's estimation there were also many serious mistakes, for instance: the assault on the normative and the insistence on the relativity of truth leaves us powerless to criticize oppression; the rejection of objectivity and (excessively) of all forms of essentialism bespeak an unrecognized idealism, or at least a blindness to our human materiality, ultimately born of an unconscious fear of death; and cultural studies has wrongly avoided consideration of ethics, which for Eagleton is inextricably tied to a proper politics. It is virtue and politics and how they may be realized, among other things, that Eagleton offers as new avenues needing to be explored by cultural studies. ''After Theory'' fleshes out this political aspect, tied to ethics, growing out of the fact that humans exist in neediness and dependency on others, their freedom bounded by the common fact of death.

===Dawkins, Hitchens and the New Atheism===
Eagleton has become a vocal critic of what has been called the [[New Atheism]]. In October 2006, he published a review of [[Richard Dawkins]]'s ''[[The God Delusion]]'' in the ''[[London Review of Books]]''. Eagleton begins by questioning Dawkins's methodology and understanding: "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the ''Book of British Birds'', and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology." Eagleton further writes, "Nor does [Dawkins] understand that because God is [[Transcendence (religion)|transcendent]] of us (which is another way of saying that he did not have to bring us about), he is free of any neurotic need for us and wants simply to be allowed to love us."<ref name="Terry Eagleton">{{Cite journal |title=Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching |last=Eagleton |first=Terry |journal=[[London Review of Books]] |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/terry-eagleton/lunging-flailing-mispunching |volume=28 |issue=20 |date=19 October 2006 |access-date=26 November 2006}}</ref> He concludes by suggesting Dawkins has not been attacking organised faith so much as a sort of rhetorical [[straw man]]:<ref>{{cite journal |last=Eagleton |first=Terry |title=Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching |journal=London Review of Books |date=19 October 2006 |volume=28 |issue=20 |url=http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/terry-eagleton/lunging-flailing-mispunching |access-date=1 September 2013}}</ref>{{Blockquote|Apart from the occasional perfunctory gesture to 'sophisticated' religious believers, Dawkins tends to see religion and fundamentalist religion as one and the same. This is not only grotesquely false; it is also a device to outflank any more reflective kind of faith by implying that it belongs to the coterie and not to the mass. The huge numbers of believers who hold something like the theology I outlined above can thus be conveniently lumped with rednecks who murder abortionists and malign homosexuals.}}

====Terry and Gifford Lectures====
In April 2008 Eagleton delivered [[Yale University]]'s [[Terry Lectures]], with the title ''Faith and Fundamentalism: Is belief in Richard Dawkins necessary for salvation?'', constituting a continuation of the critique he had begun in ''The London Review of Books''. Introducing his first lecture with an admission of ignorance of both theology and science, Eagleton goes on to affirm: "All I can claim in this respect, alas, is that I think I may know just about enough theology to be able to spot when someone like Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens&nbsp;– a couplet I shall henceforth reduce for convenience to the solitary signifier ''Ditchkins''&nbsp;– is talking out of the back of his neck."<ref>{{cite video |people=Terry Eagleton (lecturer) |date=1 April 2008 |title=Christianity Fair and Foul |url=http://www.yale.edu/terrylecture/eagleton.html |format=rm |medium=Podcast |publisher=[[Yale University]] |access-date=4 August 2009 |time=6:23 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806031121/http://www.yale.edu/terrylecture/eagleton.html |archive-date=6 August 2009}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Eagleton |first=Terry |title=Faith and Fundamentalism: Is Belief in Richard Dawkins Necessary for Salvation? |work=[[Dwight H. Terry Lectureship]] |publisher=[[Yale University]] |url=http://www.yale.edu/terrylecture/eagleton.html |date=April 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090806031121/http://www.yale.edu/terrylecture/eagleton.html |archive-date=6 August 2009}}</ref> An expanded version of these lectures was published in 2009 as ''Reason, Faith, and Revolution:  Reflections on the God Debate''.<ref>{{cite book |last=Eagleton |first=Terry |title=Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate |location=New Haven/London |publisher=Yale University Press |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-300-15179-4 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780300151794}}</ref>

===Football===
Eagleton sees [[association football|football]] as a new [[opium of the people]] distracting ordinary people from more serious, important social concerns. Eagleton is pessimistic as to whether this distraction can be ended:
{{blockquote|For the most part football these days is the opium of the people, not to speak of their [[crack cocaine]]. Its icon is the impeccably [[Tory]], slavishly conformist [[David Beckham|Beckham]]. [[Manchester United F.C.|The Reds]] are no longer the [[Bolsheviks]]. Nobody serious about political change can shirk the fact that the game has to be abolished. And any political outfit that tried it on would have about as much chance of power as the chief executive of [[BP]] has in taking over from [[Oprah Winfrey]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/jun/15/football-socialism-crack-cocaine-people |title=Football: a dear friend to capitalism - Terry Eagleton |first=Terry |last=Eagleton |website=[[TheGuardian.com]] |date=15 June 2010 |access-date=29 June 2016}}</ref>}}