FÁBIO DURÃO’S RESPONSE TO THE CRISIS OF LITERARY THEORY IN METODOLOGIA DE PESQUISA EM LITERATURA

Abstract

In his latest book, Fábio Ackselrud Durão takes as his premise that literary studies as a field could not exist deprived of the legitimation granted by its institutional and political apparatus. Facing the current crisis of literary studies, Durão proposes a critical investigation of Brazilian research practices. His view is that the survival of literary studies depends on research methodologies and practices able to deaccelerate academic productivism, thus allowing more thrustful and more impactful debate between peers. This would be possible if we could define a common field of objectivity in which text interpretation and the method of close reading are privileged over normative interpretations. My review of Durão’s book discusses these arguments, questioning the hypothesis that the establishment of a common object would regulate our field of studies. By comparing the methodology of experimental sciences and literary studies, I propose that the problem of Brazilian research is not the absence of a common comprehension of its object (i.e., literature), but its non-scientific use of theory. Therefore, I claim that it would be better if researchers of literature try to falsify theorical premises accepted by the scientific community, as in experimental sciences, and not simply apply different theories to interpret texts.