Defend the Text

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Published: Dec 31, 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/syn.44018
Keywords:
Deconstruction Deconstruction at large Text Defend Defense Violence Colonialism Franz Fanon Colonizer Colonized Text and Content Universalism Secularism Postcolonial Theory Salman Rushdie The Satanic Verses Foucault Hermeneutics Violence and Text Linguistic Hegemony Epistemology Relationality Cosmopolitanism Cultural Pluralism
R. Radhakrishnan
University of California, Irvine
Abstract

This essay is an attempt to rearticulate the relationship of text to context. Defending the text should not be the same as fetishizing the text. On the other hand, no context is self-evident. In a geopolitical context where some contexts are visible and others occluded or colonized or preempted, the act of reading a text should avoid the pitfall of universalism. The manifesto, Defend the text, needs to be aware that texts may well be indefensible. It all depends on the context, and no context is unique, exemplary, or universal. It must not be forgotten that defending is a polemical exercise, and polemics are prone to reductiveness and overgeneralization. In a world that is yet to encounter a full-blown conversation/contestation between Faith and secular Reason, defending any text at best can only be an honest and vulnerable overture.

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Author Biography
R. Radhakrishnan, University of California, Irvine

R. Radhakrishnan is Distinguished Professor of English, African American Studies, and Comparative Literature at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Diasporic Mediations: Between Home and Location; Theory in an Uneven World; The Cultural Politics of Theory; History, the Human, and the World Between΄ Edward Said: A Dictionary, and of the forthcoming monograph, The Open and the Imperative of Coexistence. He has edited and coedited several collections of essays including Theory After Derrida. His essays have been published in a wide range of academic journals and edited collections. He is a published poet in Tamil and English and translator of contemporary Tamil fiction into English. His contributions have been recognised with awards including the South Asian Literary Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award for Outstanding Scholarship, underscoring his lasting impact on literary and cultural theory.

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