Review of Josie Gill’s “Decolonizing Literature and Science.”

摘要

Not long ago the cultural historian Mary Poovey visited my campus and delivered afascinating lecture entitled “Regimes of Factuality: Living in a Post-Fact World”. Whileher previous scholarship had focused on the rise of the modern fact, this particular talkspeculated on its exact opposite, namely the widespread erosion of facticity incontemporary society. According to Poovey, one of the most disturbing trends of thelast decade or so has been a burgeoning social suspicion – even hostility – to scientificlogic that was once accepted as authoritative and true. Central to this decline was thediminished power of knowledge institutions like the university, the academic society,and the prestige newspaper, all of which can now be summarily dismissed by singletweet of “Fake News!” After her presentation, I asked Poovey if our post-fact presentwas merely a blip of current politics or a more fundamental shift in the way we processinformation. “I really don’t know”, she grimly answered, “We’ll have to see”. For her,returning to a fact-based reality as soon as possible is an epistemic imperative as wellas a moral one; indeed, it is only by rededicating ourselves toward post-Enlightenmentinstitutions and the scientific frameworks which have historically defined modernitythat we can liberate ourselves from the inherent dangers of “alternative facts”.