Theory in practice, or, CanLit is so paranoid, you probably think this essay is about you 1

Abstract

Unangax·scholar Eve Tuck observes that most, maybe all, research is guided by underlying assumptions about how it will help or improve or heal something in the world; these assumptions constitute, in Tuck's words, a "theory of change" (413). For all their meaningful differences, anticolonial, queer, and feminist approaches to cultural scholarship are predicated on a shared theory of change: careful analysis can be analeptic, bell hooks' characterization of theorizing as "a place where I could imagine possible futures, a place where life could be lived differently" pinpoints this reparative drive (2). Studying Black womanhood helped hooks heal from her experiences of Black womanhood. Here, theory, "'lived' experience of critical thinking, of reflection and analysis" (2), proved consolidating: "I worked at explaining the hurt and making it go away" (2). The academic field of literary studies is, I suspect, underwritten by similarly healing experiences, ones facilitated by narratives, texts, poetry. Reading helped readers, so they pursue it. This foundational, reparative theory of change may also be why the scandals and institutional failures known as the "CanLit dumpster fire," "CanLit firestorm," or "CanLit in ruins" remain derailing for the field's Black, queer, and feminist scholars.