bruce robbins on how “politics & culture are gross categories.”
My own position…is that what looks “merely cultural” (I borrow the phrase from Judith Butler) is rarely really merely cultural—that steps in the direction of diversity always have material consequences, if we make the effort to do the extra arithmetic. Conceptually, “politics” and “culture” are gross categories that probably do more to confuse than to clarify. I think we need to generate some other terms that will take some weight off them. They are both ready to collapse.