Reading against the grain must stay strategic, never orthodox

Evidence

Yet, since a “reading against the grain” must forever remain strategic, it can never claim to have established the authoritative truth of a text, it must forever remain dependent upon practical exigencies, never legitimately lead to a theoretical orthodoxy. In the case of the Subaltern Studies group, it would get the group off the dangerous hook of claiming to establish the truth-knowledge of the subaltern and his consciousness. — Donna Landry and Gerald MacLean, The Spivak Reader, 1816

Categorization

• XREF: The closest analogue in this chapter to the 1984 strategic-essentialism formulation: strategy is kept provisional and exigency-bound precisely to block its collapse into a new truth-claim or orthodoxy. — connects to: Historians should read along the colonial grain before reading against it; Polemical intent can coexist with rigorous textual scholarship — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1700

Broader Connections

• Historians should read along the colonial grain before reading against it #qualifies (0.82)
• Polemical intent can coexist with rigorous textual scholarship #corroborates (0.75) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1700