BEFORE YOU READ THIS PAGE, BE SURE TO READ "HOW TO READ A SCHOLARLY ESSAY"
A theoretical essay follows many of the same rules as a scholarly essay of citation and evidence, but advances a broader, more conceptual argument than a standard scholarly essay. Whereas a scholarly essay will address issues within one particular subject or discipline ("gender in George Eliot's Middlemarch"), a theoretical essay will often be applicable across multiple subjects or disciplines ("rethinking the uses of 'gender'").
In this sense, "theory" refers to a social or cultural lens through which to understand the world, in many different contexts. Some bodies of theory are well-known (Marxist theory, Freudian theory) some are more familiar to students of cultural or literary studies (deconstruction, discourse analysis, feminist theory, postcolonial analysis). In a broader sense, "theory" suggests ways of (re)viewing the social and cultural world in which we live, often calling dominant presuppositions and ideologies into question from a new perspective.
A theoretical, scholarly essay, then, suggests (or builds on, or critiques, or interrogates) a new way of viewing. A theoretical essay may be written by a specialist in a particular field who believes her work has broader significance ("What Middlemarch can teach us about gender"); or a specialist in a particular theory, seeking to apply her theoretical framework ("What gender theory can teach us about literary studies"); or, sometimes, a scholar seeks to generate a new theoretical view by using a particular area of study ("Rethinking gender through literature").
Because they aim to speak to broader issues than the regular scholarly essay, the theoretical essay often has a different style:
Personal: Sometimes a theoretical essay will engage in personal reflection in a way that is not always appropriate in a scholarly essay. This foray into personal discourse does not mean that theoretical essays are less serious, or even less "academic," merely that they seek to engage readers in a deeper sense than they are used to. Sometimes, the personal comes as a shock or a surprise, or is a tool by which we are made to recognize the intersections of the academic and the individual.
Political: Similarly, politics often enter into theoretical essays in ways that might not be appropriate (or, at least, typical) in a scholarly essay. By "political" I do not necessarily mean direct political advocacy ("Because of my gender theory, you should vote for Candidate X"), but rather more direct discussion of the political implications of academic work ("The uses of gender in this article cause us to reimagine our current state of sexual politics"). Such an invocation of the political is not surprising, since theoretical essays by definition seek to expand the implications of academic work across multiple disciplines--and, at times, beyond the academy altogether. (In this sense, we may understand Said's Orientalism as both a scholarly book and a theoretical book.)
Reflective: In a good theoretical essay, an author will explore her own motives and suppositions and lead the reader to explore her motives and suppositions, as well. Most contemporary theory is postmodern, meaning it comes out of a desire to call into question the "common sense" assumptions (typically concerning race, class, and gender/sexuality) that defined the modern period after the Enlightenment. Because so much postmodern theory calls into question the foundations of our subjectivity (what we think our identity is), it calls for a great deal of self-reflection on the part of authors and readers.
Dense: Theoretical writings are notoriously dense and often difficult to penetrate. Some authors enact this density deliberately, on the belief that theoretical texts that are too easily digested aren't really doing the reflective, political, or personal work they should be doing. By making the prose a bit difficult, the author is requiring the reader to work harder, to dig deeper, to think more reflectively. They are also making them aware as readers, aware of their own position and ideas. Some authors, like all scholarly experts, simply fall back into jargon and insider language: they are speaking to other theoretically-minded readers and so they use lingo as shorthand to make a point.
You should use the same tools to decode the theoretical essay that you do the scholarly essay:
This page has been written for Core II, section 9, taught at Scripps College in Spring 2010, by Andrew Jacobs. Feel free to link to this page, but please to not reproduce it without permission.