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It has become more difficult if not, in many respects, impossible for a critical materialist theory of society to reproduce itself within the university. With the reorganization of the academic field of knowledge, its alliance with critical theory is dissolved. In many disciplines, such as economics and law, or literary studies, psychology, and philosophy, where critical theoretical formations were at least nascent, these seem to have largely disappeared; in others, such as sociology, political science, or history, they have been marginalized. That is not to say, as it were, that there aren’t individuals who contribute to a critical materialist theory. But in all likelihood even they can do so increasingly only as a side job divorced from their main work as mediators of largely predetermined modular units of knowledge, evaluators, grant application writers, and managers and administrators of science. Critical work occurs predominantly as a supplement to other activities, engaged in after hours, and does not lead into an identifiable conjunction between teaching, discussions, the promotion of junior academics, theory-formation, and empirical research.
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