Thing Theory Author(s): Bill Brown Source: Critical Inquiry, Vol. 28, No. 1, Things (Autumn, 2001), pp. 1-22 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1344258 . Accessed: 06/04/2014 17:32 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact
[email protected]. The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Critical Inquiry. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sun, 6 Apr 2014 17:32:14 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Thing Theory Bill Brown Le sujet nait de l'objet. -Michel Serres Is there something perverse, if not archly insistent, about complicating things with theory? Do we really need anything like thing theory the way we need narrative theory or cultural theory, queer theory or discourse theory? Why not let things alone? Let them rest somewhereelse-in the balmy elsewhere beyond theory. From there, they might offer us dry ground above those swirlingaccounts of the subject,some place of origin unmediated by the sign, some stable alternative to the instabilitiesand uncertainties,the ambiguitiesand anxieties, forever fetishized by theory.