The Problems of “Culture,” and the Future of Universals: A Rejoinder Available to Purchase

In the rejoinder to the commentaries on his target article, Hogan seeks to clarify his criticism of “culture” as a theoretical concept and to extend his defense of a research program in story universals. In order to do so, he organizes the fifteen commentaries into groups—advocates of a biocultural synthesis; writers working in the technical analysis of narrative and style; critics who consider the study of literary universals in the context of folklore studies, and so on. In the course of these responses, Hogan touches on a range of subsidiary topics, from Homer’s Iliad to New Historicism.