J.H. Miller: An Introduction

This write-up will give you a short introduction to J.H. Miller, the American Literary Critic who has been instrumental in connecting North American Criticism to the continental philosophical thoughts  like post structuralism and deconstruction.

J.H. Miller / Joseph Hillis Miller was born on March 5, 1928 in Virginia, United States of America. He graduated in the year 1948, received MA and Ph. D from Harvard University in the year 1949 and 1952 respectively. He started his teaching career at Williams College and after holding various positions at John Hopkins University and Yales University, he joined the faculty of University of California, Irne in the year 1986. In 2002, he retired as Professor Emeritus.

Miller served as the President of the Modern Language Association of America in 1986 and has also contributed significantly to various other professional academic institutions and organizations throughout his career. In the initial phases of his career he was associated with Geneva Group of Critics and then with the Yale School of Criticism and Deconstruction, patronized by Derrida. The Europe of 1950s to 1960s stood for close reading of the texts and no preference was shown to theory. 

The 1970s of Europe saw a paradigm shift in its attitude towards the theories. The post-structuralist theorists like Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault were read and accepted. The book Deconstruction and Criticism was published in the year 1979 by Derrida along with four Yale University Professors and J.H. Miller was one among them. Miller stood for Deconstruction arguing against the charges of Nihilism. (a quick look into Nihilism and Deconstruction is given towards the end of the essay).

The Critic of Host of Miller, the text which is mostly prescribed for the students of Literary Theory and Criticism is originally a paper presented in a session of MLA - Modern Language Association of America. It is widely believed that Miller presented this as a reply to M.H. Abram's The Deconstructive Angel presented in the same session against the Deconstruction movement. Later the same was published in Critical Inquiry in the year 1976 and later in Deconstruction and Criticism in the year 1979. 

Before concluding this post let us have a quick look into Nihilism and Deconstruction. Nihilism originated in Russia in the 1900s rejected the belief in God and other moral principles in the background of the belief that life is meaningless and nothing is permanent etc. 

Deconstruction originated in France in 1960s, was formulated and developed by Jacques Derrida. The followers of Deconstruction questioned the assumptions of Truth, identity and certainty. According to them texts do not have a fixed or  univocal meaning and any text can subvert its own meaning at any point of time. 

A detailed look into The Critic as Host will follow soon. 

P.S: This essay is the excerpts from the lecture which is uploaded in the YouTube and the link is as follows:  https://youtu.be/65UVgscyuQA

google.com, pub-6415460782628615, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0