Traveling Concepts and Conjunctural Analysis: Concepts Gone Bad

In 2002, Mieke Bal inf luentially argued that theory is most helpful for cultural analysis in the form of heuristic concepts rather than comprehensive systems or methods. Instead of epistemological “coverage,” concepts enable measured “travel” across disciplines and territories. However, concepts no longer circulate in the same way as they used to in the early 2000s. Multidisciplinary “toolkits” have become commonplace. Once-specialized academic concepts now lead sweeping social lives across academic, popular, activist, and governmental contexts. The metaphor of “travel” doesn’t work when there are few borders left. As an alternative, I propose a combination of cultural analysis and conjunctural analysis, weighing the leverage and purchase of concepts in terms of the present historical situation and its shape-shifting hegemony.