The novel of explicit political commitment is often seen as simplistic and formally naïve by left-leaning critics, who prefer the Jamesonian unconscious. Yet novels stage left-wing arguments in artful ways that not only situate against counter arguments, but also test their efficacy embodied social lifeworld text. This essay uses Chantal Mouffe’s work on agonism to frame readings H. G. Wells’s ...

Sternberg disputes not a single point in my critique of his work on practical intelligence. Instead, he discusses his broader theory of successful intelligence and answers self-posed objections from unspecified critics. His discussion exhibits the same problematic mode of argument and use of evidence that my critique had documented: it repeats the unsubstantiated claims that critics question as...