PERSISTENCIES OF THE DIALECTIC - 3 SITES

After speculation that the dialectic is as yet unrealized, a kind of ' 'unfinished project,'' three areas in which the dialectic remains aliv e are outlined: 1) in reflexivity, in which the theory of ideology dem ands to be confronted with the contemporary theory and experience of ' 'multiple subject positions''; 2) in historiography, in which the dial ectic is not a philosophical position but a critical operation perform ed on traditional historical narrative; and, finally, 3) in contradict ion, a structure the dialectic does not posit, but causes to emerge an d to become visible in familiar and seemingly unproblematical situatio ns (Brecht's ''estrangement effect'').