Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-18T18:14:53.777Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Swerve, Trope, Peripety: Turning Points in Cultural Criticism and Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 November 2023

Robert T. Tally Jr
Affiliation:
Texas State University, San Marcos
Get access

Summary

In their broadcasts of professional ice hockey games, The Sports Network (TSN for short), a Canadian cable television network, would identify and feature highlights of what the announcers would refer to as the “TSN Turning Point.” That is, in any given hockey game, the turning point in question was some event—often a goal or a great save, but perhaps also an untimely penalty, a key injury, or even a fight—that could in retrospect be marked as the discrete point at which the “game” turned in favor of the eventual victor. Notably, the turning point is not necessarily, or even ever, the gamewinning goal, which is to say the particular event that is proven to have assured victory by definition. No, that would be a rather uninspired choice. Instead, it might be the event that swung the momentum, that deflated the eventual losing side or energized the winning side, often well before the actual gamewinner is scored. As such, it has a certain ineffable quality in the moment. Players, coaches, commentators, and fans may be able to sense when such a momentous occurrence is taking place, and they can certainly speculate as to whether this or that play might be the point at which things will prove to have turned the winner’s way, but it is clear that the true TSN Turning Point cannot be ascertained until the game is over, until all the play has ended, and we are able to look back on the game in its totality to find the moment or moments when everything changed. In the midst of things, those experiencing or witnessing what may later be recognized as the turning point cannot be certain of the meaning of the situation. Only from a perspective made available sometime later can we may look back upon the game to discover the turning point, which is to say the most significant moment in the narrative we must retrospectively produce about the events that were occurring in real time. Although he was not thinking about it with respect to hockey, this is in part what Hegel meant by his evocative line about the Owl of Minerva taking flight at dusk. The turning point, like the narrative in which it functions, cannot be known in the moment of its happening, but only afterwards.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Critical Situation
Vexed Perspectives in Postmodern Literary Studies
, pp. 11 - 24
Publisher: Anthem Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×