After nearly a decade at the helm of Exemplaria, the time has arrived for us to pass our editorial pleasures and privileges to a team of able and respected successors. Over the past eighteen months, we have worked closely with this new group, and those collaborations have demonstrated to us their talent, care, and commitment to the future of theory in Medieval and Early Modern Studies. The journal is in excellent hands. The past decade has seen something of a shift in what theory is and does, both in and for our various fields. Thismeans it has not always been as easy as it once was to recognize what “counts” as theoretical scholarship. Accordingly, Exemplaria, in collaboration with the University of Texas at Austin, hosted two symposia designed to help us think further about this question. The first, “Surface, Symptom, and the State of Critique” (2012), had two aims: to raise questions about the place of “critical” in “critical theory” and to hearken back to the inaugural moment of Exemplaria’s founding in the heady days of poststructuralism. The symposiumwas simultaneously a provocation to think about method and a kind of twentyfifth anniversary celebration for the journal. Panels featured prominent thinkers whose work appeared in the first and second issues of the journal alongside emerging voices from a wide range of specializations. The conversation that developed was remarkably focused and engaged, and led to the publication of an exceptional special issue of the journal (vol. 26, nos. 2–3). That issue sought to think through the special place Exemplaria held in a newly vibrant intellectual landscape and to consider how that landscape was marked by debates over the most useful or satisfying ways of deploying theory. Among other things, the contributors sought to advocate for a recommitment to critique in a period when the hermeneutics of suspicion seemed less compelling than it had before. At the same time, they showed that emerging ways of doing theory might not take familiar forms and that to embrace the “critical” in “critical theory” did not mean negating the creative, affirmative pleasures that fuel such work. Rather, theory helps us sharpen the edges of our thoughts and concerns, enabling us to scrutinize and reconsider the grounds upon which we engage with our archives, deploy our methodologies, and render our judgments. The special issue featured here continues this legacy by presenting extensively revised versions of papers delivered at the second Exemplaria symposium, “The Way We Do Theory Now” (2017). Our title signals our perception that the question of what theory is or does is perhaps even less clear now than it was in 2012. The contributions to this issue broaden the idea of theory beyond the confines of poststructuralism and continental philosophy, taking up, for example, Rita Felski’s “eudaemonic turn,” a move that lays bare our attachments and pleasures, while never forgetting the differences to which history insists we attend. By turning to affect theory, reshaped identity categories, and cognitive science models, we embrace a new diversity of theoretical approaches and a broader remit for the journal. EXEMPLARIA 2019, VOL. 31, NO. 2, 79–80 https://doi.org/10.1080/10412573.2019.1581551

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编辑序言

在Exmmplaria执掌近十年后，现在是时候让我们将我们的编辑乐趣和特权传递给一支有才能和受人尊敬的接班人团队了。在过去的18个月中，我们与这个新小组紧密合作，这些合作向我们展示了他们的才华，关心和对中世纪和早期现代研究理论未来的承诺。该日记掌握得很好。在过去的十年中，无论是在我们的各个领域还是在我们的各个领域，理论的本质和理论都发生了某种转变。这意味着，认识到什么是理论学问并不像以前那么容易。因此，Exemplaria与德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校合作举办了两次座谈会，旨在帮助我们进一步思考这个问题。第一个是“表面症状”，和《批评的状态》（State of Critique）（2012年），有两个目标：提出关于“批判”在“批判理论”中的位置的问题，并让我们回想起示例性建筑在后结构主义兴盛时期的创立时刻。座谈会同时激发了人们对该方法的思考，并为该杂志举办了二十周年庆典。小组讨论由著名思想家组成，他们的著作出现在该期刊的第一和第二期中，同时出现了来自各种专业领域的新声音。所进行的对话非常集中和吸引人，并导致该期刊的特殊专刊出版（第26卷，第2-3期）。该问题试图通过在新兴的知识分子领域中特殊地位的示例性存在来思考，并考虑如何以最有用或最令人满意的理论部署方式的辩论来标志着该领域。除其他外，在怀疑的解释学似乎不像以前那样令人信服的时期，贡献者试图倡导重新批判。同时，他们表明，新兴的理论研究方法可能不会采用熟悉的形式，并且将“批判性”包含在“批判理论”中并不意味着否定了推动此类工作的创造性，肯定性愉悦感。相反，理论有助于我们拓宽思想和关注的边缘，使我们能够审查和重新考虑与档案馆打交道，部署方法论和做出判断的依据。本期特刊通过展示在第二届Exemplaria研讨会“ 2017年我们的理论之路”上发表的论文的广泛修订版，延续了这一遗产。我们的头衔表明我们的看法是，关于什么是理论或什么理论的问题现在可能比2012年还不清楚。对该问题的贡献使理论的思想超出了后结构主义和大陆哲学的范围，例如这是丽塔·费尔斯基（Rita Felski）的“天真转折”，这一举动彰显了我们的依恋和乐趣，同时也永远不会忘记历史坚持我们所要面对的差异。通过转向影响理论，重塑身份类别和认知科学模型，我们拥抱了各种新的理论方法和更广泛的期刊杂志。EXEMPLARIA 2019，卷 31号 2，79–80 https：