Considering the intersections of theory, culture, and ideology in SOCIAL TEXT, this essay suggests that for all its interest in theory, the journal has never had a theory of theory, except for the proposition that insofar as theory explains practice it must derive from the latter. However, this proposition has never been definitively realized because at no point has everyone involved been able to agree on what constitutes practice: as the means of articulation are always contested and contingent, the production of theory itself is an unending and necessary project.
