ABSTRACT
In proposing a new agenda for materialist criticism, Montag's recent book suggests that Althusser was far more preoccupied with the arts (and with theater in particular) than other accounts of his legacy have supposed. This essay asks a series of questions that bear on this reorientation. How, given Althusser's resistance to summary, can one "introduce" his work at all? How, given their inherent instability, can texts be understood "in their literal, material existence"? How, finally, can theater be said to form the center of Althusser's thinking when, as he stressed, "the theater is not philosophy: the matter of the theater is not the matter of philosophy"?
