Conducted in June 1990 and revised extensively by the interviewee J. Hillis Miller himself, this interview (with its nineteen questions and answers) focuses on some issues of special interest to students of English and American literature as well as literary criticism and theory. Dialogic and interactive by nature, it remarks Miller's development first as a student of New Criticism and then as an eloquent proponent of Criticism of Consciousness (as proposed by Georges Poulet) and later of Deconstruction (as proposed by Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man). Also dealt with in the interview are his position in and relationship to the Yale Critics, his significance in the institutionalization of American literary theory, his discussion about New Historicism, Cultural Studies, etc., his observation about the so-called age of digital reproduction, and his interest in the ethics of reading, the performative and inaugural function of works of literature, as well as the translation of theory (especially Deconstruction) into other disciplines, languages, and cultures.

J. Hillis Miller, interview, Criticism of Consciousness, Deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, the Yale Critics, the ethics of reading, critique of ideology, apotropaic effect, the performative, translating theory