This article examines the pertinence of a hermeneutic gesture found in recent critical work by Robert Smith, Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak, and Slavoj Zˇizˇek. These three theorists preface their critical explorations of, respectively, autobiographical textuality, postcolonial fiction, and modern cultural products, with an exegesis of a Hegel text. What they seek to expose is the forsaking of matter (phenomenality, life, contingency) as irredeemable litter produced in the aftermath of the idealist sublation, a process only countered through neo-materialist restoration. Yet it remains unclear how exactly this restoration is to be accomplished. In fact, when the three theorists engage in a de facto interpretation of their matters – ultimately, literary texts like Shelley's The Triumph of Life, Coetzee’ Foe or James' The Wings of the Dove – the relevance of the Hegelian detour becomes somewhat mystified. It is my contention that the dubious glamour of counter-Hegelian hermeneutics does not exempt the literary critic from abiding by the strictures enforced by a genuine literary materialism.