Critique and Postcritique
Elizabeth S. Anker is Associate Professor of English at Cornell University and the author of Fictions of Dignity: Embodying Human Rights in World Literature.
Rita Felski is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at the University of Virginia and the author of many books, most recently, The Limits of Critique.
Elizabeth S. Anker is Associate Professor of English at Cornell University and the author of Fictions of Dignity: Embodying Human Rights in World Literature.
Rita Felski is William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at the University of Virginia and the author of many books, most recently, The Limits of Critique.
This chapter argues that the moment “after critique” needs to be thought of as the effect of multiple, overlapping causes. These causes include (a) the psycho-biographical development of literary critics; (b) the patterns of institutional time; (c) the relation between the state and the university; (d) a fetishization of novelty; and (e) the ways in which we think about history. It argues for rethinking the current moment within the framework of new temporalities oriented toward hope.
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