The Limits Of Critique

Author : Rita Felski
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022629403X
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Limits of Critique written by Rita Felski and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do critics feel impelled to unmask and demystify the works that they read? What is the rationale for their conviction that language is always withholding some important truth, that the critic's task is to unearth what is unsaid, naturalized, or repressed? These are the features of critique, a mode of thought that thoroughly dominates academic criticism. In this book, Rita Felski brilliantly exposes critique's more troubling qualities and proposes alternatives to it. Critique, she argues, is not just a method but also a sensibility--one best captured by Paul Ricoeur's phrase "the hermeneutics of suspicion." As the characteristic affect of critique, suspicion, Felski shows, helps us understand critique's seductions and limitations. The questions that Felski poses about critique have implications well beyond intramural debates among literary scholars. Literary studies, says Felski, is facing a legitimation crisis thanks to a sadly depleted language of value that leaves the field struggling to find reasons why students should care about Beowulf or Baudelaire. Why is literature worth bothering with? For Felski, the tendencies to make literary texts the object of suspicious reading or, conversely, impute to them qualities of critique, forecloses too many other possibilities. Felski offers an alternative model that she calls "postcritical reading." Rather than looking behind the text for its hidden causes, conditions, and motives, she suggests that literary scholars place themselves in front of a text, reflecting on what it calls forth and makes possible. Here Felski enlists the work of Bruno Latour to rethink reading as a co-production between actors, rather than an unraveling of manifest meaning, a form of making rather than unmaking. As a scholar with an abiding respect for theory who has long deployed elements of critique in her own work, Felski is able to provide an insider's account of critique's limits and alternatives that will resonate widely in the humanities.

Author : Rita Felski
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022629417X
Total Pages : 237 pages
Book Rating : 4.79/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Limits of Critique written by Rita Felski and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Felski frees critics from relying on critique as the gatekeeper of literary studies and offers a prescient guide to life in a postcritical world.” —Los Angeles Review of Books Why must critics unmask and demystify literary works? Why do they believe that language is always withholding some truth, that the critic’s task is to reveal the unsaid or repressed? In this book, Rita Felski examines critique, the dominant form of interpretation in literary studies, and situates it as but one method among many, a method with strong allure—but also definite limits. Felski argues that critique is a sensibility best captured by Paul Ricoeur’s phrase “the hermeneutics of suspicion.” She shows how this suspicion toward texts forecloses many potential readings while providing no guarantee of rigorous or radical thought. Instead, she suggests, literary scholars should try what she calls “postcritical reading”: rather than looking behind a text for hidden causes and motives, literary scholars should place themselves in front of it and reflect on what it suggests and makes possible. By bringing critique down to earth and exploring new modes of interpretation, The Limits of Critique offers a fresh approach to the relationship between artistic works and the social world. “Perhaps the most ambitious reappraisal of the discipline to appear since theory’s heyday.” —Times Literary Supplement “A book that will get all of us to take another look at what we’ve been doing. The Limits of Critique will shock some and elate others. No one will feel neutral, and no one can afford not to read this book.” —Wai Chee Dimock, author of Weak Planet: Literature and Assisted Survival

Author : Rita Felski
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226293981
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.8X/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Limits of Critique written by Rita Felski and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why must critics unmask and demystify literary works? Why do they believe that language is always withholding some truth, that the critic’s task is to reveal the unsaid or repressed? In this book, Rita Felski examines critique, the dominant form of interpretation in literary studies, and situates it as but one method among many, a method with strong allure—but also definite limits. Felski argues that critique is a sensibility best captured by Paul Ricoeur’s phrase “the hermeneutics of suspicion.” She shows how this suspicion toward texts forecloses many potential readings while providing no guarantee of rigorous or radical thought. Instead, she suggests, literary scholars should try what she calls “postcritical reading”: rather than looking behind a text for hidden causes and motives, literary scholars should place themselves in front of it and reflect on what it suggests and makes possible. By bringing critique down to earth and exploring new modes of interpretation, The Limits of Critique offers a fresh approach to the relationship between artistic works and the social world.

Author : Elizabeth S. Anker
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822373041
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.49/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Critique and Postcritique written by Elizabeth S. Anker and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2017-03-10 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now that literary critique's intellectual and political pay-off is no longer quite so self-evident, critics are vigorously debating the functions and futures of critique. The contributors to Critique and Postcritique join this conversation, evaluating critique's structural, methodological, and political potentials and limitations. Following the interventions made by Bruno Latour, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Sharon Marcus and Stephen Best, and others, the contributors assess the merits of the postcritical turn while exploring a range of alternate methods and critical orientations. Among other topics, the contributors challenge the distinction between surface and deep reading; outline how critique-based theory has shaped the development of the novel; examine Donna Haraway's feminist epistemology and objectivity; advocate for a "hopeful" critical disposition; highlight the difference between reading as method and critique as genre; and question critique's efficacy at attending to the affective dimensions of experience. In these and other essays this volume outlines the state of contemporary literary criticism while pointing to new ways of conducting scholarship that are better suited to the intellectual and political challenges of the present. Contributors: Elizabeth S. Anker, Christopher Castiglia, Russ Castronovo, Simon During, Rita Felski, Jennifer L. Fleissner, Eric Hayot, Heather Love, John Michael, Toril Moi, Ellen Rooney, C. Namwali Serpell

Author : Rita Felski
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226241157
Total Pages : 205 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Literature After Feminism written by Rita Felski and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2003-07 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent commentators have portrayed feminist critics as grim-faced ideologues who are destroying the study of literature. Feminists, they claim, reduce art to politics and are hostile to any form of aesthetic pleasure. Literature after Feminism is the first work to comprehensively rebut such caricatures, while also offering a clear-eyed assessment of the relative merits of various feminist approaches to literature. Spelling out her main arguments clearly and succinctly, Rita Felski explains how feminism has changed the ways people read and think about literature. She organizes her book around four key questions: Do women and men read differently? How have feminist critics imagined the female author? What does plot have to do with gender? And what do feminists have to say about the relationship between literary and political value? Interweaving incisive commentary with literary examples, Felski advocates a double critical vision that can do justice to the social and political meanings of literature without dismissing or scanting the aesthetic.

Author : H. S. D. Cole
Publisher : Universe Pub
ISBN 13 : 9780876639054
Total Pages : 244 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Models of Doom written by H. S. D. Cole and published by Universe Pub. This book was released on 1973 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scrutinizes the technical aspects and ideological background of the MIT world models on the future of mankind

Author : Jan De Vos
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317500237
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Neuroscience and Critique written by Jan De Vos and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recent years have seen a rapid growth in neuroscientific research, and an expansion beyond basic research to incorporate elements of the arts, humanities and social sciences. It has been suggested that the neurosciences will bring about major transformations in the understanding of ourselves, our culture and our society. In academia one finds debates within psychology, philosophy and literature about the implications of developments within the neurosciences, and the emerging fields of educational neuroscience, neuro-economics, and neuro-aesthetics also bear witness to a ‘neurological turn’ which is currently taking place. Neuroscience and Critique is a ground-breaking edited collection which reflects on the impact of neuroscience in contemporary social science and the humanities. It is the first book to consider possibilities for a critique of the theories, practices, and implications of contemporary neuroscience. Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license. https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138887336_oachapter7.pdf

Author : Rita Felski
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1444359630
Total Pages : 161 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Uses of Literature written by Rita Felski and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-09-23 with total page 161 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Uses of Literature bridges the gap between literary theory and common-sense beliefs about why we read literature. Explores the diverse motives and mysteries of why we read Offers four different ways of thinking about why we read literature - for recognition, enchantment, knowledge, and shock Argues for a new “phenomenology” in literary studies that incorporates the historical and social dimensions of reading Includes examples of literature from a wide range of national literary traditions

Author : Dieter Declercq
Publisher : Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1839096683
Total Pages : 149 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Satire, Comedy and Mental Health written by Dieter Declercq and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2021-01-13 with total page 149 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Satire, Comedy, and Mental Health examines how satire helps to sustain good mental health in a troubled socio-political world. Through an interdisciplinary dialogue and a close analysis of satire in various media, the book argues that satire helps us cope in a sick world through its ambiguous combination of critique and entertainment.

Author : Bernard E. Harcourt
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231551452
Total Pages : 730 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Critique and Praxis written by Bernard E. Harcourt and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 730 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical philosophy has always challenged the division between theory and practice. At its best, it aims to turn contemplation into emancipation, seeking to transform society in pursuit of equality, autonomy, and human flourishing. Yet today’s critical theory often seems to engage only in critique. These times of crisis demand more. Bernard E. Harcourt challenges us to move beyond decades of philosophical detours and to harness critical thought to the need for action. In a time of increasing awareness of economic and social inequality, Harcourt calls on us to make society more equal and just. Only critical theory can guide us toward a more self-reflexive pursuit of justice. Charting a vision for political action and social transformation, Harcourt argues that instead of posing the question, “What is to be done?” we must now turn it back onto ourselves and ask, and answer, “What more am I to do?” Critique and Praxis advocates for a new path forward that constantly challenges each and every one of us to ask what more we can do to realize a society based on equality and justice. Joining his decades of activism, social-justice litigation, and political engagement with his years of critical theory and philosophical work, Harcourt has written a magnum opus.