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The Paranoid Style in Postcritique

The Paranoid Style in Postcritique FRIDA BECKMAN Introduction From the 1990s and onwards, scattered signs of the decline of the heyday of theory in academic departments gradually formed enough coherence for some to call it a state of “post-theory,” “after theory,” “beyond theory,” “death of theory,” and various designations of that kind. Indeed, we are so beyond that decline now that even these “posts” and “afters” and “beyonds” and “deaths” seem rather unfashionable. In recent years, we have also, increasingly many argue, not just moved beyond theory but also beyond critique. There is a much longer history of the possibility and the crisis of critique, reaching back, ultimately to Kant and the dawn of modern critique, but also to Matthew Arnold, through Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. In this article, however, I will pay attention mostly to the joint effort of its most recent trend, which is essentially the pronounced need to revisit, reconsider, and perhaps also reject, modes of critique and ways of reading as they have been practiced, primarily in humanities departments, over the past few decades. The trend can be said to consist of two main strands. To begin with, we have what some see as a new crisis in http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png symploke University of Nebraska Press

The Paranoid Style in Postcritique

Beckman, Frida
symploke , Volume 28 (1) – Nov 24, 2020
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13 pages

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University of Nebraska Press
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Copyright © symploke
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1534-0627

Abstract

FRIDA BECKMAN Introduction From the 1990s and onwards, scattered signs of the decline of the heyday of theory in academic departments gradually formed enough coherence for some to call it a state of “post-theory,” “after theory,” “beyond theory,” “death of theory,” and various designations of that kind. Indeed, we are so beyond that decline now that even these “posts” and “afters” and “beyonds” and “deaths” seem rather unfashionable. In recent years, we have also, increasingly many argue, not just moved beyond theory but also beyond critique. There is a much longer history of the possibility and the crisis of critique, reaching back, ultimately to Kant and the dawn of modern critique, but also to Matthew Arnold, through Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno. In this article, however, I will pay attention mostly to the joint effort of its most recent trend, which is essentially the pronounced need to revisit, reconsider, and perhaps also reject, modes of critique and ways of reading as they have been practiced, primarily in humanities departments, over the past few decades. The trend can be said to consist of two main strands. To begin with, we have what some see as a new crisis in

Journal

symploke – University of Nebraska Press

Published: Nov 24, 2020

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