Critique

Introduction to the volume "Poetic Critique: Encounters with Art and Literature". Eds. Michel Chaouli, Jan Lietz, Jutta Müller-Tamm, and Simon Schleusener. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021 (pp. 1-6).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110688719
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110688719-001

Published in: Michel Chaouli, Jan Lietz, Jutta Müller-Tamm, Simon Schleusener, Eds.: Poetic Critique: Encounters with Art and Literature. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021 (pp.175-201).
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110688719-013/html
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110688719-013

This text is a longer draft version of a chapter from my article "Surface, Distance, Depth: The Text and its Outside" (Michel Chaouli, Jan Lietz, Jutta Müller-Tamm, Simon Schleusener, Eds.: Poetic Critique: Encounters with Art and Literature. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021, pp..175-201).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110688719-013

The tension between the need for critique and its (often unperceived) limits through our given common sense, a tension Charles S. Peirce describes as critical common sense, hasn’t lost its actuality. Vague certainty is one root of this tension, which the paper unfolds by distinguishing two forms: while the first one grounds common sense as a form of life, the second one, self-certainty, represents the purpose of endeavors, and it serves, speaking with Pierre Bourdieu, as a form of distinction (1). As part of an indifference towards power structures of exclusion, vague certainties contribute to what Judith Butlers describes as the violent derealization of others, which is being discussed in the light of the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movement. (Self-)certainty, as is being shown, is not (merely) an epistemological matter, but encompasses the fields of the political and aesthetic. Accordingly, as a crucial part of political critique and practices to counter (self-)certainties, a differentiation of doubting is required – the paper proposes four different kinds: authoritarian, anti-authoritarian, acknowledging and imaginative doubting. They help understand the political struggles of re-realizing formerly derealized positions within society (2). Particularly through imaginative doubting, some shortcomings within Peirce’s notion of the self (and, for that matter, within the pragmatist notion of doubting) are being overcome by showing how to link it to creative processes of abduction, which in turn have consequences for political matters by unsettling implicit consent, or, in the words of Jacques Rancière, the partition of the sensible (3).

If critique does not want to be more than just a ‘passion of the head’ it has to engage in dialogue with the worst-off in society. However, there are several mechanisms that hinder the excluded from giving words to their suffering. Furthermore, there are processes of invisibilization that impede even the perception of the excluded and their critique in the public space. The aim of this article is to conceptually explore the mechanisms of formulating critique by the excluded and of understanding critique in the public space. Therefore, I first provide a brief overview on the meaning of critique before then presenting suffering as a language of critique. In a third step, I explore the multiple mechanisms that hinder suffering from becoming visible and end up discussing some (fragmented) solutions for overcoming these invisibilities. Although the excluded is hindered in formulating public critique in linguistic form, the suffering of the excluded can be understood as the ground for a powerful form of social critique.

1 Einleitung Foucaults zweite Vorlesungsreihe am Collège de France kreist um Anfänge. Nicht nur ist es seine erste historische Studie, die sich dezidiert Praktiken des Strafens zuwendet und damit einen Themenkomplex eröffnet, der mit dem Erscheinen von Überwachen und Strafen zu einem Abschluss kommen wird. Sie ist auch eine Vorlesung der Anfänge in zwei weiteren Hinsichten. Erstens beginnt mit ihr, was Foucault 1975/76 retrospektiv als Übernahme der "Hypothese Nietzsches" (VG 33) bezeichnen wird. Die fulminante Rhetorik des Kampfes, des Krieges, der im Frieden rumort, dient dabei selbst der Erfassung von Anfängen. Mit ihr wird ein altes Unterfangen in eine neue Form gebracht: nachgezeichnet werden die historischen "Entstehungsherde" (DE II/84, 176) gegenwärtiger Evidenzen. Die Vorlesung Institutionen und Theorien der Strafe kündigt zweitens an, die "Geburt des Staates nachzuzeichnen" (TIS 17). Den Gegenstand dieser Vorlesungsreihe bildet zunächst ein Volksaufstand, der sich 1639 in Rouen ereignet hat. Den Nu-Pieds und ihrer Niederschlagung widmet Foucault die ersten sieben Vorlesungen. Während die geschichtswissen-schaftliche Debatte über die Volksaufstände des 17. Jahrhunderts vor allem um ihre Bedeutung für die Herausbildung des absolutistischen Staates kreiste, führte Foucault, Claude-Olivier Doron zufolge, in ihre Analyse etwas Neues ein: die Nu-Pieds gerieten als "Ereignis" (Doron 2017, 383) in den Blick. Es ist Foucaults These, dass sich 1639 ein "neues Repressionssystem" herauszubilden beginnt, das sich von der feudalen Art und Weise Aufstände zu unterdrücken unterscheidet und

Finally published 34 years after his death, Foucault's book Confessions of the Flesh sheds new light on the debate about freedom and power that shaped the reception of his works. Many contributors to this debate argue that Foucault's theory of power did not allow for freedom in the 'genealogical phase,' but that he corrected himself and presented a solution to the problem of freedom in his later works, especially through his reflection on ancient ethics and technologies of the self in volumes two and three of History of Sexuality, as well as the concept of parrhesia. In contrast to this view, I argue that Confessions of the Flesh shows that a concept of freedom as self-critical hermeneutics that aims at identifying a foreign power within the subject was only developed in Foucault's analysis of Christian practices of penance and confession. This interpretation of Confessions of the Flesh opens a new field of inquiry into the genealogy of critique and both the repressive and emancipative effects of truth-telling and juridification.

The Covid-19 pandemic has changed the world how we know it (at least for now). The question is, was this change justified? In this provocation, I will list three critiques to the narrative (the newly invented narrative) with and through which we have been making sense of the events of this pandemic as they have been unfolding. The three main groups of authors of this new narrative: politicians, medical experts, and the mass media professionals, are being put in front of some basic critique. This provocation concludes with the discouraging awareness that accountability will not be part of this narrative.

Special Issue (eds. Biruk & McKay), "Objects of critique in critical global health studies"

What is the place for critical ethnography in global health and other related forms of international intervention? This essay explores this question through my experience collaborating with a nongovernmental organization (NGO) working to improve children’s well-being in El Salvador and with a team of quantitatively oriented researchers evaluating the NGO’s project. I adopt as an analytic lens one of the metrics the researchers used – the Battelle Developmental Inventory – in order to explore the possibilities for dialogue among quantitative and qualitative methods (and researchers).
At issue is the place that critique can have in such dialogues, particularly when the aims of NGOs, public health researchers, and ethnographers can sometimes be at odds. Ultimately, I make the case that viewing critique as a praxis, keeping an eye on the commensurability of aims, and being prepared for occasional productive friction are some practical steps for bringing critical ethnographic perspectives into contact with interventions.

We write this essay for both lay readers and scientists, though mainstream economists are welcome to enjoy it too. Our subject is the basic toolbox of mainstream economics. The most important tools in this box are demand, supply and equilibrium. All mainstream economists – as well as many heterodox ones – use these tools, pretty much all the time. They are essential. Without them, the entire discipline collapses. But in our view, these are not scientific tools. Economists manipulate them on paper with impeccable success (at least in their own opinion). But the manipulations are entirely imaginary. Contrary to what economists tell us, demand, supply and equilibrium do not carry over to the actual world: they cannot be empirically identified; they cannot be observed, directly or indirectly; and they certainly cannot be objectively measured. And this is a problem because science without objective empirical tools is hardly science at all.

This paper will focus on the aims, methods and problems of both Husserl's and Foucault's projects in order to mark their differences and their similarities. In so doing, it will underscore their shared (Kantian) goal: to strengthen the human capacity for reason as a critical means of theoretical and practical reflection. It is my contention that the differences between the thinkers' specific aims only reinforce their respective routes towards a common objective. In this respect, I will argue that both thinkers actually engage in a project to objectify subjective reason. My reasoning follows that both apply a methodological reduction in order to understand and thereby reduce the discursive and social powers that determine the praxis of reasoning. As a result, Husserl sought to make the sciences aware of their foundations in the life-world, while Foucault sought to expose their basis in and through the workings of power.

D’où vient le vidéoblog ? Nous pouvons retracer son origine à la démocratisation des appareils de captation. Le détenteur d’un caméscope peut choisir de décliner son journal intime sous la forme de vidéos où, dans la scénographie la plus épurée, il fera état de sa journée et de ses réflexions face caméra dans le confort de sa chambre à coucher. Dans ce dispositif, le filmeur, le filmé et le spectateur se confondent dans une figure autocentrée qui se prend elle-même pour principe et pour fin de l’acte de filmage. Le vidéo-journal s’inscrit dans un cercle hermétique. Mais ce qui était demeuré une pratique privée prend une toute autre dimension du moment que le journal est mis en ligne : le cercle d’auto-documentation, sur soi-même et pour soi-même, est brisé pour inclure désormais un potentiel spectateur tiers. Le spectateur potentiel est désormais inclus dans le cercle de la communication : le miroir devient fenêtre. Le journal intime est désormais adressé dans le mode de la conversation. Le vidéoblog est au journal filmé ce que le blog est au journal intime : une ouverture vers le monde d’une pratique intime, la possibilité d’être lu ou vu par autre que soi. Là où le vidéaste intime n’a qu’à trouver un langage compréhensible pour son moi dédoublé, le vidéoblogueur doit apprendre à communiquer avec un public, toujours individuel, toujours familier, quoique inconnu.

Peronism: 1945-1955 The first Peronist government was established in the context of a crisis in the economic system: both the dependence on British imperialism, and the agrarian export basis of the economy, were critically affected in the wake of the worldwide crisis of 1929 ...

L’article mobilise les notions de communautarisme et d'exclusion. Il décrit la réception du spectacle Frankenstein du Living Theatre en France et en Italie. En France, le spectacle a été accusé par un certain nombre de critiques d'alimenter une vague communautaire en se liant aux mouvements contestataires de soixante-huit. En Italie, ce spectacle a encouragé les artistes et les critiques du théâtre d'avant-garde à se rassembler en donnant lieu au phénomène du Nuovo Teatro. L'article montre ainsi que la question des formes d'agrégation produites par les critiques traverse l'histoire du théâtre.

Queer theory describes a network of critiques emerging from a legacy of activism and looking ahead to utopian futures. The analytical tools queer theory provides as a mode of close reading and critique makes it a relevant contemporary approach to literary theory. Beyond reading for queer characters and desires in texts, queer theory is a tool for seeing below the superficial, and supporting unconventional readings that deconstruct normative assumptions. The activist roots of queer theory in the 1969 Stonewall Riots places drag, trans issues, class, race, violence, gender, and sexuality at the heart of queer theorizing. Subsequent work engages topics such as temporality, ecology, geography, and diaspora through the analysis of culture and politics, but also literature, film, music, and other media. Queer theory attends to both the rhetorical power of language and the broader structures of knowledge formulation. As feminist epistemology asks whose knowledge matters and who creates knowledge, queer theory asks whether knowledge matters and whether naturalized knowledge is constructed. Textual or discursive construction of knowledge is a key theoretical approach of queer theory with important implications for literature. Queer theory embraces a multidisciplinary and diverse set of influences, methodologies, questions, and formats. The critiques can be applied to help deconstruct naturalized epistemic frameworks around topics notably including, language, gender, sexuality, history, the subject, universality, the environment, animals, borders, space, time, norms, ideals, reproduction, utopia, love, the home, the nation, and power. Queer theory empowers novel readings of the world, and worldly readings of the novel, opening up new ways of viewing life and text.