The limits of critique / Rita Felski.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Felski, Rita, 1956- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Criticism.

Criticism--Methodology.

Hermeneutics.

Suspicion.

Physical Description:

viii, 228 pages ; 22 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2015.

Summary:

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 relation between artistic works and the social world. Book jacket.

Contents:

Introduction

The stakes of suspicion

Digging down and standing back

An inspector calls

Crrritique

"Context stinks!"

In short.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780226293981

022629398X

9780226294032

022629403X

OCLC:

902656914