At Odds with the Temporalities of the Im-possible; or, What Critical Theory Can (Still) Do

Abstract

Abstract This essay engages with the question of critical possibility—or, the possibility of critique—and, more specifically, the political temporalities that sustain critical potential in the present and for the future. The essay asks whether and how the aesthetic can serve as a resource for making sense of the question of possibility and for developing a conception of critical subjectivity. To question what critical theory might still do in the present treats critique as an experience of the im-possible, and yet as a transformative force for shifting the conditions of possibility for knowledge production. In this way, this essay seeks to address the aporetic elements in the utopian thinking of critical theory.