Caring Critique. Exploring Pedagogical Spheres Between Critical and Post-Critical Approaches

Abstract

Preservation, positive affection, hope and experience are some of the core concerns of post-critical pedagogy. In order to highlight them, post-critical approaches regard it as necessary to refuse critical action on the one hand and separate the pedagogical from the political sphere on the other. In my paper I will suggest that there is a possibility to stress post-critical ideas and the need to rethink what pedagogical thinking and action is about without abandoning the critical attitude and the orientation towards the political. This possibility is bound to an inverse perspective on critique and politics. In this inverse view, which I develop engaging with recent debates in critical theory, critique can be framed as a situated engagement that faces the other within a lively present experience. Politics can be understood as variable forms of living together with humans and non-humans on the basis of shared times and spaces. Bringing in this perspective, makes it possible to go beyond the critique-post-critique-struggle and introduce an approach that is sympathetic with both critical and post-critical concerns.