Revisiting the notion of critical thinking in higher education: theorizing the thinking-feeling entanglement using affect theory

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article argues that paying attention to affect offers new theoretical insights into critical thinking and reflexivity that deepen scholarly understandings of the entanglement between ‘thinking-feeling’ in higher education pedagogies. In particular, this article brings together the literatures on affect theory and critical thinking in higher education to make a contribution to the analysis and sorting through of various conceptions about critical thinking in higher education, and to figure out how those conceptions operate in affective ways. It is suggested that a more refined understanding of the role of affective thinking in higher education can provide new political openings for negotiating sensitive and controversial socio-political issues in universities. To illustrate the potential of this theoretical contribution, this article discusses a concrete example that concerns how students may engage in and respond to political activism involving the colonial legacies of western universities.