What is post-critique and post-critical reading

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The author of this article presents some basic theses and characteristics of postcritique and post-critical reading, drawing on the work of American theorist Rita Felski, namely Uses of Literature (2008) and The Limits of Critique (2015). The basis for this post-critical approach is Felski’s circumscription of contemporary criticism, which she identifies as the “hermeneutics of suspicion”. Post-critique does not merely involve the negation of criticism, but aims inter alia to take account of the affective level in the perception of the text. For example, post-critical reading takes seriously the reader’s identification with a character, absorption in the text and the like, and refuses to pre-judge these as epistemically naive or ‘wrong’. The study concludes with an exposition of some of the doubts hanging over Felski’s conception of post-critique and post-critical reading.