Criticism 

About: Criticism is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Politics & Poetry. Over the lifetime, 1131 publications have been published receiving 5539 citations. The journal is also known as: critique.

The Case of Blackness

Abstract: The cultural and political discourse on black pathology has been so perva sive that it could be said to constitute the background against which all representations of blacks, blackness, or (the color) black take place. Its man ifestations have changed over the years, though it has always been poised between the realms of the pseudo-social scientific, the birth of new sciences, and the normative impulse that is at the heart of—but thai strains against— the black radicalism that strains against it. From the origins of the critical philosophy in the assertion of its extra-rational foundations in teleological principle; to the advent and solidification of empiricist human biology that moves out of the convergence of phrenology, criminology, and eugenics; to the maturation of (American) sociology in the oscillation between good and bad-faith attendance to "the negro problem"; to the analysis of and dis course on psychopathology and the deployment of these in both colonial oppression and anticolonial resistance; to the regulatory metaphysics that undergirds interlocking notions of sound and color in aesthetic theory: blackness has been associated with a certain sense of decay, even when that decay is invoked in the name of a certain (fetishization of) vitality. Black radical discourse has often taken up, and held itself within, the stance of the pathologist. Going back to David Walker, at least, black radi calism is animated by the question, What's wrong with black folk? The extent to which radicalism (here understood as the performance of a general critique of the proper) is a fundamental and enduring force in the black public sphere—so much so that even black "conservatives" are always con strained to begin by defining themselves in relation to it—is all but self evident. Less self-evident is the normative striving against the grain of the very radicalism from which the desire for norms is derived. Such striving is directed toward those lived experiences of blackness that are, on the one hand, aligned with what has been called radical and, on the other hand,

Twelve Fallacies in Contemporary Adaptation Theory

Abstract: What could be more audacious than to argue that the study of moving images as adaptations of literary works, one of the very first shelters under which cin ema studies originally entered the academy, has been neglected? Yet that is ex actly what this essay will argue: that despite its venerable history, widespread practice, and apparent influence, adaptation theory has remained tangential to the thrust of film study because it has never been undertaken with conviction and theoretical rigor. By examining a dozen interlinked fallacies that have kept adaptation theory from fulfilling its analytical promise, I hope to claim for ad aptation theory more of the power it deserves. 1. There is such a thing as contemporary adaptation theory. This is the found ing fallacy of adaptation studies, and the most important reason they have been so largely ineffectual—because they have been practiced in a theoretical vacuum, without the benefit of what Robert B. Ray has called "a presiding po etics."1 There is, as the preceding sentence acknowledges, such a thing as ad aptation studies. It is pursued in dozens of books and hundreds of articles in Literature/Film Quarterly and in classrooms across the country, from high school to graduate school, in courses with names like "Dickens and Film" and "From Page to Screen." But this flood of study of individual adaptations pro ceeds on the whole without the support of any more general theoretical ac count of what actually happens, or what ought to happen, when a group of filmmakers set out to adapt a literary text. As Brian McFarlane has recently observed: "In view of the nearly sixty years of writing about the adaptation of novels into film ... it is depressing to find at what a limited, tentative stage the discourse has remained."2 Despite the appearance of more recent method ologies from the empiricism of Morris Beja to the neo-Aristotelianism of James Griffith, the most influential general account of cinema's relation to literature continues to be George Bluestone's tendentious Novels into Film, now nearly half a century old. Bluestone's categorical and essentialist treatment of the rela tions between movies and the books they are based on neglects or begs many

Truth and Consequences: On Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading

Abstract: problem could be overdetermination: there are so many things I might mean. Insofar as Sedgwick helped to launch queer literary studies, she played a significant role in allowing me to have a job that I could tolerate in academia, or even in a profession at all; along with a handful of others, she helped to make it possible for me to live a queer life that I could never have imagined. In addition to this most direct sense in which I have been enabled, there is also the fact that Sedgwick in her work explicitly sought to clear intellectual and affective space for others—to grant permission. She really knew how to reach out and touch someone. Reading her work tends to open unexpected conceptual possibilities, ways of thinking, ges tures, and tones. I think this sense of opening or enlargement is what Ju dith Butler has in mind when she observes that an encounter with

Introduction. What is Reenactment

Abstract: AS ANYONE W HO H AS swabbed decks and gone aloft knows, reenactment is fun. It indulges the twin passions of work and play, which are generally divorced from each other. It licenses dressing up, pretending and improvising, casting oneself as the protagonist of one's own research, and getting others to play along. Of course, it also calls for discomfort and enforced self-growth. But, like the cold nose atop the counterpane, which Melville says measures the warmth of the bed, the pain only sharpens the pleasure. 1 Iain McCalman's piece in this issue, \"The Little Ship of Horrors,\" shows that suffering also makes for a better story. Perhaps because of this winning combination of imaginative play, self-improvement, intellectual enrichment, and sociality, reenactment is booming. History enthusi- asts gather weekly to enact past events, television history programs are aired to good ratings, living museums hire costumed performers, civic governments sponsor local performances on historical themes, tourists \"follow in the steps\" of earlier travelers, and academics venture into public history. Reenactment thus spans diverse history-themed genres—from theatrical and \"living history\" per- formances to museum exhibits, television, film, travelogues, and historiography. While there are important differences between these genres and their respective practitioners, they are linked by common methodologies, modes of representa- tion, and choice of subject matter. They are also linked by their combined use of different medial forms and the breakdown of traditionally distinct categories such as academic historian and television personality, weekend reenactor and historical adviser. 2 In its appropriation of the past, this populist phenomenon favors high-concept themes—Vikings, medieval knights, pyramid builders, pirates and mutineers, cowboys and Indians, explorers, slaves, pilgrims, and sol- diers. Reenactment now includes less gaudy subjects, such as the 1984 South Yorkshire miners' strike, yet the phenomenon remains overwhelmingly commit- ted to themes that are the perennial favorites of grade-school history. The thrall of reenactment cannot be attributed merely to an interest in colorful, familiar his- tory. Rather, its excursions are justified on political grounds; it is argued that \"history from below\" provides an important public service and gives voice to

The Turn to Religion in Early Modern English Studies

Abstract: When the New Historicist scholar Stephen Greenblatt recently published a book on Purgatory as well as an essay and two book chapters on the Eucharist, (1) clearly something new was afoot in early modern English studies Religion was once again at the center in interpretations of early modern culture Not that religion had ever disappeared as a subject of inquiry in the field, for the prominence of such authors as Spenser, Donne, Herbert, and Milton and the religious politics of the Civil War era guaranteed that a large body of work continued to be produced dealing with religious subject matter, conflicts, and culture (2) And, of course, the vexed question of Shakespeare's religion never stopped stimulating discussion inside or outside the academic world Perhaps it is safer to say that interpretation of religious material and contexts never really ceased in early modern literary study but rather that they had just been pushed somewhat to the side by most New Historicists and cultural materialists, who pursued other topics and, when they dealt with religious issues, quickly translated them into social, economic, and political language Typical of this era was the Group for Early Modern Cultural Studies, a scholarly organization drawing participation mostly from scholars who began their careers in the 1980s and 1990s In announcing its first conference in 1993, it defined itself in the following way: