Attached Critique: Paranoid and Reparative Studies of Religion
In: Method & Theory in the Study of ReligionSearch for other papers by Tommy Woodward in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
In this article, I examine debates about the relationship between critique and normativity in the study of religion. One position in this debate bars the critic from any involvement in normative claims; the other finds that critique fails to achieve the detached status necessary for nonnormative argumentation. I turn to parallel discussions concerning the critical and postcritical found in literary scholarship, particularly Sedgwick (2003 [1997]; 2007) and Felski (2015), to suggest a path forward. Where Felski proposes a rejection of critique on account of its failed production of detachment, Sedgwick maintains the usefulness of critique for specific goals. I argue that critique is always already normative. Its effectiveness at communicating and promoting the normative claims that already motivate it requires an attached critic, who cannot imagine themself at a distance from the situations they analyze.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Arnal, William E., and Russell T. McCutcheon (2013). The Sacred is the Profane: The Political Nature of “Religion.” New York: Oxford University Press.
-
Ashtor, Gila (2019). The misdiagnosis of critique. Criticism 61 (2), pp. 191–217.
-
Barnwell, Ashley (2015). Entanglements of evidence in the turn against critique. Cultural Studies 30 (6), pp. 906–925.
-
Beckwith, Sarah (2017). Reading for our lives. PMLA 132 (2), pp. 331–336.
-
Berlant, Lauren (2011). Cruel Optimism. Durham: Duke University Press.
-
Best, Stephen (2017). La foi postcritique, on second thought. PMLA 132 (2), pp. 337–343.
-
Best, Stephen, and Sharon Marcus (2009). Surface reading: An introduction. Representations 108 (1), pp. 1–21.
-
Blum, Jason N. (2015). Zen and the Unspeakable God: Comparative Interpretations of Mystical Experience. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
-
Blum, Jason N. (2017). Comparison and the spectre of perennialism: A reply to Craig Martin. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 29 (4–5), pp. 340–346.
-
Boyer, Pascal (2001). Religion Explained The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York: Basic Books.
-
Bush, Stephen (2014). Visions of Religion: Experience, Meaning and Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Bush, Stephen (2017). Religion and belief after the turn to power: A response to Craig Martin. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 29 (4–5), pp. 334–339.
-
Butler, Judith (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge.
-
Butler, Judith (1993). Bodies That Matter. New York, NY: Routledge.
-
Carlson, Liane (2019). Critical for whom? Genealogy and the limits of history. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 31 (3), pp. 185–209.
-
Connell, Raewyn (2005 [1995]). Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press.
-
Crenshaw, Kimberlé (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum: 1989, pp. 139–168.
-
Daneshgar, Majid (2019). Studying the Qur’an in the Muslim Academy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Dubuisson, Daniel (2020). A critical examination of Pascal Boyer’s Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 32 (3), pp. 267–275.
-
Duncan, Gina (2019, October 25). The epidemic of transgender violence in Florida and the missteps that follow. Equality Florida Action Inc. https://www.eqfl.org/transactionfl/2020-trans-violence.
-
Durdin, Andrew (2019). Abandonment issues: Reflections on redescription, rectification, and J.Z. Smith’s “Trading places.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 31 (1), pp. 57–70.
-
Felski, Rita (2008). Uses of Literature. Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
-
Felski, Rita (2015). The Limits of Critique. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
-
Felski, Rita (2016). Introduction. New Literary History 47 (2 & 3), pp. 215–229.
-
Felski, Rita (2017). Response. PMLA 132 (2), pp. 384–391.
-
Felski, Rita (2020). Hooked: Art and Attachment. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
-
Feyzbakhsh, Moshen (2021). “The main parts are made in Europe”: Apologetic/critical dichotomy and the untold story of Qur’anic studies in the Iranian academy. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion Vol 33: 162–172.
-
Foucault, Michel (1980). Truth and power. In: C. Gordon, ed. and trans., Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977. New York: Pantheon Books, pp. 109–133.
-
Foucault, Michel (1983). The subject and power. In: H. Dreyfus and P. Rabinow, eds., Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 208–226.
-
Friedman, Susan Stanford (2017). Both/and: Critique and discovery in the humanities. PMLA 132 (2), pp. 344–351.
-
Furey, Constance M., Sarah Hammerschlag, and Amy Hollywood (2021). Devotion: Three Inquiries in Religion, Literature, and Political Imagination. Trios. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
-
Gruberg, Sharita (2020, August 26). Beyond Bostock: The future of LGBTQ rights. Center for American Progress. https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/lgbtq-rights/reports/2020/08/26/489772/beyond-bostock-future-lgbtq-civil-rights/.
-
Hollywood, Amy (2016). Acute Melancholia and Other Essays: Mysticism, History, and the Study of Religion. New York: Columbia University Press.
-
Ihde, Don (1971). Hermeneutic Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Paul Ricouer. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
-
Jagoda, Patrick (2017). Critique and critical making. PMLA 132 (2), pp. 356–363.
-
Jensen, Jeppe Sinding (2021). A point by point response to Donald Wiebe: A manifesto for the scientific study of religion. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 33 (1), pp. 89–94.
-
Johnson, Charles (1994 [1986]). Exchange value. In The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Tales and Conjurations. New York: Plume, pp. 25–40.
-
Josephson Storm, Jason Ānanda (2021). Revolutionizing the human sciences: A response to Wiebe. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 33 (1), pp. 82–88.
-
Kavka, Martin, and Russell T. McCutcheon (2017). Justice, that fraught idea: A response to ‘The normal and abnormal.’ Journal of the American Academy of Religion 85 (1), pp. 244–257.
-
Kellison, Rosemary (2019). Expanding Responsibility for the Just War: A Feminist Critique. New York: Cambridge University Press.
-
Kucich, John (2011). The unfinished historicist project: In praise of suspicion. Victoriographies 1 (1), pp. 58–78.
-
Latour, Bruno (2004). Why has critique run out of steam? From matters of fact to matters of concern. Critical Inquiry 30 (2), pp. 225–248.
-
Latour, Bruno (2007). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
-
Latour, Bruno (2017). Facing Gaia. Cambridge: Polity.
-
Levene, Nancy (2018). Marx’s eleventh thesis and the politics of the study of religion: Lessons from The Sacred is the Profane. The Journal of Religion 98 (2), pp. 224–246.
-
Levene, Nancy (2021). The scientific study of religion: A very brief reply to Donald Wiebe. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 33 (1), pp. 95–97.
-
Love, Heather (2010a). Close but not deep: Literary ethics and the descriptive turn. New Literary History 41 (2), 371–391.
-
Love, Heather (2010b). Truth and consequences: On paranoid reading and reparative reading. Criticism 52 (2), 235–241.
-
Love, Heather (2017). Critique is ordinary. PMLA 132 (2), pp. 364–370.
-
Mahmood, Saba (2005). Politics of Piety: The Islamic Revival and the Feminist Subject. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
-
Mahmood, Saba (2013 [2009]). Religious reason and secular affect: An incommensurable divide? In: T. Asad, W. Brown, J. Butler, and S. Mahmood, eds., Is Critique Secular? Blasphemy, Injury, and Free Speech. New York: Fordham University Press, pp. 58–94. Originally published in Critical Inquiry 35 (4), pp. 836–862.
-
Mahomed, Nadeem, and Farid Esack (2017). The normal and abnormal: On the politics of being Muslim and relating to same-sex sexuality. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 85 (1), pp. 224–243.
-
March, Andrew (2011). Speaking about Muhammad, speaking for Muslims. Critical Inquiry 37 (4), pp. 806–821.
-
Marshall, Wende Elizabeth (2011). Potent Mana: Lessons in Power and Healing. New York: State University of New York Press.
-
Martin, Craig (2017a). Functionalism and the hermeneutics of suspicion. In A Critical Introduction to the Study of Religion, second edition. New York: Routledge, pp. 19–32.
-
Martin, Craig (2017b). “Yes, … but …”: The neo-perennialists. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 29 (4–5), pp. 313–326.
-
Martin, Craig (2017c). Rejoinder. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 29 (4–5), pp. 347–351.
-
Marx, Karl (1972 [1845]). Theses on Feuerbach. In: R.C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, pp. 107–109.
-
Matory, J. Lorand (2018). The Fetish Revisited: Marx, Freud, and the Gods Black People Make. Durham: Duke University Press.
-
McTighe, Laura, with Women With a Vision (2020). Theory on the ground: Ethnography, religio-racial study, and the spiritual work of building otherwise. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 88 (2), pp. 407–439.
-
McCutcheon, Russell T. (1997). Manufacturing Religion: The Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the Politics of Nostalgia. New York: Oxford University Press.
-
McCutcheon, Russell T. (2005). Religion and the Domestication of Dissent: Or, How to Live in a Less than Perfect Nation. Oakville: Equinox.
-
McCutcheon, Russell T. (2012). A direct question deserves a direct answer: A response to Atalia Omer’s ‘Can a critic be a caretaker too?’ Journal of the American Academy of Religion 80 (4), pp. 1077–1082.
-
McCutcheon, Russell T. (2019). Fabricating Religion: Fanfare for the Common E.G. Boston: De Gruyter.
-
Miller, D.A. (1988). The Novel and the Police. Berkeley: University of California Press.
-
Muñoz, José Esteban (2009). Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: New York University Press.
-
Omer, Atalia (2011). Can a critic be a caretaker too? Religion, conflict, and conflict transformation. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79 (2), 459–496.
-
Reilly, Ariana (2013). Always sympathize! Surface reading, affect, and George Eliot’s Romola. Victorian Studies 55 (4), pp. 629–646.
-
Ricoeur, Paul (1971). Foreword. In: D. Ihde, Hermeneutic Phenomenology: The Philosophy of Paul Ricouer. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, xiii–xviii.
-
Ricoeur, Paul (1977). Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press.
-
Robbins, Bruce (2017). Not so well attached. PMLA 132 (2), pp. 371–376.
-
Robinson, Brandon Andrew (2018). Child welfare systems and LGBTQ youth home‑ lessness: Gender segregation, instability, and intersectionality. Child Welfare 96 (2), pp. 29–45.
-
Robinson, Brandon Andrew (2020). Coming Out to the Streets: LGBTQ Youth Experiencing Homelessness. Berkeley: University of California Press.
-
Said, Edward (1978). Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.
-
Schilbrack, Kevin (2014). Philosophy and the Study of Religions: A Manifesto. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.
-
Schilbrack, Kevin (2017). The place of subjectivity in the academic study of religion: A response to Craig Martin. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 29 (4–5), pp. 327–333.
-
Scott-Baumann, Alison (2009). On the use and abuse of the term ‘hermeneutics of suspicion.’ In Ricouer and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion. New York: Continuum, pp. 59–77.
-
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky (2003 [1997]). Paranoid reading and reparative reading: or, You’re so paranoid, you probably think this essay is about you. In: E.K. Sedgwick, M.A. Barale, J. Goldberg, and M. Moon, eds., Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 123–152.
-
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky (2007). Melanie Klein and the difference affect makes. South Atlantic Quarterly 106 (3), pp. 625–642.
-
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, and Adam Frank (1995). Shame in the cybernetic fold: Reading Silvan Tomkins. In: E.K. Sedgwick and A. Frank, eds., Shame and its Sisters: A Silvan Tomkins Reader. Durham: Duke University Press, pp. 1–28.
-
Simpson, James (2017). Interrogation over. PMLA 132 (2), pp. 377–383.
-
Smith, Jonathan Z. (2004). Trading places. In: J.Z. Smith, Relating Religion: Essays in the Study of Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 215–229.
-
Touna, Vaia (2021). Distinguishing our object of study: “Religious” but not “religion.” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion Vol 33 (1), pp. 77–81.
-
Weed, Elizabeth. Gender and the lure of the postcritical. Differences 27 (2), pp. 153–177.
-
Weisenfeld, Judith (2016). New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration. New York: New York University Press.
-
Wiebe, Donald (2021a). A manifesto for the scientific study of religion or setting the parameters for a scientific study of religions in the modern university. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 33 (1), pp. 73–76.
-
Wiebe, Donald (2021b). A response to my critics. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 33 (1), pp. 98–105.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 216 | 216 | 50 |
| Full Text Views | 97 | 97 | 8 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 228 | 228 | 30 |
Attached Critique: Paranoid and Reparative Studies of Religion
In: Method & Theory in the Study of ReligionSearch for other papers by Tommy Woodward in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
In this article, I examine debates about the relationship between critique and normativity in the study of religion. One position in this debate bars the critic from any involvement in normative claims; the other finds that critique fails to achieve the detached status necessary for nonnormative argumentation. I turn to parallel discussions concerning the critical and postcritical found in literary scholarship, particularly Sedgwick (2003 [1997]; 2007) and Felski (2015), to suggest a path forward. Where Felski proposes a rejection of critique on account of its failed production of detachment, Sedgwick maintains the usefulness of critique for specific goals. I argue that critique is always already normative. Its effectiveness at communicating and promoting the normative claims that already motivate it requires an attached critic, who cannot imagine themself at a distance from the situations they analyze.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 216 | 216 | 50 |
| Full Text Views | 97 | 97 | 8 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 228 | 228 | 30 |