Critique of Critique

Roy Ben-Shai is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Sarah Lawrence College.

Introduction: Critique as Orientation Overture 1. Chapter 1: Critique of the Spectacle or the Spectacle of Critique 2. Chapter 2: Critique of Power or the Power of Critique 3. Chapter 3: Critique of Injustice or the Injustice of Critique 4. Chapter 4: Critique of External Authority or the External Authority of Critique 5. Chapter 5: Moral Ontologies of Critique 6. Chapter 6: Political Ontologies of Critique 7. Chapter 7: Topologies of Critique 8. Chapter 8: Chronologies of Critique Conclusion: Critique and Its Betrayals.

"Ben-Shai exposes the rhizomatic orientations of critique, its multiple topologies, chronologies, positionalities, perversions and betrayals. A masterful analysis of where we are and what we are doing when we engage in critique."-Peg Birmingham, DePaul University "This is one hell of a book-a decisive intervention in the inheritance of the critical theory tradition. Political philosophers and political theorists will want to read this, as will everyone concerned with criticism in film and the arts today."-Anne O'Byrne, Stony Brook University "What does it mean to orient ourselves critically rather than in some other way? In answering this question Ben-Shai brilliantly shows how to critically circumscribe the limits of critique."-Andrew Cutrofello, Loyola University Chicago "Ben-Shai orients, in a remarkable way, the critical theory that emerged in particular from Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno'sDialectic of Enlightenment(1944).... Valuable for those interested in social philosophy and critical theory. Highly recommended."-J. C. Swindal, CHOICE "If critique is the act of pointing, Ben-Shai points both at the hand of the finger that is pointing and its environment. The book aims to bring the structural premises and essential features of critique into view to limit its scope, which Ben-Shai fears has become relentlessly repetitious and blind to its own repetitions."-O. L. Silverman, Theory & Event "Despite the seriousness of the topic and the razor-sharp quality of the analysis, reading [Critique of Critique] feels like being engaged in good philosophical conversation-against a tendency in some philosophical writing that feels more like a winner-takes-all competition."-Jill Stauffer, Continental Philosophy Review