In this volume, four leading thinkers of our times confront the paradoxes and dilemmas attending the supposed stand-off between Islam and liberal democratic values. Taking the controversial Danish cartoons of Mohammad as a point of departure, Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, Judith Butler, and SabaMahmood inquire into the evaluative frameworks at stake in understanding the conflicts between blasphemy and free speech, between religious taboos and freedoms of thought and expression, and between secular and religious world views. Is the language of the law an adequate mechanism for the adjudication of such conflicts? What other modes of discourse are available for the navigation of such differences in multicultural and multi-religious societies? What is the role of critique in such an enterprise? These are among the pressingquestions this volume addresses.

Journal Information: Critical inquiry, 2004, Vol.30 (2), p.225-248
Latour comments on the issues that most critics are looking into, emphasizing the editorial in the New York Times magazine. He emancipates the public from prematurely naturalized objectified facts, for he has been accused of fooling the public by obscuring the certainty of a closed argument, although he has spent time in showing the lack of scientific certainty. He also argues that if the critical mind renews itself and be relevant again, it has to be found in the cultivation of a stubbornly realist attitude and deal the realism of matters of concern and not matters of fact.

Essay of note: Michael Warner, "Uncritical Reading"
This book demonstrates that theory in literary and cultural studies has moved beyond overarching master theories towards a greater awareness of particularity and contingency - including its own. What is the place of literary and cultural theory after the Age of Theory has ended?  Grouping its chapters into rubrics of metatheory, cultural theory, critical theory and textual theory, the collection demonstrates that the practice of "doing theory" has neither lost its vitality nor can it be in any way dispensable. Current directions covered include the renewed interest in phenomenology, the increased acknowledgement of the importance of media history for all cultural practices and formations, complexity studies, new narratology, literary ethics, cultural ecology, and an intensified interest in textual as well as cultural matter.

Essay of note: "Enchantment"
Uses of Literature bridges the gap between literary theory and common-sense beliefs about why we read literature. Explores the diverse motives and mysteries of why we read Offers four different ways of thinking about why we read literature - for recognition, enchantment, knowledge, and shock Argues for a new "phenomenology" in literary studies that incorporates the historical and social dimensions of reading Includes examples of literature from a wide range of national literary traditions

Why must critics unmask and demystify literary works? Why do they believe that language is always withholding some truth, that the critic's task is to reveal the unsaid or repressed? In this book, Rita Felski examines critique, the dominant form of interpretation in literary studies, and situates it as but one method among many, a method with strong allure--but also definite limits. Felski argues that critique is a sensibility best captured by Paul Ricoeur's phrase "the hermeneutics of suspicion." She shows how this suspicion toward texts forecloses many potential readings while providing no guarantee of rigorous or radical thought. Instead, she suggests, literary scholars should try what she calls "postcritical reading": rather than looking behind a text for hidden causes and motives, literary scholars should place themselves in front of it and reflect on what it suggests and makes possible. By bringing critique down to earth and exploring new modes of interpretation, The Limits of Critique offers a fresh approach to the relationship between artistic works and the social world.

How does a novel entice or enlist us? How does a song surprise or seduce us? Why do we bristle when a friend belittles a book we love, or fall into a funk when a favored TV series comes to an end? What characterizes the aesthetic experiences of feeling captivated by works of art? In Hooked, Rita Felski challenges the ethos of critical aloofness that is a part of modern intellectuals' self-image. The result is sure to be as widely read as Felski's book, The Limits of Critique. Wresting the language of affinity away from accusations of sticky sentiment and manipulative marketing, Felski argues that "being hooked" is as fundamental to the appreciation of high art as to the enjoyment of popular culture. Hooked zeroes in on three attachment devices that connect audiences to works of art: identification, attunement, and interpretation. Drawing on examples from literature, film, music, and painting--from Joni Mitchell to Matisse, from Thomas Bernhard to Thelma and Louise--Felski brings the language of attachment into the academy. Hooked returns us to the fundamentals of aesthetic experience, showing that the social meanings of artworks are generated not just by critics, but also by the responses of captivated audiences.

Journal Information: Religion & literature, 2016, Vol.48 (2), p.156-159
This forum offers a discussion of The Limits of Critique, a work of literary theory by Rita Felski, the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English at the University of Virginia and editor of New Literary History, whose scholarship has shaped an emerging area sometimes described as "post-critique." We invited the five scholars whose essays are included here to submit short responses to Felski's book under the general theme of "Religion, Literature, and The Limits of Critique." Rather than simply review the book, these essays engage with it, exploring the broader influence and implications of "postcritical reading" for the fields of religion and literature, postsecular studies, and other related areas. Rita Felski's concluding essay offers generous response as well as compelling pushback to these five reflections.

Journal Information: Christianity & literature, 2018, Vol.67 (3), p.493-510
In the summer of 2016, the authors of this essay co-directed a four-week NEH Summer Seminar for faculty, titled “Postsecular Studies and the Rise of the English Novel, 1719–1897.” In this article, we explain why we think the postsecular matters, for literary studies in general and for our stories of the novel in particular. We draw heavily on our experience of the seminar: our preparations for it, the generous contributions of the participants, the points emerging from the large body of transformational material we read, and the intellectual life of our group over four weeks in Iowa

(Link to the website for the seminar is included in the tabs above.).

Journal Information: Religion & literature, 2016, Vol.48 (2), p.160-167
This forum offers a discussion of The Limits of Critique, a work of literary theory by Rita Felski, the William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of English at the University of Virginia and editor of New Literary History, whose scholarship has shaped an emerging area sometimes described as "post-critique." We invited the five scholars whose essays are included here to submit short responses to Felski's book under the general theme of "Religion, Literature, and The Limits of Critique." Rather than simply review the book, these essays engage with it, exploring the broader influence and implications of "postcritical reading" for the fields of religion and literature, postsecular studies, and other related areas. Rita Felski's concluding essay offers generous response as well as compelling pushback to these five reflections.