In course of my research for my project "Affirmation of Ecological Reason(s)" I have made a very interesting book-discovery which I reviewed for the International Political Anthropology Journal. Tom Boland's book "The Spectacle of Critique" (Routledge 2018) manages to do a "genealogy of critique" in a Foucauldian inpetus and thus performs a very important task to get beyond debates of "post-critique" or the like. In times of Post-Truth and the Anthropocene, this is a very important step for renewed political thought. In the words of the summary of the IPA Journal:
"Kilian Jörg reads Boland’s work to an exercise in the lines of Bruno Latour’s anthropology of the moderns. Boland digs deep into the past by linking critique back to its cultural background within world religions. Engaging with modern predicaments, the book uncovers the presumed neutrality and claims that critical thinking may be considered as an imperialist practice which spreads its tentacles towards all corners and niches of a democratic society. Its omnipresence has led to an uncontrolled proliferation of critique – as if it was the defining feature of a modern – and thus to ever greater fragmentation in an already fragmented public sphere."
The review article is now available for free on the IPAs homepage. If this should work somehow, feel free to contact me and I'll be happy to share it.
