The Limits of “Not Critique”

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper addresses the use of tone in Graham Harman’s object-oriented literary criticism, and in doing so, proves that his commitment to humor and naïveté relies on a deep-seated resentment against multiculturalism and feminism. This paper ultimately investigates what might be the ongoing appeal of Harman’s ‘Not Critique’ for literary critics. The first part of the paper traces the tone of humor and gullibility that Harman argues in his writings. He focuses particularly on how values of “laughter” and “worship” then become central to his non-critical method and anti-humanism. With this focus, I contrast this approach to a humanist form of laughter and naïveté that the Marxist playwright Bertolt Brecht valorizes in the worker’s engagement with theater. The second half draws on a similar discussion in literary criticism, namely, the phenomenon of ‘Surface Reading.’ Surface reading, with its resistance toward “suspicious” literary criticism, argues for minimal critical agency that negates criticism bound up with political activism. Finally, the non-critical approaches of both Harman and the surface criticism represent the postmodern trends that exemplify the anti-humanist turn of recent criticism. However, for this thesis, I will argues the limits and the problems which are unwittingly hidden underneath both in ‘Not Critique’ and 'Surface Reading' by comparing them with Brecht's critical insights.

참고문헌 (Reference)

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