Critical Inquiry
@criticalinquiry.bsky.social
Founded in 1974, Critical Inquiry is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed journal devoted to the best critical thought in the arts and humanities.
"Palti’s study . . . places its author within the tradition of scholars who interrogate the conditions of possibility of their own discipline."
New in review, Senida Poenariu on Elías J. Palti's Intellectual History and the Problem of Conceptual Change: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/senida_poena...
New in review, Senida Poenariu on Elías J. Palti's Intellectual History and the Problem of Conceptual Change: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/senida_poena...
November 21, 2025 at 10:56 PM
"Palti’s study . . . places its author within the tradition of scholars who interrogate the conditions of possibility of their own discipline."
New in review, Senida Poenariu on Elías J. Palti's Intellectual History and the Problem of Conceptual Change: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/senida_poena...
New in review, Senida Poenariu on Elías J. Palti's Intellectual History and the Problem of Conceptual Change: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/senida_poena...
"For Arendt, justice, unlike politics, does not speak a language of persuasion and communication, but of analysis."
From our Autumn 2003 issue, read Benjamin Robinson's "The Specialist on the Eichmann Precedent": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Autumn 2003 issue, read Benjamin Robinson's "The Specialist on the Eichmann Precedent": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
November 18, 2025 at 1:47 AM
"For Arendt, justice, unlike politics, does not speak a language of persuasion and communication, but of analysis."
From our Autumn 2003 issue, read Benjamin Robinson's "The Specialist on the Eichmann Precedent": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Autumn 2003 issue, read Benjamin Robinson's "The Specialist on the Eichmann Precedent": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Critical Inquiry
Winter 2026 issue is coming soon!
November 12, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Winter 2026 issue is coming soon!
"The riddle of the Sphinx is not merely apotropaic in its terrifying effects, but apocalyptic, as it combines the promise of revelation and the threat of annihilation."
From our Winter 2008 issue, read Daniel Tiffany's "Rhapsodic Measures": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Winter 2008 issue, read Daniel Tiffany's "Rhapsodic Measures": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
November 14, 2025 at 9:08 PM
"The riddle of the Sphinx is not merely apotropaic in its terrifying effects, but apocalyptic, as it combines the promise of revelation and the threat of annihilation."
From our Winter 2008 issue, read Daniel Tiffany's "Rhapsodic Measures": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Winter 2008 issue, read Daniel Tiffany's "Rhapsodic Measures": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
"The editors' main methodological achievement is their successful defiance of the ideological biases of the Cold War."
New in review, Olga V. Solovieva on The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/olga_v_solov...
New in review, Olga V. Solovieva on The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/olga_v_solov...
November 14, 2025 at 12:15 AM
"The editors' main methodological achievement is their successful defiance of the ideological biases of the Cold War."
New in review, Olga V. Solovieva on The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/olga_v_solov...
New in review, Olga V. Solovieva on The Oxford Handbook of Soviet Underground Culture: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/olga_v_solov...
Winter 2026 issue is coming soon!
November 12, 2025 at 10:55 PM
Winter 2026 issue is coming soon!
"The performance of voicelessness intensifies in Rourke's own films. In each he plays a character who seems at first more like a patchwork of fetishes than a human being."
From Autumn 2010, read Keri Walsh's "Why Does Mickey Rourke Give Pleasure?": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From Autumn 2010, read Keri Walsh's "Why Does Mickey Rourke Give Pleasure?": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
November 11, 2025 at 1:20 AM
"The performance of voicelessness intensifies in Rourke's own films. In each he plays a character who seems at first more like a patchwork of fetishes than a human being."
From Autumn 2010, read Keri Walsh's "Why Does Mickey Rourke Give Pleasure?": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From Autumn 2010, read Keri Walsh's "Why Does Mickey Rourke Give Pleasure?": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Critical Inquiry
"The kind of discursive monumentalizing the book performs is critical and reflective rather than self-aggrandizing, memorializing a defunct yet still painfully resonant phase of capitalism."
New in review, Jacobé Huet on Zimmerman's Albert Kahn Inc. criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jacobe_huet_...
New in review, Jacobé Huet on Zimmerman's Albert Kahn Inc. criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jacobe_huet_...
November 7, 2025 at 10:59 PM
"The kind of discursive monumentalizing the book performs is critical and reflective rather than self-aggrandizing, memorializing a defunct yet still painfully resonant phase of capitalism."
New in review, Jacobé Huet on Zimmerman's Albert Kahn Inc. criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jacobe_huet_...
New in review, Jacobé Huet on Zimmerman's Albert Kahn Inc. criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jacobe_huet_...
"The kind of discursive monumentalizing the book performs is critical and reflective rather than self-aggrandizing, memorializing a defunct yet still painfully resonant phase of capitalism."
New in review, Jacobé Huet on Zimmerman's Albert Kahn Inc. criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jacobe_huet_...
New in review, Jacobé Huet on Zimmerman's Albert Kahn Inc. criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jacobe_huet_...
November 7, 2025 at 10:59 PM
"The kind of discursive monumentalizing the book performs is critical and reflective rather than self-aggrandizing, memorializing a defunct yet still painfully resonant phase of capitalism."
New in review, Jacobé Huet on Zimmerman's Albert Kahn Inc. criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jacobe_huet_...
New in review, Jacobé Huet on Zimmerman's Albert Kahn Inc. criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/jacobe_huet_...
Reposted by Critical Inquiry
"Benjamin conceptualized his thinking-in-images as the epistemological principle of modernity."
From our Winter 2015 issue, read Sigrid Weigel's "The Flash of Knowledge and the Temporality of Images": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Winter 2015 issue, read Sigrid Weigel's "The Flash of Knowledge and the Temporality of Images": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
October 31, 2025 at 11:00 PM
"Benjamin conceptualized his thinking-in-images as the epistemological principle of modernity."
From our Winter 2015 issue, read Sigrid Weigel's "The Flash of Knowledge and the Temporality of Images": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Winter 2015 issue, read Sigrid Weigel's "The Flash of Knowledge and the Temporality of Images": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
"Amos makes her lyrical you, also blurrily the me of those lyrics, register simultaneously as the special, singled-out you (potentially any of us) in the darkened crowd."
From our Summer 2013 issue, read Nick Salvato's "Cringe Criticism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Summer 2013 issue, read Nick Salvato's "Cringe Criticism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
November 4, 2025 at 1:24 AM
"Amos makes her lyrical you, also blurrily the me of those lyrics, register simultaneously as the special, singled-out you (potentially any of us) in the darkened crowd."
From our Summer 2013 issue, read Nick Salvato's "Cringe Criticism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Summer 2013 issue, read Nick Salvato's "Cringe Criticism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Critical Inquiry
"And that’s what makes AI so scary, why . . . we fear it so: what was once a brushed-metal cyborg now manifests as workplace and state bureaucracies of containment and control."
Matthew Kirschenbaum on Hagen Blix and Ingeborg Glimmer's Why We Fear AI: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/matthew_kirs...
Matthew Kirschenbaum on Hagen Blix and Ingeborg Glimmer's Why We Fear AI: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/matthew_kirs...
October 30, 2025 at 10:41 PM
"And that’s what makes AI so scary, why . . . we fear it so: what was once a brushed-metal cyborg now manifests as workplace and state bureaucracies of containment and control."
Matthew Kirschenbaum on Hagen Blix and Ingeborg Glimmer's Why We Fear AI: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/matthew_kirs...
Matthew Kirschenbaum on Hagen Blix and Ingeborg Glimmer's Why We Fear AI: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/matthew_kirs...
"Benjamin conceptualized his thinking-in-images as the epistemological principle of modernity."
From our Winter 2015 issue, read Sigrid Weigel's "The Flash of Knowledge and the Temporality of Images": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Winter 2015 issue, read Sigrid Weigel's "The Flash of Knowledge and the Temporality of Images": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
October 31, 2025 at 11:00 PM
"Benjamin conceptualized his thinking-in-images as the epistemological principle of modernity."
From our Winter 2015 issue, read Sigrid Weigel's "The Flash of Knowledge and the Temporality of Images": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Winter 2015 issue, read Sigrid Weigel's "The Flash of Knowledge and the Temporality of Images": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
"And that’s what makes AI so scary, why . . . we fear it so: what was once a brushed-metal cyborg now manifests as workplace and state bureaucracies of containment and control."
Matthew Kirschenbaum on Hagen Blix and Ingeborg Glimmer's Why We Fear AI: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/matthew_kirs...
Matthew Kirschenbaum on Hagen Blix and Ingeborg Glimmer's Why We Fear AI: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/matthew_kirs...
October 30, 2025 at 10:41 PM
"And that’s what makes AI so scary, why . . . we fear it so: what was once a brushed-metal cyborg now manifests as workplace and state bureaucracies of containment and control."
Matthew Kirschenbaum on Hagen Blix and Ingeborg Glimmer's Why We Fear AI: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/matthew_kirs...
Matthew Kirschenbaum on Hagen Blix and Ingeborg Glimmer's Why We Fear AI: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/matthew_kirs...
"Psycho marks the emergence of the modern horror film’s generic privileging of sensation and affect over deep modes of classical spectatorial absorption."
From our Summer 2017 issue, read James J. Hodge's "Digital Psycho": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Summer 2017 issue, read James J. Hodge's "Digital Psycho": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
October 28, 2025 at 12:59 AM
"Psycho marks the emergence of the modern horror film’s generic privileging of sensation and affect over deep modes of classical spectatorial absorption."
From our Summer 2017 issue, read James J. Hodge's "Digital Psycho": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Summer 2017 issue, read James J. Hodge's "Digital Psycho": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
"Instead of romanticizing hardship or dramatizing her life, Brucia presents Swenson as a writer defined by resilience and intelligence."
New in review, Lucky Issar on Margaret A. Brucia's The Key to Everything, from @princetonupress.bsky.social: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/lucky_issar_...
New in review, Lucky Issar on Margaret A. Brucia's The Key to Everything, from @princetonupress.bsky.social: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/lucky_issar_...
October 24, 2025 at 12:12 AM
"Instead of romanticizing hardship or dramatizing her life, Brucia presents Swenson as a writer defined by resilience and intelligence."
New in review, Lucky Issar on Margaret A. Brucia's The Key to Everything, from @princetonupress.bsky.social: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/lucky_issar_...
New in review, Lucky Issar on Margaret A. Brucia's The Key to Everything, from @princetonupress.bsky.social: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/lucky_issar_...
Reposted by Critical Inquiry
"He does not do legitimation. He takes license. He takes license based on his personal exceptionalism: 'Only I can do it.' Trump is the law."
From our new issue, read Brian Massumi's "Some Points about Contemporary Fascism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Brian Massumi's "Some Points about Contemporary Fascism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
October 21, 2025 at 12:25 AM
"He does not do legitimation. He takes license. He takes license based on his personal exceptionalism: 'Only I can do it.' Trump is the law."
From our new issue, read Brian Massumi's "Some Points about Contemporary Fascism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Brian Massumi's "Some Points about Contemporary Fascism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Critical Inquiry
"What grammars of interaction guide our daily behavior? Who set these rules, how do they become visible, and what are the costs of defection?"
From our new issue, read Wendy Anne Lee's "Hate, Consent, Play": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Wendy Anne Lee's "Hate, Consent, Play": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
October 17, 2025 at 10:32 PM
"What grammars of interaction guide our daily behavior? Who set these rules, how do they become visible, and what are the costs of defection?"
From our new issue, read Wendy Anne Lee's "Hate, Consent, Play": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Wendy Anne Lee's "Hate, Consent, Play": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
"He does not do legitimation. He takes license. He takes license based on his personal exceptionalism: 'Only I can do it.' Trump is the law."
From our new issue, read Brian Massumi's "Some Points about Contemporary Fascism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Brian Massumi's "Some Points about Contemporary Fascism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
October 21, 2025 at 12:25 AM
"He does not do legitimation. He takes license. He takes license based on his personal exceptionalism: 'Only I can do it.' Trump is the law."
From our new issue, read Brian Massumi's "Some Points about Contemporary Fascism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Brian Massumi's "Some Points about Contemporary Fascism": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Critical Inquiry
"What distinguishes Suther’s Hegel is how embodied this most absolute of German Idealisms appears: rational and conceptual all the way down—yet thoroughly biological."
New in review, Christopher Gortmaker on Jensen Suther's True Materialism: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/christopher_...
New in review, Christopher Gortmaker on Jensen Suther's True Materialism: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/christopher_...
October 17, 2025 at 12:37 AM
"What distinguishes Suther’s Hegel is how embodied this most absolute of German Idealisms appears: rational and conceptual all the way down—yet thoroughly biological."
New in review, Christopher Gortmaker on Jensen Suther's True Materialism: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/christopher_...
New in review, Christopher Gortmaker on Jensen Suther's True Materialism: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/christopher_...
Reposted by Critical Inquiry
"Why, however, must visual reality correspond to actually existing and physically embodied entities and materials?"
From our new issue, read Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan's "The Navigable Image": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan's "The Navigable Image": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
October 14, 2025 at 12:01 AM
"Why, however, must visual reality correspond to actually existing and physically embodied entities and materials?"
From our new issue, read Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan's "The Navigable Image": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan's "The Navigable Image": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
"What grammars of interaction guide our daily behavior? Who set these rules, how do they become visible, and what are the costs of defection?"
From our new issue, read Wendy Anne Lee's "Hate, Consent, Play": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Wendy Anne Lee's "Hate, Consent, Play": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
October 17, 2025 at 10:32 PM
"What grammars of interaction guide our daily behavior? Who set these rules, how do they become visible, and what are the costs of defection?"
From our new issue, read Wendy Anne Lee's "Hate, Consent, Play": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Wendy Anne Lee's "Hate, Consent, Play": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
"What distinguishes Suther’s Hegel is how embodied this most absolute of German Idealisms appears: rational and conceptual all the way down—yet thoroughly biological."
New in review, Christopher Gortmaker on Jensen Suther's True Materialism: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/christopher_...
New in review, Christopher Gortmaker on Jensen Suther's True Materialism: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/christopher_...
October 17, 2025 at 12:37 AM
"What distinguishes Suther’s Hegel is how embodied this most absolute of German Idealisms appears: rational and conceptual all the way down—yet thoroughly biological."
New in review, Christopher Gortmaker on Jensen Suther's True Materialism: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/christopher_...
New in review, Christopher Gortmaker on Jensen Suther's True Materialism: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/christopher_...
Reposted by Critical Inquiry
"He . . . gained his corporate experience with plantation business predicated upon expropriation of inhabited American lands"
From our new issue, Jennifer Rae Greeson's "Thomas Hobbes, the Virginia Company, and the Invention of Corporate Sovereignty": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, Jennifer Rae Greeson's "Thomas Hobbes, the Virginia Company, and the Invention of Corporate Sovereignty": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
October 10, 2025 at 11:37 PM
"He . . . gained his corporate experience with plantation business predicated upon expropriation of inhabited American lands"
From our new issue, Jennifer Rae Greeson's "Thomas Hobbes, the Virginia Company, and the Invention of Corporate Sovereignty": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, Jennifer Rae Greeson's "Thomas Hobbes, the Virginia Company, and the Invention of Corporate Sovereignty": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
"Why, however, must visual reality correspond to actually existing and physically embodied entities and materials?"
From our new issue, read Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan's "The Navigable Image": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan's "The Navigable Image": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
October 14, 2025 at 12:01 AM
"Why, however, must visual reality correspond to actually existing and physically embodied entities and materials?"
From our new issue, read Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan's "The Navigable Image": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan's "The Navigable Image": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....