Abstract
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick identified two opposing approaches to critical analysis in her 2002 essay “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re so Paranoid, You Probably Think this Essay is About You”. For Sedgwick, a paranoid reading involves reading/looking with the intention of finding cracks or flaws in a work that can be defined and attacked. Conversely, she loosely defines a reparative reading as one in which criticism involves a rigorous search for imaginative edification and expansive knowledge through analysis. My paper takes this dynamic that Sedgwick proposes and examines how these two types of readings might come into play in the pedagogy of the critique, specifically in the college classroom. While a paranoid reading is generally praised in academia as highly rigorous, I propose that a reparative reading might be a more effective educational tool towards empowering students to activate their most authentic selves in order to produce their richest artworks. My questions: how exactly does Sedgwick define a reparative reading, and how might this manifest in a critique setting? How might a reparative critique mode operate to generate and occasion a high level of academic rigor? How does a practice of reparative critique change a student’s approach to making? Using my own experiences in higher education, along with Sedgwick’s captivating theory, I articulate an inventive approach to critique that pushes against colonial notions of academic achievement, towards an understanding of critique that fosters students’ wholeness as a path toward creative excellence.
Presenters
Karah LainAssociate Professor of Visual Art in Painting and Drawing, Point Loma Nazarene University, California, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
2025 Special Focus—The Art of Hospitality
KEYWORDS
Critique, Pedagogy, Hospitality, Queer Theory
