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.
"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....
"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....
"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_...
"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....
"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_...
"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....
"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_...
"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....
"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....
"As Holland points out in his impressive excavation of the archives, Derrida did not want to sacrifice or stain his own experience as a cinematic spectator."
New in review, Erin Graff Zivin on Timothy Holland's The Traces of Jacques Derrida’s Cinema: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/erin_graff_z...
New in review, Erin Graff Zivin on Timothy Holland's The Traces of Jacques Derrida’s Cinema: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/erin_graff_z...
October 10, 2025 at 12:08 AM
"As Holland points out in his impressive excavation of the archives, Derrida did not want to sacrifice or stain his own experience as a cinematic spectator."
New in review, Erin Graff Zivin on Timothy Holland's The Traces of Jacques Derrida’s Cinema: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/erin_graff_z...
New in review, Erin Graff Zivin on Timothy Holland's The Traces of Jacques Derrida’s Cinema: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/erin_graff_z...
"Cavendish espouses a materialist universe but habitually ponders, hypothesizes, and imagines how individual creatures might escape finite embodiment."
From our new issue, read Anne M. Thell's "'I Am Restless to Live, As Nature Doth'": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Anne M. Thell's "'I Am Restless to Live, As Nature Doth'": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
October 6, 2025 at 11:44 PM
"Cavendish espouses a materialist universe but habitually ponders, hypothesizes, and imagines how individual creatures might escape finite embodiment."
From our new issue, read Anne M. Thell's "'I Am Restless to Live, As Nature Doth'": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Anne M. Thell's "'I Am Restless to Live, As Nature Doth'": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
"Jacobson promotes an unsettled perspective on the relationship between the film text and its mode of production."
New in review, Parker Stenseth on Brian Jacobson's The Cinema of Extractions, from @columbiaup.bsky.social: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/parker_stens...
New in review, Parker Stenseth on Brian Jacobson's The Cinema of Extractions, from @columbiaup.bsky.social: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/parker_stens...
October 3, 2025 at 9:54 PM
"Jacobson promotes an unsettled perspective on the relationship between the film text and its mode of production."
New in review, Parker Stenseth on Brian Jacobson's The Cinema of Extractions, from @columbiaup.bsky.social: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/parker_stens...
New in review, Parker Stenseth on Brian Jacobson's The Cinema of Extractions, from @columbiaup.bsky.social: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/parker_stens...
"With an emotional register ranging from petulance to narcissistic neediness, the book dissects the field of the minor affects with discomfiting precision."
New in review, Tan Lin on Steven Zultanski's Help: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/tan_lin_revi...
New in review, Tan Lin on Steven Zultanski's Help: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/tan_lin_revi...
September 24, 2025 at 11:20 PM
"With an emotional register ranging from petulance to narcissistic neediness, the book dissects the field of the minor affects with discomfiting precision."
New in review, Tan Lin on Steven Zultanski's Help: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/tan_lin_revi...
New in review, Tan Lin on Steven Zultanski's Help: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/tan_lin_revi...
"Machine listening systems already operate across national borders. They are already computationally posthuman—already, in a sense, postsovereignty."
From our new issue, read James E. K. Parker's "The Planetization of Machine Listening": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read James E. K. Parker's "The Planetization of Machine Listening": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
September 23, 2025 at 12:07 AM
"Machine listening systems already operate across national borders. They are already computationally posthuman—already, in a sense, postsovereignty."
From our new issue, read James E. K. Parker's "The Planetization of Machine Listening": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read James E. K. Parker's "The Planetization of Machine Listening": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
"Caressing and invading his ears, Panzacchi’s aural and visual sensations . . . all evolve into what, combined with his envy, boils down to a 'mad' castration desire."
From our new issue, read Martha Feldman's "Vocal Deliriums (Five Proposals)": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Martha Feldman's "Vocal Deliriums (Five Proposals)": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
September 19, 2025 at 10:38 PM
"Caressing and invading his ears, Panzacchi’s aural and visual sensations . . . all evolve into what, combined with his envy, boils down to a 'mad' castration desire."
From our new issue, read Martha Feldman's "Vocal Deliriums (Five Proposals)": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our new issue, read Martha Feldman's "Vocal Deliriums (Five Proposals)": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
"Talisse envisions civic solitude as enabling citizens to step back from political noise and garner the reflective clarity necessary for responsible democratic engagement."
New in review, Karl Baldacchino on Robert B. Talisse's Civic Solitude: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/karl_baldacc...
New in review, Karl Baldacchino on Robert B. Talisse's Civic Solitude: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/karl_baldacc...
September 18, 2025 at 11:33 PM
"Talisse envisions civic solitude as enabling citizens to step back from political noise and garner the reflective clarity necessary for responsible democratic engagement."
New in review, Karl Baldacchino on Robert B. Talisse's Civic Solitude: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/karl_baldacc...
New in review, Karl Baldacchino on Robert B. Talisse's Civic Solitude: criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/karl_baldacc...
Autumn 2025 issue is out! Read articles by Martha Feldman, James E. K. Parker, Anne M. Thell, Jennifer Rae Greeson, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, Wendy Anne Lee, and Brian Massumi.
criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/past_issues/...
criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/past_issues/...
September 18, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Autumn 2025 issue is out! Read articles by Martha Feldman, James E. K. Parker, Anne M. Thell, Jennifer Rae Greeson, Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, Wendy Anne Lee, and Brian Massumi.
criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/past_issues/...
criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/past_issues/...
"His celebration . . . of Pissarro and Malevich, two modern artists beholden to the anarchist tradition, is an unequivocal acknowledgment."
From our Summer 2002 issue, read O. K. Werckmeister's "A Critique of T. J. Clark’s Farewell to an Idea": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Summer 2002 issue, read O. K. Werckmeister's "A Critique of T. J. Clark’s Farewell to an Idea": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
September 16, 2025 at 12:16 AM
"His celebration . . . of Pissarro and Malevich, two modern artists beholden to the anarchist tradition, is an unequivocal acknowledgment."
From our Summer 2002 issue, read O. K. Werckmeister's "A Critique of T. J. Clark’s Farewell to an Idea": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....
From our Summer 2002 issue, read O. K. Werckmeister's "A Critique of T. J. Clark’s Farewell to an Idea": www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10....