Critical Inquiry

Critical Inquiry Theory Journal
http://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu
http://critinq.wordpress.com

RIP JOEL SNYDER (COEDITOR, CONTRIBUTOR, AND CONSULTING EDITOR)
06/05/2026

RIP JOEL SNYDER (COEDITOR, CONTRIBUTOR, AND CONSULTING EDITOR)

"The most obvious moral risk centers on one aspect of the 'cardinal distinction' between people and imaginary people: ev...
06/01/2026

"The most obvious moral risk centers on one aspect of the 'cardinal distinction' between people and imaginary people: everything that there is to know about an imaginary person is available in the literary corpus that produces and sustains the imaginary person."

From our Autumn 2007 issue, read Candace Vogler's "The Moral of the Story": https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/526086

"To propose an ecology of images as a project of theoretical inquiry, therefore, Szendy must find an alternative lineage...
05/29/2026

"To propose an ecology of images as a project of theoretical inquiry, therefore, Szendy must find an alternative lineage of interlocutors who unapologetically grant imagery a vital ontological status. But before doing so, he must also explain how contemporary imagery necessitates, and justifies, such a turn."

New in review, Kyle Sossamon on Peter Szendy's For an Ecology of Images, translated by Marco Roth: https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/kyle_sossamon_reviews_for_an_ecology_of_images/

"In short for a photograph to be truly antitheatrical for Barthes it must somehow carry within it a kind of ontological ...
05/22/2026

"In short for a photograph to be truly antitheatrical for Barthes it must somehow carry within it a kind of ontological guarantee that it was not intended to be so by the photographer—a requirement that goes well beyond anything to be found in Diderot or for that matter any eighteenth‐ or nineteenth‐century critic or theorist."

From our Spring 2005 issue, read Michael Fried's "Barthes’s Punctum": https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/430984

"His personal encounters with certain politico-ethical circumstances, be it attending a small ceremonial gathering with ...
05/21/2026

"His personal encounters with certain politico-ethical circumstances, be it attending a small ceremonial gathering with Anishinaabe men in rural Minnesota or receiving a gift from a stranger in Nablus, productively frame the questions through which he engages with Wynter, Said, and Arendt."

New in review, Santasil Mallik on Benjamin P. Davis's Another Humanity: https://criticalinquiry.uchicago.edu/santasil_mallik_reviews_another_humanity/

"A series of milieus is folded into the practice of sonocytology. Each milieu is an array of relations linked to other m...
05/19/2026

"A series of milieus is folded into the practice of sonocytology. Each milieu is an array of relations linked to other milieus. There are the milieus of the scientist, who might be ensconced in a sound- and vibration-free room (manipulating the probe of an AFM, for example) or sitting in front of a computer listening to the sounds of yeast flood from speakers into the lab."

From our Winter 2009 issue, read Sophia Roosth's "Screaming Yeast": https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/596646

"But the disruptive force of such theological polemics lies in the fact that to***co is initially understood not as papi...
05/11/2026

"But the disruptive force of such theological polemics lies in the fact that to***co is initially understood not as papist or even European, but as radically heathen, primitive, and alien. The genealogy connecting to***co and the devil takes us not only through Rome but finally to the New World and its racial otherness."

From our Autumn 2003 issue, read Dennis Kezar's "Shakespeare’s Addictions": https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/380806

"The voice of an orator, or documentarian, enlists and reveals desires, lacks, and longings. It charts a path through th...
05/08/2026

"The voice of an orator, or documentarian, enlists and reveals desires, lacks, and longings. It charts a path through the stuff of the world that gives body to dreams and substance to principles. Speaking, giving voice to a view of the world, makes possible the necessary conditions of visibility to see things anew, to see, as if for the first time, what had, until now, escaped notice."

From our Autumn 2008 issue, read Bill Nichols's "Documentary Reenactment and the Fantasmatic Subject": https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/595629

Address

Chicago, IL

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 4:30pm
Tuesday 9am - 4:30pm
Wednesday 9am - 4:30pm
Thursday 9am - 4:30pm
Friday 9am - 4:30pm

Telephone

+17737025842

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Critical Inquiry posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Critical Inquiry:

Shortcuts

Featured

Share

Category