Thinking, Feeling, Reading: On Methodologies in Scholarship on Malaysian Literature in English

Abstract

This essay is aboutthe production of scholarship on Malaysian literature in English. On the premise that existing readings of Malaysian texts arelargely based on the methodology of critique, it proposes that the emerging model of reading known as postcritique has the potential to contribute to the further diversification of scholarship on said literature. To illustrateits potential,postcritiqueis put to work on Lee Kok Liang’s classic novel, Flowers in the Sky, leading to the argumentthat negative aesthetics is the hitherto unacknowledged strength of the text and that coming into knowledge of this value requires the reader tonot only think but also feel his way through the act of readingand meaning-making.