Appreciation After Critique

Abstract: Long belittled as a sentiment that makes no measurable contribution to knowledge, appreciation is being reclaimed today. Postcritical writers, in particular, have turned appreciation into a model affect for how literary scholars relate to their objects of study. They have been empowered to do so by the flat ontologies associated with such thinkers as Graham Harman, Jane Bennett, and especially Bruno Latour. This essay argues that leaning on flat ontologies to rethink our relationship to aesthetic objects has led a significant number of postcritical scholars to flirt with the possibility of escape: escape from the fact that all seekers of knowledge are embodied and situated individuals and therefore different from the objects they investigate. In suggesting an escape from such difference, postcritical writers shirk ethical and political responsibilities that are central to the legitimacy of our disciplinary practices. Postcritical appreciation can have a more promising future, the essay concludes, when we heed the lessons of Donna Haraway and Hans-Georg Gadamer, who have proposed models for relating to objects that avoid the alternatives of detachment and attachment and can renew the commitment to objectivity in the humanities.