Critique, Postcritique and Libraries

This paper, adopting a perspective from the recent literature of “postcritique”, finds that criticism in librarianship can be constructively supplemented with other methodological approaches. Instead of exclusively using criticism to analyze, dismantle and find fault with texts, librarianship can expand its perspectives to find new reparative possibilities of care. Following the work of Nicholas Holm, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Bruno Latour, Rita Felski and others, we can see that while criticism has thrived as a disposition in librarianship and elsewhere, recent scholarly interventions suggest that it is not the only possible approach. This paper ultimately argues that a postcritical disposition can sit alongside a critical disposition, not as a replacement, but as an additive.