Abstract

By drawing from Rita Felski's innovative theoretical framework, one that seeks to exit the paradigms of "againstness" (Felski 2015, 17), hegemonic in critical theories of the humanities, this essay proposes a genealogy of postcritique that seeks to rethink power. By deliberately assembling different theoretical traditions, the essay aims at establishing a genealogical nexus between the feminist tradition of the thought of sexual difference and Hannah Arendt, as possible creative sources for thinking of power in a generative way, outside the frames of both domination and subjection. This task is one with the need of an "affective realignment", perceived as theoretically and politically necessary in order to discard the negativist attitude of most critical theory, which, in the end, seems to confirm and contribute to the maintenance of the "status quo".