ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the push-pull between criticality and complicity through the corporatization of universities and the growth of the Women's and Gender Studies (WGS) Ph.D. and then looks at the opportunities “postcritical” and embodied discourses offer for loosening critical’s bind. The political-theoretical genealogy shapes WGS’s critical commitments and links it with identity studies fields such as American Studies, Race and Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies, Disability Studies, and LGBTIQ+ Studies. Although formalized through the term “postcritical,” the mind-body shifts these scholars propose reflect knowledge and concerns articulated by feminists and women of color throughout previous decades. This lacuna in postcritical studies likely indicates the impact of disciplinary boundaries shaping our archives and genealogies. Being critical has enabled much needed interventions in the ideologies deeply lodged into our material, intellectual, and psychic ways of being.
