Critique, Tweaked

Four recent monographs argue, in various ways, that the paradigm of critique is still a useful one for scholars to inhabit. Taken as a group, these authors broadly address the issues of how, and with what results, popular culture upholds hegemonic ideologies, and, by extension, whether the consumption of popular culture ought still to count as a guilty pleasure. Such questions are clearly related to the scholarly practice of studying popular culture by critiquing its ideological axioms. While these books all engage the problems with critique that have given rise to a contemporary postcritique movement, all ultimately conclude that key elements of critique remain useful as keystones of the study of literature and culture.