After Critique

« Institutional critique and after explores the history and contemporary reassessment of the Institutional Critique movement lauched in the late 1960s, redeveloped in the 1980s, and vigorously reoriented in recent years to address issues such as globalization. In this publication, the histories, theories, diverse locations, and different kinds of institutional alternative space are investigated, looking at traditional forms of art but also at installation, performance, new media practices, and cultural activism. Its central questions turn on the critical potential of art (and institutions) and whether–and if so how–they can stimulate social or political change. »--

I want to be direct, my name is Greg. I go by “Onision” online. This book is made up of events that occurred in my own life mixed with fiction from the made up life of James. James is essentially a better version of myself. His home, his school & his life all resemble my own at his age. The people James analyzes and is surrounded by are not so unlike those I’ve known as well. I have experienced much of the loss James has however his happier moments are more often than not also mine. I want to share my story without it being purely non-fiction. I simply felt this approach would make for a far better book. Stones to Abbigale is not just my book, it is a piece of who I am.

Periodizing contemporary fiction against the backdrop of neoliberalism, After Critique identifies a notable turn away from progressive politics among a cadre of key twenty-first-century authors. Through authoritative readings of foundational texts from writers such as Percival Everett, Helena Viramontes, Uzodinma Iweala, Colson Whitehead, Tom McCarthy, and David Foster Wallace, Huehls charts a distinct move away from standard forms of political critique grounded in rights discourse, ideological demystification, and the identification of injustice and inequality. The authors discussed in After Critique register the decline of a conventional leftist politics, and in many ways even capitulate to its demise. As Huehls explains, however, such capitulation should actually be understood as contemporary U.S. fiction's concerted attempt to reconfigure the nature of politics from within the neoliberal beast. While it's easy to dismiss this as post-ideological fantasy, Huehls draws on an array of diverse scholarship--most notably the work of Bruno Latour--to suggest that an entirely new form of politics is emerging, both because of and in response to neoliberalism. Arguing that we must stop thinking of neoliberalism as a set of norms, ideological beliefs, or market principles that can be countered with a more just set of norms, beliefs, and principles, Huehls instead insists that we must start to appreciate neoliberalism as a post-normative ontological phenomenon. That is, it's not something that requires us to think or act a certain way; it's something that requires us to be in and occupy space in a certain way. This provocative treatment of neoliberalism in turn allows After Critique to reimagine our understanding of contemporary fiction and the political possibilities it envisions.

Presenting different ways to imagine criticism without critique, this collection provides a survey of both the difficult times facing ideological critique and the ways in which literary criticism and aesthetics have been affected by changing attitudes toward critique.

A powerful novel about friendship, basketball, and one teen's mission to create a better life for his family. Written in the tradition of Jason Reynolds, Matt de la Pe a, and Walter Dean Myers, After the Shot Drops now has three starred reviews * "Belongs on the shelf alongside contemporary heavy-hitters like Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give, Brendan Kiely and Jason Reynolds's All-American Boys, and Nic Stone's Dear Martin."--School Library Journal, starred review Bunny and Nasir have been best friends forever, but when Bunny accepts an athletic scholarship across town, Nasir feels betrayed. While Bunny tries to fit in with his new, privileged peers, Nasir spends more time with his cousin, Wallace, who is being evicted. Nasir can't help but wonder why the neighborhood is falling over itself to help Bunny when Wallace is in trouble. When Wallace makes a bet against Bunny, Nasir is faced with an impossible decision--maybe a dangerous one. Told from alternating perspectives, After the Shot Drops is a heart-pounding story about the responsibilities of great talent and the importance of compassion.

Presenting different ways to imagine criticism without critique, this collection provides a survey of both the difficult times facing ideological critique and the ways in which literary criticism and aesthetics have been affected by changing attitudes toward critique.

Until she was 15, Natalie Ward believed her world was perfect and that her family would always be together on the small dairy farm carved out of a remote mountain valley in Southern British Columbia. Then came River, the American draft dodger who became her family’s hired hand the summer that a new highway opened the valley to the larger world beyond. But thirty-five years after River’s arrival, the Ward family is shattered. With her mother dying, Natalie must return to the home she has spent her entire adult life running from, as the family’s dark secrets and betrayals threaten to scar a new generation. Evoking Mary Lawson’s Crow Lake and Carol Shields’ Unless, Milner renders characters who are achingly human and plots a story with masterful precision. After River eloquently captures the moral and social upheavals of the late ’60s and marks the emergence of a dazzling Canadian talent.

This body of work provides detailed information on the nature of the fire problem for policymakers who must decide on allocations of resources between fire and other pressing problems, and within the fire service to improve codes and code enforcement, training, public fire education, building technology, and other related areas.