Alternative al poststrutturalismo: il fanciullo di Warburg, la critica di Benjamin, e il beneficio della distanza

This essay contribute to the current debate on “postcritique" in literary studies and responds to the widely felt need to move beyond the (largely) poststructuralist view of the critical act as a gesture of deconstruction and dismantling, aimed at unveiling relations of power (also referred to as "critique"). While attempts to overcome poststructuralism still encourage productive resonances between literature and philosophy, which has been a hallmark of critique, I caution against a newly reaffirmed division of labor among the disciplines. Within this context of the current climate of rejection of critique, especially in the Anglo-American world, I turn to Benjamin to suggest that the German philosopher-critic can remind us of an ampler view of critique, one that is not limited, as the postcritical turn would have it, to an attitude of againstness, but instead is defined by the production of distance, even at the cost of self-displacement. Drawing on a connection with Aby Warburg, I propose that the production of distance is being re-translated today in broader geographical and cultural terms. I offer as an example the work of Roberto Esposito, who redraws European philosophies as a movement toward the outside and connects with questions of critical method that are being raised globally.