Speculative Critique: Saidiya Hartman, Michel Foucault, and the Limits of the Archive.
This article proposes a dialogue between Saidiya Hartman's and Michel Foucault's concept of critique, with the aim of contributing to a broader rethinking of critical practice and theory. While Hartman's work has become central to contemporary debates in Black Studies and beyond, its implications fo...
| Published in: | Foucault Studies no. 39; pp. 219 - 240 |
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| Format: | Article |
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University of Pennsylvania Press
Spring2026
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=193853642&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 193853642 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 18325203 1COW jtl: Foucault Studies issn: 18325203 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Spring2026 iid: 39 pid: 4636 pub: University of Pennsylvania Press artinfo: ui: 193853642 10.1353/fou.00035 ppf: 219 ppct: 21 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 898KB tig: atl: Speculative Critique: Saidiya Hartman, Michel Foucault, and the Limits of the Archive. aug: au: SCHRÖDER, MIRIAM affil: Institute for Social Research Frankfurt, Germany su: Archives Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984 African American history Critical analysis Poststructuralism sug: subj: Archives Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984 African American history Critical analysis Poststructuralism keyword: archive critical fabulation critique epistemology speculation ab: This article proposes a dialogue between Saidiya Hartman's and Michel Foucault's concept of critique, with the aim of contributing to a broader rethinking of critical practice and theory. While Hartman's work has become central to contemporary debates in Black Studies and beyond, its implications for the practice of critique--particularly in relation to Foucault--remain underexplored. I argue that Hartman's speculative reconstruction of lives obscured or erased by the colonial archive constitutes not a departure from critique, but a reconfiguration of it. I demonstrate that her practice of critical fabulation--what I term speculative critique--generates, like Foucault's critique, a counter-knowledge that is targeted against the dominant regime of truth. However, Hartman pushes further than Foucault by deliberately moving beyond the limits of the archive. This speculative dimension of critique illuminates the specific historical and political problem Hartman's critique is concerned with. At the same time, it invites a broader rethinking of critique. In the final part of the article, I will thus argue that Hartman's speculative critique unsettles the opposition of negative and affirmative critique by articulating a double movement of critique, in which negation cannot be discerned from the generative work of imagining the otherwise. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Foucault Studies is the property of University of Pennsylvania Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Foucault Studies holder: University of Pennsylvania Press dt: @attributes: year: 2026 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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