In «Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading,» Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick takes to task Western critique for its tendency to be based on, even be synonymous with, suspicion. She characterizes it as foremost aiming to expose, believing – as does paranoia – that such an exposure will protect it from threat. Sedgwick laments the loss of other affective modes in theory that might aim to repair. She observes that these often aren’t taken seriously, are seen as naïve or complaisant. In her essay, Sedgwick attempts to expose (paradoxically, she herself admits) paranoia, to describe and understand its mechanisms, and asks what a critique would look like that would turn around the logic of the sentence: «Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean you don’t have enemies» (based on a quote by Henry Kissinger) to «Just because you have enemies, doesn’t mean you have to be paranoid». I was intrigued by the notion Sedgwick names «reparative reading,» a concept that remains obscure in her text, but involves a turn away from protocols in critique such as maintaining an «objective» distance, subsuming phenomena under one term or rehashing well-established theories. The text resonated with questions I had around the politics of positioning oneself – for, alongside, against another, perhaps even against oneself – in critical practices such as writing.

In 2003, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick published the essay «Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading. Or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Essay Is About You» as part of the anthology Touching Feeling. Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity. In it, Sedgwick asks why Western critique operates mostly with paranoid readings, readings that aim to expose hidden violent structures, and suggests a «reparative» approach that focusses not only on what is being written, or said, or done but how and to what end. The text was a starting point for Geraldine Tedder’s essay «You Are Probably Completely Oblivious That This Text Actually Is About You» and will kick off a series of texts in line with Sedgwick’s thinking as to what it might or might not mean to read and write «reparatively».

Der Comic ist eine Replik auf die Ausstellungsbesprechung «Tobias Kaspars Unabhängigkeit» von Inka Meißner, die anlässlich der Ausstellung «Independence» (2018) in der Kunsthalle Bern auf Brand-New-Life veröffentlicht wurde. Der Titel zitiert eine Passage aus Stephan Geenes ebenfalls auf Brand-New-Life veröffentlichtem Text «the gift of critical insight».