Realität ist schlichtweg das Unverdächtige: On Blumenberg and Critical Affect
Blumenberg’s “Wirklichkeitsbegriff und Möglichkeit des Romans” (1964) expounds a modern concept of reality as what resists our grasp, a successor to an earlier concept of reality as what is secured by a guarantee. Blumenberg’s analysis of reality as resistance illuminates the bottomless suspicion that motivates critique, along with the critical affects catalogued by Eve Sedgwick and Rita Felski—including triumphalism, “smartness”, and self-satisfaction.