In Spite of Our Times: Critical Theory as the Untimely
Rosi Braidotti

This lecture addresses the paradox of critical theory in a global era, namely how to resist the injustices and violence of the present, while engaging productively with the conditions of the present, so as to transform them. The paper explores the multiple temporal facets of critical theory by building an argument for the transformative politics of affirmation. The context in which this case is made is the so-called ‘post-human’ turn in contemporary theory. The paper explores this context in the light of three main considerations: firstly, the shifting perception and understanding of ‘the human’ in the life sciences. Secondly, the effects of globalization as a system that functions by instilling processes of ‘timeless time’ and perverse, multiple time-lines into our social life. Thirdly, the impact of wars and conflicts in contemporary governmentality and the new forms of discrimination they engender on a planetary scale. Last but not least, the lecture examines the implications of this complex web of intersecting temporalities for progressive, affirmative politics in general and feminist issues in particular.