Affirmative critique beyond negative critique

In this presentation, Professor Dorthe Staunæs will workshop her idea of affirmative critique. She draws on an analysis of a major Danish controversy on alleged “excessive academic activism” and “pseudo-research”. The notion of critique was co-opted in this controversy by the fare-out right-wing anti-gender movements and used to attack proponents of gender studies among others. Simultaneously, these movements invoked freedom of speech at the expense of academic freedom. Subsequently, Staunæs and others developed an alternative notion and practice of critique by formulating ten dogmas of affirmative critique to pave the way for an affir­mative critique and academic freedom.

Dorthe Staunæs (she/her), Ph.D. and MSc in social psychology, is a professor at the Danish School of Education (DPU), Aarhus University, and has conducted research on diversity and leadership/policy for 25 years, with a particular focus on affect and intersectional subject formations in education. She is currently concluding the research projects Diversity Work as Mood Work and Affective Investments in Diversity Work in STEM. New projects investigate diversity pedagogy and diversity leadership across art academies, STEM, and professional education programs, viewed from both sides of a colonial relationship. An ongoing interest revolves around learning from regenerative leadership and exploring how more-than-human relations and entangled species (e.g., horses and humans) can become central to learning and leading social and epistemic diversity. Methodologically her work draws upon feminist new materialist, black feminist and more-than-human approaches.

Staunæs, D., Raffnsøe, S., & Brøgger, K. (2025). Affirmative critique as counter-archiving and an-archiving: For another academic freedom to come. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2025.2500373

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