A wide-ranging reading of Freud's work, this book focuses on Freud's scientifically discredited ideas about inherited memory in relation both to poststructuralist debates about mourning, and to certain uncanny figurative traits in his writing. "Freud's Memory" argues for an enriched understanding of the strangenesses in Freud rather than any denunciation of psychoanalysis as a bogus explanatory method.

The series presents historical and systematic studies on the philosophy of Alexius Meinong and his school, as well as on works influenced by aspects of Meinong's philosophy. Furthermore, the series is open to contributions in the analytic-phenomenological tradition, mirroring the most recent developments in these disciplines.

In May 1975, Michel Foucault took LSD in the desert in southern California. He described it as the most important event of his life which would lead him to completely rework his History of Sexuality. His focus now would not be on power relations but on the experiments of subjectivity, and the care of the self. Through this lens he would reinterpret the social movements of May 68 and position himself politically in France in relation to the emergent ant-totalitarian and anti-welfare state currents. He would also come to appreciate the possibilities of autonomy offered by a new force on the French political scene that was neither of the Left nor the Right: neoliberalism.

This volume gathers papers, which were read at the congress held at the University of Castilla-La Mancha in Toledo (Spain), in September 2007, under the general subject of phenomenology. The book is devoted to Wittgenstein's thoughts on phenomenology. One of its aims is to consider and examine the lasting importance of phenomenology for philosophic discussion. For E. Husserl phenomenology was a discipline that endeavoured to describe how the world is constituted and experienced through a series of conscious acts. His fundamental concept was that of intentional consciousness. What did drag Wittgenstein into working on phenomenology? In his 'middle period' work, Wittgenstein used the headline 'Phenomenology is Grammar'. These cornerstones can be signalled by notions like language, grammar, rule, visual space versus Euclidean space, minima visibilia and colours. L. Wittgenstein's main interest takes the form of a research on language.

No democracy without deconstruction. Deconstruction and Democracy evaluates and substantiates Derrida's provocative claim, assessing the importance of this influential and controversial contemporary philosopher's work for political thought. Derrida addressed political questions more and more explicitly in his writing, yet there is still confusion over the politics of deconstruction. Alex Thomson argues for a fresh understanding of Derrida's work, which acknowledges both the political dimension of deconstruction and its potential contribution to our thinking about politics. The book provides cogent analysis and exegesis of Derrida's political writings; explores the implications for political theory and practice of Derrida's work; and brings Derrida's work into dialogue with other major strands of contemporary political thought. Deconstruction and Democracy is the clearest and most detailed engagement available with the politics of deconstruction, and is a major contribution to scholarship on the later works of Jacques Derrida, most notably his Politics of Friendship.

The work of Jacques Derrida has been of singular importance in the development of contemporary political theory and political philosophy, being a major influence and inspiration to Slavoj Zizek, Richard Rorty, Ernesto Laclau, Judith Butler and many more contemporary thinkers. This text brings together a truly first class line up of Derrida scholars who are developing a deconstructive approach to politics. Deconstruction is an immanent critique, looking at the internal logic of any given text or discourse, revealing how particular concepts are established as authoritative principles through a variety of textual and rhetorical devices. A deconstructive reading would then expose how an apparently authoritative concept, when looked at closely, is contradictory and contingent on a host of external relations - with the effect of undermining the force of the text or discourse from which the concept originates. Such a critical method has proved revolutionary in much political analysis, particularly ideology critique.

Nicholas Rescher was born in Germany in 1928 and emigrated to the United States shortly before the outbreak of World War II. After training in philosophy at Princeton University he embarked on a long and active career as professor, lecturer, and writer. His many books on a wide variety of philosophical topics have established him as one of the most productive and versatile contributors to 20th century philosophical thought, combining historical and analytical investigators to articulate an amalgam of German idealism with American pragmatism. The book accordingly has two dimensions, both as a contribution to German-American cultural interaction and as a contribution to the history of philosophical ideas

Explorations of Deleuze's work by pioneering thinkers from philosophy, aesthetics, music, and architecture. A collection of explorations of the work of Gilles Deleuze by pioneering thinkers in the fields of philosophy, aesthetics, music, and architecture. The volume also includes a previously untranslated early text by Deleuze and a short interview, along with a fascinating piece of vintage science fiction from one of his more obscure influences. The contributors to this volume aim to clarify, from a variety of perspectives, Deleuze's contribution to philosophy: in what does his philosophical originality lie; what does he appropriate from other philosophers and how does he transform it? And how can the apparently disparate threads of his work to be "integrated"-What is the precise nature of the constellation of the aesthetic, the conceptual and the political proposed by Gilles Deleuze, and what are the overarching problems in which the numerous philosophical concepts "signed Deleuze" converge? As an annex to the second volume of Collapse, this volume also include a full transcript of the workshop on "Speculative Realism" held in London in 2007.

What can systematic philosophy contribute to come from conflict between cultures to a substantial dialogue? - This question was the general theme of the 29th international symposium of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society in Kirchberg. Worldwide leading philosophers accepted the invitation to come to the conference, whose results are published in this volume, edited by Christian Kanzian Edmund Runggaldier. The sections are dedicated to the philosophy of Wittgenstein, Logics and Philosophy of Language, Decision- and Action Theory, Ethical Aspects of the Intercultural Dialogue, Intercultural Dialogue, and last not least to Social Ontology. Our edition include (among others) contributions authored by Peter Hacker, Jennifer Hornsby, John Hyman, Michael Kober, Richard Rorty, Hans Rott, Gerhard Schurz, Barry Smith, Pirmin Stekeler-Weithofer, Franz Wimmer, and Kwasi Wiredu.

Desde sus inicios, los estudios feministas se han caracterizado por el cruce fecundo de disciplinas intelectuales diversas, un analisis critico de la codificacion patriarcal de los saberes recibidos y la apuesta por el desarrollo de un proyecto politico. Un envite que Rosi Braidotti retoma con nuevo vigor en este ambicioso libro. La autora arranca de su concepcion filosofica de la diferencia sexual elaborada a traves de la discusion con la obra de Gilles Deleuze y Luce Irigaray. A partir de este paradigma, enjuicia severamente tanto las lecturas mas complacientes y mutiladoras que se hacen de estos autores como toda una serie de conceptos fraguados en la celebracion posmoderna de la disolucion del sujeto, la ausencia de certezas absolutas, la idealizacion de las transformaciones provocadas por el desarrollo de las nuevas tecnologias y la fuga aparente de los dualismos. Su objetivo es encontrar representaciones y figuraciones que realmente sirvan para transformar la realidad social en vez de contentarse con las fragiles apariencias y celebraciones gratuitas de la critica cultural posmoderna. En "Metamorfosis," la etica, la sexualidad, la tecnologia, la carne, la sostenibilidad, el deseo y la especificidad historica son los vectores del devenir del sujeto politico en los albores del milenio.

Essential reading for scholars and students in critical theory, psychoanalysis, and gender studies.
How does the self care for itself in the posthumanist era? What psychic processes might allow the postmodern subject to find meaning and value in its life? Is it possible to delineate a theory of psychic potentiality that is compatible with poststructuralist models of fluid, decentered, and polyvalent subjectivity?
"Reinventing the Soul" offers a new perspective on what it means to be a human being and to strive in the world despite the wounding effects of the socialization process. Drawing on the rich legacies of French poststructuralism and Lacanian psychoanalysis, Ruti builds an affirmative alternative to the post-Foucaultian tendency to envision subjectivity as a function of hegemonic systems of power. She proposes that the subject's encounter with the world also necessarily activates the psyche's innovative potential. By focusing on matters of creative agency, imaginative empowerment, inner metamorphosis, and self-actualization, Ruti outlines some of the mechanisms by which the psyche manages not only to survive its lack, alienation, or suffering, but also to transform its abjection into an existentially livable reality. Central to Ruti's argument is the idea that human beings relate to the world in active rather than merely passive ways--as dynamic creators of meaning rather than as powerless dupes of disciplinary power.

This topical study examines the 'novelizations' of radical literary theory in the work of A.S. Byatt, Angela Carter, Umberto Eco, John Fowles, Richard Powers and many other leading novelists. It offers a comprehensive analysis of the 'post-theoretical novel', and traces an alternative history of the 'theory revolution' in recent literary fiction.

Globalization and consumerism are two of the buzzwords of the early twenty-first century. In Consuming Cultures, renowned scholars explore the links between modernity and consumption. The book fills a gap in contemporary thinking on the subject by approaching it from a truly global point-of-view. It draws on case studies from around the world, with Africa, Asia and Central America featuring as prominently as Western countries. A transnational perspective allows the authors to investigate the diversity of consumer cultures and the interaction between them. The authors look at the genealogy of the modern consumer and the development of consumer cultures, from the porcelain trade and consumption in Britain and China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to post Second World War developments in America and Japan, and the contemporary consumer politics of cosmopolitan citizenship. Challenging and pioneering, Consuming Cultures problematizes popular accounts of globalization and consumerism, decentring the West and concentrating on putting history back into these accounts.

Globalization and consumerism are two of the buzzwords of the early twenty-first century. In Consuming Cultures, renowned scholars explore the links between modernity and consumption. The book fills a gap in contemporary thinking on the subject by approaching it from a truly global point-of-view. It draws on case studies from around the world, with Africa, Asia and Central America featuring as prominently as Western countries. A transnational perspective allows the authors to investigate the diversity of consumer cultures and the interaction between them. The authors look at the genealogy of the modern consumer and the development of consumer cultures, from the porcelain trade and consumption in Britain and China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to post Second World War developments in America and Japan, and the contemporary consumer politics of cosmopolitan citizenship. Challenging and pioneering, Consuming Cultures problematizes popular accounts of globalization and consumerism, decentring the West and concentrating on putting history back into these accounts.

Derrida's claim that 'without deconstruction there can be no responsible political thought' is one of his most provocative, and one that even his most vocal admirers have been reluctant to endorse fully. Deconstruction and Democracy evaluates and substantiates Derrida's assertion, assessing the importance of this eminent contemporary philosopher's work for political thought. From the early 1980s onwards, Derrida has addressed political subjects more and more explicitly; here Alex Thomson argues that the time has come for a fresh understanding of deconstruction -- one that acknowledges its relevance for, and potential contribution to, political thinking. The book provides cogent analysis and exegesis of Derrida's often rather abstruse and impenetrable political writings; explores the implications for political theory and practice of Derrida's work; and brings Derrida's work into dialogue with other major strands of contemporary political thought. Deconstruction and Democracy is the clearest and most detailed engagement available with the politics of deconstruction, and is a major contribution to scholarship on the later work of Jacques Derrida, most notably his Politics of Friendship.

The second international Chromatiques whiteheadiennes conference was devoted exclusively to the exegesis and contextualization of Whitehead's Science and the Modern World (1925). In order to elucidate the meaning and significance of this epoch-making work, the Proceedings are designed to form "companion" volume. With one paper devoted to each of its thirteen chapters, the Proceedings aim, on the one hand, to identify the specific contribution of each chapter to Whitehead's own research program - that is to say, to put its categories into perspective by means of an internal analysis- and, on the other hand, to identify its global impact in the history of ideas.

Nationality Between Poststructuralism and Postcolonial Theory: A New Cosmopolitanism examines and interrogates recent work on nationality in literal, critical and cultural theory. Focusing on the work of Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari, Kristeva, Spivak, and Bhabha, it explores how, for these theorists, the concepts of community, the new International, nomadism, deterritorialization, cosmopolitanism, hospitality, the native informant, hybridity and postcolonial agency can provoke a different understanding of national identity.

A former student and collaborator of Jacques Derrida, Catherine Malabou has generated worldwide acclaim for her progressive rethinking of postmodern, Derridean critique. Building on her notion of plasticity, a term she originally borrowed from Hegel's "Phenomenology of Spirit" and adapted to a reading of Hegel's own work, Malabou transforms our understanding of the political and the religious, revealing the malleable nature of these concepts and their openness to positive reinvention.

In French to describe something as plastic is to recognize both its flexibility and its explosiveness-its capacity not only to receive and give form but to annihilate it as well. After defining plasticity in terms of its active embodiments, Malabou applies the notion to the work of Hegel, Heidegger, Levinas, Levi-Strauss, Freud, and Derrida, recasting their writing as a process of change (rather than mediation) between dialectic and deconstruction. Malabou contrasts plasticity against the graphic element of Derrida's work and the notion of trace in Derrida and Levinas, arguing that plasticity refers to sculptural forms that accommodate or express a trace. She then expands this analysis to the realms of politics and religion, claiming, against Derrida, that "the event" of justice and democracy is not fixed but susceptible to human action.

This volume, now with a substantial new Introduction, represents one of the most lucid, compact and reliable introductions to Derrida and deconstruction available in any language. Responding to questions put to him at a roundtable held at Villanova University in 1994, Jacques Derrida leads the reader through an illuminating discussion of the central themes of deconstruction. Speaking in English and extemporaneously, Derrida takes up with unusual clarity and great eloquence such topics as the task of philosophy, the Greeks, justice, responsibility, the gift, community, and the messianic. Derrida refutes the charges of relativism that are often leveled at deconstruction by its critics and sets forth the profoundly affirmative and ethico-political thrust of his work. The roundtable is marked by an unusual clarity that continues into the second part of the book, in which one of Derrida's most influential readers, John D. Caputo, elaborates upon Derrida's comments and supplies material for further discussion. This edition also includes a substantial new Introduction by Caputo that discusses the original context of the book and traces the development of deconstruction since Derrida's death in 2004, from the rise of new materialisms to return to religion. Long one of the most lucid and reliable introductions to Derrida and deconstruction available in any language, and an ideal volume for students, Deconstruction in a Nutshell will also prove illuminating for those already familiar with Derrida's work.

Ideology is one of the most hotly disputed terms in the lexicon of social and political theory. It continues to generate intellectual dispute more than 200 years after its birth in the fervour of the French Revolution. The most recent battle-lines around the idea of ideology have formed in the aftermath of the strident critique of ideology launched by post-structuralists such as Foucault and Deleuze. Their claim that "there is no such thing as ideology" has created a theoretical environment which polarizes critical opinion either for or against ideology.;This work aims to break with this culture of antagonism by bringing together leading scholars in the field to establish a dialogue between post-structuralism and ideology critique. For the post-structuralists there is a need to generate a sensitive account of ideology so as to bolster their claim that they have a significant contribution to make to social and political criticism. For the ideology theorists there is a need to engage with the post-structuralist critique of ideology without taking the assumptions that post-structuralists have so thoroughly criticized. The essays in this book aim to show how the intellectual posturing

What is man? Judith Still examines Derrida's contribution to this long-standing philosophical and political debate, which has typically evoked a significant division between human beings and other animals. Derrida pays close attention to how animals are used to explore humanity in a range of writings, including fables and fiction. This leads to ethical questions about how humans treat animals: sacrificing animals (say, in factory farms) while extending love to pets. And it leads to political questions about how we dehumanise 'outsiders', from historical matters such as colonialism and slavery to contemporary issues such as State Terror in response to 'rogue states'.

Offering an introduction to the major poststructuralist thinkers, this text shows how Foucault, Derrida, Lacan and Zizek expose the depoliticization found in conventional international relations theory. poststructuralists are concerned with the big questions of international politics: it is precisely their work that analyzes the political and explains the processes of depoliticization and technologization. Paying particular attention to notions of the subject and subjectivity in relation to the political, and to the relationship between ideology and social reality, the author explores why Foucault and others matter for international relations.