In his philosophy of ethics and time, Emmanuel Levinas highlighted the tension that exists between the "ontological adventure" of immediate experience and the "ethical adventure" of redemptive relationships-associations in which absolute responsibility engenders a transcendence of being and self.

In an original commingling of philosophy and cinema study, Sam B. Girgus applies Levinas's ethics to a variety of international films. His efforts point to a transnational pattern he terms the "cinema of redemption" that portrays the struggle to connect to others in redeeming ways. Girgus not only reveals the power of these films to articulate the crisis between ontological identity and ethical subjectivity. He also locates time and ethics within the structure and content of film itself. Drawing on the work of Luce Irigaray, Tina Chanter, Kelly Oliver, and Ewa Ziarek, Girgus reconsiders Levinas and his relationship to film, engaging with a feminist focus on the sexualized female body. Girgus offers fresh readings of films from several decades and cultures, including Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939), Federico Fellini's "La dolce vita" (1959), Michelangelo Antonioni's "L'avventura" (1960), John Huston's "The Misfits" (1961), and Philip Kaufman's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" (1988).

H?l?ne Cixous is more than an influential theorist. She is also a groundbreaking author and playwright. Combining an idiosyncratic mix of autobiographical and fictional narrative with a host of philosophical and poetic observations, Cixous's writing matches the kaleidoscopic nature of her thought, offering new ways of conceptualizing sex, relationships, identity, and the self, among other topics.

Yet, as Jacques Derrida once observed, a "profound misunderstanding" hangs over the accomplishments of Cixous, with many believing the intellectual excelled only at theoretical exploration. Providing a truly liberal selection of her writings from throughout her career, Marta Segarra rediscovers Cixous's acts of invention for a new generation to enjoy. Divided into thematic concerns, these works fully capture Cixous's genius for merging fiction, theory, and the experience of living. They discuss dreaming in the feminine, Algeria and Germany, love and the other, the animal, Derrida, and the theater. They defy classification, locking literature, philosophy, and psychoanalysis into thrilling new patterns of engagement. Whether readers are familiar with Cixous or are approaching her thought for the first time, all will find fresh perspectives on gender, fiction, drama, philosophy, religion, and the postcolonial.

What can psychoanalysis, a psychological approach developed more than a century ago, offer us in an age of rapidly evolving, hard-to-categorize ideas of sexuality and the self? Should we abandon Freud's theories completely or adapt them to new findings and the new relationships taking shape in modern liberal societies? In a remarkably prescient series of lectures delivered in the early 1960s, the French philosopher Louis Althusser anticipated the challenges that psychoanalytic theory would face as politics moved away from structuralist frameworks and toward the elastic possibilities of anthropological and sociological thought. Psychoanalysis and the Human Sciences translates Althusser's remarkable seminars into English for the first time, making available to a wider audience the origins and potential future of radical political theory. Althusser takes the important step in these lectures of distinguishing psychoanalysis from psychology and especially psychiatry, which long resisted Freud's analytical concepts of the unconscious and overdetermination. By freeing psychoanalysis from this bind, Althusser can then apply these analytical concepts to the social and the political, integrated with Marxist theory. The result is an enlivened methodology for comprehending social organization and change that had a profound influence on the Frankfurt School and scholars who continue to work at the forefront of radical thought today: Judith Butler, Etienne Balibar, and Alain Badiou.

Colleen Glenney Boggs puts animal representation at the center of the making of the liberal American subject. Concentrating on the formative and disruptive presence of animals in the writings of Frederick Douglass, Edgar Allan Poe, and Emily Dickinson, Boggs argues that animals are critical to the ways in which Americans enact their humanity and regulate subjects in the biopolitical state. Biopower, or a politics that extends its reach to life, thrives on the strategic ambivalence between who is considered human and what is judged as animal. It generates a space of indeterminacy in which animal representations intervene to define and challenge the parameters of subjectivity. The renegotiation of the species line produces a tension that is never fully regulated. Therefore, as both figures of radical alterity and the embodiment of biopolitics, animals are simultaneously exceptional and exemplary to the biopolitical state. An original contribution to animal studies, American studies, critical race theory, and posthumanist inquiry, Boggs thrillingly reinterprets a long and highly contentious human-animal history.

This book of tightly woven dialogues engages prominent thinkers in a discussion about the role of culture-broadly construed-in contemporary society and politics. Faced with the conceptual inflation of the notion of 'culture, ' which now imposes itself as an indispensable issue in contemporary moral and political debates, these dynamic exchanges seek to rethink culture and critique beyond the schematic models that have often predominated, such as the opposition between "mainstream multiculturalism" and the "clash of civilizations."

Prefaced by an introduction relating current cultural debates to the critical theory tradition, this book examines the politics of culture and the spirit of critique from three different vantage points. To begin, Gabriel Rockhill and Alfredo Gomez-Muller provide a stage-setting dialogue, followed by discussions with two major representatives of contemporary critical theory: Seyla Benhabib and Nancy Fraser. Working at the horizons of this tradition, Judith Butler, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Cornel West then provide important critical perspectives on cultural politics. The book's concluding section engages with Michael Sandel and Will Kymlicka, who work out of the Rawlsian tradition yet are uniquely concerned with the issue of culture, broadly understood. The epilogue, an interview with Axel Honneth, returns to the core issue of critical theory in cultural politics. Ranging from recent developments and progressive interventions in critical theory to dialogues that incorporate its insights into larger discussions of social and political philosophy, this book sharpens old critical tools while developing new strategies for rethinking the role of 'culture' in contemporary society.

Building on discussions originating in post-humanism, the non-philosophy of Francois Laruelle, and the science of "species being of humanity" stemming from Marx's critique of philosophy, Katerina Kolozova proposes a radical consideration of capitalism's economic exploitation of life. This book uses Francois Laruelle's work to think through questions of "practical ethics" and bring the abstract tools of Laruelle's non-philosophy into conversation with other critical methods in the humanities. Kolozova centres the question of the animal at the very heart of what it means for us as human beings to think and act in the world, and the mistreatment of animality that underpins the logic of capitalism.

What is the legacy of Theory after the deaths of so many of its leading lights, from Jacques Derrida to Roland Barthes? Bringing together reflections by leading contemporary scholars, Dead Theory explores the afterlives of the work of the great theorists and the current state of Theory today. Considering the work of thinkers such as Derrida, Deleuze, and Levinas, the book explores the ways in which Theory has long been haunted by death and how it might endure for the future.

Feminist theorist and philosopher Donna Haraway has substantially impacted thought on science, cyberculture, the environment, animals, and social relations. This long-overdue volume explores her influence on feminist theory and philosophy, paying particular attention to her more recent work on companion species, rather than her "Manifesto for Cyborgs." Margret Grebowicz and Helen Merrick argue that the ongoing fascination with, and re-production of, the cyborg has overshadowed Haraway's extensive body of work in ways that run counter to her own transdisciplinary practices. Sparked by their own personal "adventures" with Haraway's work, the authors offer readings of her texts framed by a series of theoretical and political perspectives: feminist materialism, standpoint epistemology, radical democratic theory, queer theory, and even science fiction. They situate Haraway's critical storytelling and "risky reading" practices as forms of feminist methodology and recognize her passionate engagement with "naturecultures" as the theoretical core driving her work. Chapters situate Haraway as critic, theorist, biologist, feminist, historian, and humorist, exploring the full range of her identities and reflecting her commitment to embodying all of these modes simultaneously.

Most texts claiming to trace the evolution of metaphysics do so according to the analytical tradition, which understands metaphysics as a reflection of different categories of reality. Incorporating the perspectives of Continental theory does little to expand this history, as the Continental tradition remains largely hostile to such metaphysical claims. The first history of metaphysics to respect both the analytical and Continental schools while also transcending the theoretical limitations of each, this compelling overview restores the value of metaphysics to contemporary audiences.

Beginning with the Greeks and concluding with present day philosophers, Jean Grondin reviews seminal texts by the Presocratic Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, and Augustine. He follows the theological turn in metaphysical thought during the middle ages and reads Avicenna, Anselm, Aquinas, and Duns Scot. Grondin revisits Descartes and the cogito; Spinoza and Leibniz's rationalist approaches; Kant's reclaiming of the metaphysical tradition; and postkantian practice up to Hegel. He engages with the twentieth-century innovations that shook the discipline, particularly Heidegger's notion of Being and the rediscovery of the metaphysics of existence (Sartre and the Existentialists), language (Gadamer and Derrida), and transcendence (Levinas). Metaphysics is often dismissed as a form or epoch of philosophy that must be overcome, yet a full understanding of its platform and processes reveal a cogent approach to reality, and its reasoning has been foundational to modern philosophy and science. Grondin reacquaints readers with the rich currents and countercurrents of metaphysical thinking and muses on where it may be headed in the twenty-first century.

Essays in Self-Criticism contains all of Louis Althusser's work from the 1970s. It is composed of three texts, each of which in a different way presents elements of self-criticism. The first is Althusser's extended reply to the English philosopher John Lewis. In it he for the first time discusses the problem of the political causes of Stalinism, which he argues should be seen as the consequence of a long tradition of economism within the Second and Third Internationals. The second major essay, written soon afterwards, sets out Althusser's critical assessment of his own philosophical work in the 60's, including the extent and limits of his 'flirtation' with structuralism. The book ends with an autobiographical study of Althusser's intellectual development from 1945 to 1975, given on the occasion of his reception of a doctorate at the University of Picardy. The political thought of the 'new' Althusser is presented to English readers in a special introduction by his pupil Grahame Lock, which considers at length the lessons it sees in Soviet experience for contemporary communism.

"Strange Wonder" confronts Western philosophy's ambivalent relationship to the Platonic "wonder" that reveals the strangeness of the everyday. On the one hand, this wonder is said to be the origin of all philosophy. On the other hand, it is associated with a kind of ignorance that ought to be extinguished as swiftly as possible. By endeavoring to resolve wonder's indeterminacy into certainty and calculability, philosophy paradoxically secures itself at the expense of its own condition of possibility.

"Strange Wonder" locates a reopening of wonder's primordial uncertainty in the work of Martin Heidegger, for whom wonder is first experienced as the shock at the groundlessness of things and then as an astonishment that things nevertheless "are." Mary-Jane Rubenstein traces this double movement through the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Jacques Derrida, ultimately thematizing wonder as the awesome, awful opening that exposes thinking to devastation as well as transformation. Rubenstein's study shows that wonder reveals the extraordinary in and through the ordinary, and is therefore crucial to the task of reimagining political, religious, and ethical terrain.

"Poststructuralism and Critical Theory's Second Generation" analyses the major themes and developments in a period that brought continental philosophy to the forefront of scholarship in a variety of humanities and social science disciplines and that set the agenda for philosophical thought on the continent and elsewhere from the 1960s to the present. Focusing on the years 1960-1984, the volume examines the major figures associated with poststructuralism and the second generation of critical theory, the two dominant movements that emerged in the 1960s: Althusser, Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida, Lyotard, Irigaray, and Habermas. Influential thinkers such as Serres, Bourdieu, and Rorty, who are not easily placed in "standard" histories of the period, are also covered. Beyond this, thematic essays engage with issues as diverse as the Nietzschean legacy, the linguistic turn in continental thinking, the phenomenological inheritance of Gadamer and Ricoeur, the influence of psychoanalysis, the emergence of feminist thought and a philosophy of sexual difference, the renewal of the critical theory tradition, and the importation of continental philosophy into literary theory.

"A Companion to Foucault" comprises a collection of essays from established and emerging scholars that represent the most extensive treatment of French philosopher Michel Foucault's works currently available.Comprises a comprehensive collection of authors and topics, with both established and emerging scholars representedIncludes chapters that survey Foucault's major works and others that approach his work from a range of thematic anglesEngages extensively with Foucault's recently published lecture courses from the College de France Contains the first translation of the extensive 'Chronology' of Foucault's life and works written by Foucault's life-partner Daniel DefertIncludes a bibliography of Foucault's shorter works in English, cross-referenced to the standard French edition "Dits et Ecrits"

This book stems from an examination of how Western philosophy has accounted for the foundations of law. In this tradition, the character of the "sovereign" or "lawgiver" has provided the solution to this problem. But how does the sovereign acquire the right to found law? As soon as we ask this question we are immediately confronted with a convoluted combination of jurisprudence and theology.

The author begins by tracing a lengthy and deeply nuanced exchange between Derrida and Nancy on the question of community and fraternity and then moves on to engage with a diverse set of texts from the Marquis de Sade, Saint Augustine, Kant, Hegel, and Kafka. These texts--which range from the canonical to the apocryphal--all struggle in their own manner with the question of the foundations of law. Each offers a path to the law. If a reader accepts any path as it is and follows without question, the law is set and determined and the possibility of dialogue is closed. The aim of this book is to approach the foundations of law from a series of different angles so that we can begin to see that those foundations are always in question and open to the possibility of dialogue.

This is an examination of Derrida's work on myth and language, offering a postmodern, deconstructive theory of myth. In "Derrida, Myth and the Impossibility of Philosophy", Anais N. Spitzer examines previously unexplored areas of the scholarship of Jacques Derrida and Mark C. Taylor in order to propose a contemporary, postmodern, deconstructive theory of myth with provocative implications. "Derrida, Myth and the Impossibility of Philosophy" argues that the insights of deconstruction and complexity theory demand a re-examination of mythos (narrative, story, myth) in terms of its disseminative propensities and its disruptive interplay with logos (language, structure, word). Such a re-examination calls into question the relation of mythos and logos as it has been traditionally understood from Plato to modern theorists such as Mircea Eliade, Bruce Lincoln, Claude Levi-Strauss, and Paul Ricoeur. Spitzer goes beyond the limited conception of the relation of mythos and logos in order to provide a nuanced account of myth in relation to philosophy in contemporary theories of writing, philosophy, and religion, thereby setting the stage for future work with myth in a deconstructive mode. "The Philosophy, Aesthetics and Cultural Theory" series examines the encounter between contemporary Continental philosophy and aesthetic and cultural theory. Each book in the series explores an exciting new direction in philosophical aesthetics or cultural theory, identifying the most important and pressing issues in Continental philosophy today.

The thirty-three essays in "Relativism: A Contemporary Anthology" grapple with one of the most intriguing, enduring, and far-reaching philosophical problems of our age. Relativism comes in many varieties. It is often defined as the belief that truth, goodness, or beauty is relative to some context or reference frame, and that no absolute standards can adjudicate between competing reference frames.

Michael Krausz's anthology captures the significance and range of relativistic doctrines, rehearsing their virtues and vices and reflecting on a spectrum of attitudes. Invoking diverse philosophical orientations, these doctrines concern conceptions of relativism in relation to facts and conceptual schemes, realism and objectivity, universalism and foundationalism, solidarity and rationality, pluralism and moral relativism, and feminism and poststructuralism. Featuring nine original essays, the volume also includes many classic articles, making it a standard resource for students, scholars, and researchers.

The Derrida Dictionary is a comprehensive and accessible guide to the world of Jacques Derrida, the founder of deconstruction and one of the most important and influential European thinkers of the twentieth century. Meticulously researched and extensively cross-referenced, this unique book covers all his major works, ideas and influences and provides a firm grounding in the central themes of Derrida's thought. Students will discover a wealth of useful information, analysis and criticism. A-Z entries include clear definitions of all the key terms used in Derrida's writings and detailed synopses of his key works. The Dictionary also includes entries on Derrida's major philosophical influences and those he engaged with, such as Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Freud, Heidegger, Foucault, Lacan and Levinas. It covers everything that is essential to a sound understanding of Derrida's philosophy, offering clear and accessible explanations of often complex terminology. The Derrida Dictionary is the ideal resource for anyone reading or studying Derrida, deconstruction or modern European philosophy more generally.

La pretensin ms bsica o general de este texto es la reconstruccin del contexto terico (lo cual no indica que el contexto prctico carezca de inters o importancia) que rodea y determina la conferencia "Firma, Acontecimiento, Contexto" pronunciada por Jacques Derrida en agosto de 1971 en un congreso cuyo tema era "La comunicacin." Si bien, por su misma "tesis," un contexto nunca es absolutamente determinable, s parece iluminador (e incluso tico , al decir de Derrida) un recorrido por algunos de los "textos preparatorios" de dicha conferencia. "Firma, Acontecimiento, Contexto" es seguramente el artculo derridiano que ms ros de tinta ha hecho correr en virtud de su amplia recepcin en el mbito de la filosofa de habla inglesa. Sin embargo, parece ser un texto que, tras muchos aos, sigue sin haberse ledo. Al respecto es destacable, como escribe Culler, "la egregia malinterpretacin de John Searle," que ha influido decisivamente en gran parte de la crtica, sobre todo de corte anglosajn (tambin en Europa), de la obra de Derrida. Y ello no tanto quizs por sus argumentos (que realmente "objetan" tesis inexistentes) como por su tono furioso y despectivo. Lamentablemente, hoy da no es infrecuente, en las escasas ocasiones en que "Derrida" aparece en un debate filosfico, o incluso sin que su nombre sea invocado, escuchar expresiones como "Eso es derridadasmo" o "Eso es una derridada." Por ello, aspiramos a que este trabajo aporte su grano de arena ayudando, en general, a una mayor comprensin de la filosofa derridiana y, en particular, a una lectura ms fructfera (al menos en los aspectos que acentuamos) de un texto que, en todo caso, constituye una buena "puerta de acceso" al pensamiento del profesor deorigen argelino. No obstante, a partir de esta base y con una mayor profundidad investigadora, se trata en este ensayo de explicitar en la medida de lo posible (esto es, sin falsas facilidades) cmo debera entenderse la comunicacin a la luz de la filosofa derridiana. Dicho tema revela su importancia si tenemos en cuenta que desde mediados del siglo XX existe una notoria convergencia entre los diversos planteamientos filosficos en torno a la tesis segn la cual, la estructura de aquello que llamamos "racional" o "verdadero" es de carcter comunicativo. As, por ejemplo, la hermenutica de H.G. Gadamer, fundada sobre principios fenomenolgicos que surgen a comienzos de siglo bajo una forma "monolgica" (Husserl), ha pretendido aclarar el sentido de la historia y de la comprensin humana del mundo como una forma de "dilogo interpretativo." La intersubjetividad es tambin el concepto fundamental sobre el cual se erige la autoproclamada nueva Ilustracin (Habermas, Apel), una corriente que intenta reconstruir el concepto de "Logos" desde el de "dilogo argumentativo." Asimismo, el giro lingstico en el que se amparan ambas tendencias ha generado, por su lado, lneas de pensamiento que subrayan la dimensin pragmtico-comunicativa como clave de la lingisticidad y, por tanto, del pensamiento. En esa direccin discurren las concepciones arraigadas en el "segundo Wittgenstein" y en la teora de los "actos de habla." Por todo ello, creemos que situar la comunicacin dentro del espacio del "pensamiento de la huella" derridiano puede ser una tarea inicial muy fructfera a la hora de establecer un debate entre, por un lado, aquellas concepciones de la comunicacin que, adelantamos, tienen en la "homogeneidad" su axiomay/o su ideal (en ocasiones inconfeso) y, por otro lado, un pensamiento de la "escritura" que obedece, por as decir, a un "principio de discontinuidad." Podra ser ste, quizs, un paso adelante en el establecimiento de lo que Derrida propone llamar un espacio "pragramatolgico," esto es, "el espacio de un anlisis indispensable" en la juntura de una pragmtica y de una gramatologa" (...). Una pragramatologa (por venir) a