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Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > Postmodernism > Structuralism, deconstruction, post-structuralism
Law's Trace argues for the political importance of deconstruction by taking Derrida's reading of Hegel as its point of departure. While it is well established that seemingly neutral and inclusive legal and political categories and representations are always, in fact, partial and exclusive, among Derrida's most potent arguments was that the exclusions at work in every representation are not accidental but constitutive. Indeed, one of the most significant ways that modern philosophy appears to having completed its task of accounting for everything is by claiming that its foundational concepts - representation, democracy, justice, and so on - are what will have always been. They display what Derrida has called a "fabulous retroactivity." This means that such forms of political life as liberal constitutional democracy, capitalism, the rule of law, or even the private nuclear family, appear to be the inevitable consequence of human development. Hegel's thought is central to the argument of this book for this reason: the logic of this fabulous retroactivity was articulated most decisively for the modern era by the powerful idea of the Aufhebung - the temporal structure of the always-already. Deconstruction reveals the exclusions at work in the foundational political concepts of modernity by 're-tracing' the path of their creation, revealing the 'always-already' at work in that path. Every representation, knowledge or law is more uncertain than it seems, and the central argument of Law's Trace is that they are, therefore, always potential sites for political struggle.
By far the biggest and most comprehensive volume on Bergson's contribution to philosophy published to date Covers all the major aspects of Bergson's work, with contributions by a high quality international field Explores Bergson in relation to important interdisciplinary topics, including modernism, Proust and post-colonial studies Bergson's star continues to rise due to growing interst in the history of 20th century philosophy - we are publishing a major new translation of his Creative Evolution in 2020 Part of an exciting new series that brings fresh perspectives to bear on the work and arguments of the major philosophers.
A thorough and state of the art overview of Logical Empiricism and an ideal reference source for both students and scholars. Essential reading for students and researchers in history of philosophy the handbook will also be very useful for those studying philosophy of science, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind or history of ideas. The only handbook to pull together a thoroughly comprehensive overview of the movement of logical empiricism. A rallying point for any student and researcher interested in the subject. All chapters are specially commissioned, written by an international team of renowned contributors and not previously published.
Yuri Lotman (1922-1993) was a prominent Russian intellectual and theorist. This book presents a new reading of his semiotic and philosophical legacy. The authors analyse Lotman's semiotics in a series of temporal contexts, starting with the rigidity of Soviet-era ideologies, through to the post-Soviet de-politicization that - paradoxically enough - ended with the reproduction of Soviet-style hegemonic discourse in the Kremlin and ultimately reignited politically divisive conflicts between Russia and Europe. The book demonstrates how Lotman's ideas cross disciplinary boundaries and their relevance to many European theorists of cultural studies, discourse analysis and political philosophy. Lotman lived and worked in Estonia, which, even under Soviet rule, maintained its own borderland identity located at the intersection of Russian and European cultural flows. The authors argue that in this context Lotman's theories are particularly revealing in relation to Russian-European interactions and communications, both historically and in a more contemporary sense.
Investigating connections between philosophical hermeneutics and neighbouring traditions of thought, this volume considers the question of how post-Heideggerian hermeneutics, as represented by Gadamer, Ricoeur and recent scholars following in their wake, relate to these traditions, both in general terms and bearing upon specific questions. The traditions covered in this volume-existentialism, pragmatism, poststructuralism, Eastern philosophy, and hermeneutics itself-are all characterized by significant internal diversity, adding to the difficulty in reaching an interpretation that is at once comparative and critical. None of these traditions represent a unified system of belief; all are umbrella terms which are at once useful and imprecise, and the differences internal to each must not to be understated. An innovative work of comparative philosophy, this volume avoids oversimplification and offers specific analyses that treat hermeneutics in relation to particular themes and key figures in each of these traditions of thought. Philosophical hermeneutics is explicitly dialogical, and it is in this spirit that the authors of this book approach their subjects, revealing the important affinities and opportunities for mutually enriching conversations which have until now been overlooked.
Law's Trace argues for the political importance of deconstruction by taking Derrida 's reading of Hegel as its point of departure. While it is well established that seemingly neutral and inclusive legal and political categories and representations are always, in fact, partial and exclusive, among Derrida 's most potent arguments was that the exclusions at work in every representation are not accidental but constitutive. Indeed, one of the most significant ways that modern philosophy appears to having completed its task of accounting for everything is by claiming that its foundational concepts representation, democracy, justice, and so on are what will have always been. They display what Derrida has called a "fabulous retroactivity." This means that such forms of political life as liberal constitutional democracy, capitalism, the rule of law, or even the private nuclear family, appear to be the inevitable consequence of human development. Hegel 's thought is central to the argument of this book for this reason: the logic of this fabulous retroactivity was articulated most decisively for the modern era by the powerful idea of the Aufhebung the temporal structure of the always-already. Deconstruction reveals the exclusions at work in the foundational political concepts of modernity by re-tracing the path of their creation, revealing the always-already at work in that path. Every representation, knowledge or law is more uncertain than it seems, and the central argument of Law's Trace is that they are, therefore, always potential sites for political struggle.
This book uses a historical and theoretical focus to examine the key of issues of the Enlightenment, Orientalism, concepts of identity and difference, and the contours of different modernities in relation to both local and global shaping forces, including the spread of capitalism. The contributors present eight in-depth studies and a substantial theoretical introduction, utilizing primary and secondary sources in Turkish, Farsi, Chinese, not to mention English, French and German in the effort to engage materials and cultural perspectives from diverse regions. It provides a critical attempt to think through the potentialities and limitations of area-studies and 'civilizational' approaches to the production of knowledge about the modern world, and the often obscured relationship between the fragment and the whole, or the particular and universal. The book is an intervention in one of the most fundamental debates confronting the social science and humanities, namely how to understand global and local historical processes as interconnected developments affecting human actors. From Orientalism to Postcolonialism will be of interest to academics and postgraduate students in Cultural and Postcolonial Studies and Asian studies and Middle Eastern studies.
Lacan Contra Foucault seeks to ground the divergences and confluences between these two key thinkers in relation to contemporary philosophy and criticism. Specifically the topics of sexuality, the theory of the subject, history and historicism, scientific formalization, and ultimately politics. In doing so, the authors in this volume open up new connections between Lacan and Foucault and shine a light on their contemporary relevance to politics and critical theory.
The conviction that we all have, possess or inhabit a discrete culture, and have done so for centuries, is one of the more dominant default assumptions of our contemporary politico-intellectual moment. However, the concept of culture as a signifier of subjectivity only entered the modern Anglo-U.S. episteme in the late nineteenth century. Culture and Eurocentrism seeks to account for the term's relatively recent emergence and movement through the episteme, networked with many other concepts - nature, race, society, imagination, savage, and civilization- at the confluence of several disciplines. Culture, it contends, doesn't describe difference but produces it, hierarchically. In so doing, it seeks to recharge postcoloniality, the critique of eurocentrism.
Ugly, Useless, Unstable Architectures traces productive intersections between architecture and the discourses of Post-Structuralism and New Materialism. It investigates how their unique 'ontological regimes' can be mobilised to supersede the classical framework that still informs both the production and the evaluation of architecture. Throughout its three main chapters, this enquiry challenges one of the most prevalent tropes of architectural assessment: Beauty, Utility and Stability. Author Miguel Paredes Maldonado critically unpacks the spatial and operational qualities of these three idealised concepts, before setting out an alternative framework of spatial practice that draws from Gilles Deleuze's post-structuralist take on the production of the real and Manuel DeLanda's model-based branch of New Materialism. This book reads and situates a series of spatial works through the lens of this critical methodology to contest the conceptual aspects traditionally underpinning architectural 'value'. It posits that architecture can operate as a continuous, generative spectrum encompassing a broad range of potential configurations. Written for academics and students in architectural theory, design and contemporary philosophical thought alike, this book should appeal to a wide audience.
The "structuralist" theories of power show that the subject is produced and reproduced by the investment of power: but how then can we think of the subject's resistance to power? Based on this fundamental question, Power and Resistance interprets critically the (post-)structuralist theory of power and resistance, i.e., the theories of Foucault, Deleuze/Guattari, Derrida and Althusser. It analyses also the mechanism of power and the strategies of resistance in the era of neoliberalism. This meticulous analysis that completely renewed the theory of power is already published in French, Japanese, and Korean with success.
This is a comprehensive investigation into the theme of time in the work of Jacques Derrida and shows how temporality is one of the hallmarks of his thought. Drawing on a wide array of Derrida's texts, Joanna Hodge:
This book explores the ethical dilemma clinicians may face when disclosing a diagnosis of atypical sex. The moment of disclosure reveals an epistemic incompatibility between scientific fact and social meaning in relation to sex. Attempting to assess the bio-psychosocial implications of this dilemma highlights a complex historic antagonism between fact and meaning making satisfactory resolution of this dilemma difficult. Drawing on David Hume, WVO Quine and Michel Foucault the author presents an integrative model, which views scientific fact and social meaning as codetermining threads in one fabric of knowledge. From this epistemic perspective, the ethical dilemma is understood as a tear in the fabric signifying a rupturing of ontological integrity. To mend this tear and resolve the ethical dilemma three metaphysical perspectives are considered: essentialism, naturalism and emergentism. The book's unique features include: an exploration of the impact of diagnostic disclosure on people with atypical sex (intersex); a synthesis of the epistemic perspectives of social and natural science facilitating interdisciplinary collaboration; a critical evaluation of three metaphysical perspectives on atypical sex (intersex); the application of Hume's epistemological and moral distinctions to contemporary biomedicine and bioethics. The book's target audience includes academics, students and professionals whose work intersects the natural and social sciences, and individuals interested in the metaphysics, epistemology and meta-ethics of sex.
Understanding Poststructuralism presents a lucid guide to some of the most exciting and controversial ideas in contemporary thought. This is the first introduction to poststructuralism through its major theorists - Derrida, Deleuze, Foucault, Lyotard, Kristeva - and their central texts. Each chapter takes the reader through a key text, providing detailed summaries of the main points of each and a critical and detailed analysis of their central arguments. Ideas are clearly explained in terms of their value to both critical thinking and to contemporary issues. Criticisms of poststructuralism are also assessed. The aim throughout is to illuminate the main methods of poststructuralism - deconstruction, libidinal economics, genealogy and transcendental empiricism - in context. A balanced and up-to-date assessment of poststructuralism, the book presents the ideal introduction to this most revolutionary of philosophies.
This book of expert essays explores the concept of the whole as it operates within the psychology of Jung, the philosophy of Deleuze, and selected areas of wider twentieth-century Western culture, which provided the context within which these two seminal thinkers worked. Addressing this topic from a variety of perspectives and disciplines and with an eye to contemporary social, political, and environmental crises, the contributors aim to clarify some of the epistemological and ethical issues surrounding attempts, such as those of Jung and Deleuze, to think in terms of the whole, whether the whole in question is a particular bounded system (such as an organism, person, society, or ecosystem) or, most broadly, reality as a whole. Jung, Deleuze, and the Problematic Whole will contribute to enhancing critical self-reflection among the many contemporary theorists and practitioners in whose work thinking in terms of the whole plays a significant role.
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.
This book of expert essays explores the concept of the whole as it operates within the psychology of Jung, the philosophy of Deleuze, and selected areas of wider twentieth-century Western culture, which provided the context within which these two seminal thinkers worked. Addressing this topic from a variety of perspectives and disciplines and with an eye to contemporary social, political, and environmental crises, the contributors aim to clarify some of the epistemological and ethical issues surrounding attempts, such as those of Jung and Deleuze, to think in terms of the whole, whether the whole in question is a particular bounded system (such as an organism, person, society, or ecosystem) or, most broadly, reality as a whole. Jung, Deleuze, and the Problematic Whole will contribute to enhancing critical self-reflection among the many contemporary theorists and practitioners in whose work thinking in terms of the whole plays a significant role.
In the last decades of the twentieth century, French
poststructuralist 'theory' transformed the humanities. Yet it also
met with resistance, and today we frequently hear that theory is
'dead'.
Why, since the financial crisis of 2008, has neoliberal capitalism remained seemingly impregnable? Why, when it is shown as no longer capable of delivering on its economic promises does its logic pervade all facets of contemporary life? How has it seduced us? This book examines the seductive appeal of neoliberalism by understanding it as a fundamentally counter-cultural logic. Unlike earlier modes of capitalism, neoliberalism is infused by spirit of rebellion and self-creation, with the idealised neoliberal subject overturning traditional morality whilst creating new modes of being based on risk and excess. Tracing the development of the logic of neoliberalism from its beginnings in the thought of Friedrich Hayek in the wake of the post-war period, through the work of neoconservative writers overcoming and moving beyond what they perceived as the nihilism of both the counter-culture and capitalism of the 1960s and 70s, to its establishment as a new moral order underpinning the economic system from the 1980s onwards, the author argues that it is only through a clear understanding of the seduction of neoliberalism that it can be overcome by reimagining our relationships to work and society.
First Published in 2002. It is easy to see that we are living in a time of rapid and radical social change. It is much less easy to grasp the fact that such change will inevitably affect the nature of those disciplines that both reflect our society and help to shape it. Yet this is nowhere more apparent than in the central field of what may, in general terms, be called literary studies. 'New Accents' is intended as a positive response to the initiative offered by such a situation. Each volume in the series will seek to encourage rather than resist the process of change. To stretch rather than reinforce the boundaries that currently define literature and its academic study.
'Every now and then a book appears which is literally ahead of
its time ... The Political Unconscious is such a book ... it sets
new standards of what a classic work is.' - Slavoj Zizek In this ground-breaking and influential study, Fredric Jameson explores the complex place and function of literature within culture. A landmark publication, The Political Unconscious takes its place as one of the most meaningful works of the twentieth century. First published: 1983.
In Gender and Biopolitics, Pinar Sarigoel sheds new light on the life spheres of the woman as a means of examining neoliberal Islamic thinking about individuals and populations. Sarigoel's exploration of the governmental rationality of post-2002 Turkey's Islamic neoliberalism is especially informed by Michel Foucault's critical perspective. The tenets and merits of Islamic neoliberalism bring moral and religious practices into the discussion regarding 'how' the social order should be in general, and 'how' the ideal woman should be in particular. Discussions of Islam and neoliberalism are here productively undertaken in concert, in part because Islam takes society as a social body in which hierarchies and roles are divinely normalised. This book uniquely brings this point to the fore and draws attention to the interplay between the rational and moral values constituting Islamic neoliberal female subjects. |
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