This book, first published in 1990, addresses the broad cultural phenomenon that is postmodernism. The first part of the book raises some general theoretical questions about postmodernism - its language and its politics, for example. The second section attends to particular 'sites', namely the various arts themselves and the philosophical understanding of them. Here one finds specific readings of architecture, painting, literature, theatre, photography, film, television, dance and fashion.

This title, first published in 1991, opens with an account by Gadamer of his own life and work and their relation to the achievements of hermeneutics. Building upon the key theme of dialogue, Gadamer and Hermeneutics provides a series of essays, either linked Gadamer to other major contemporary philosophers or focusing on a given Gadamerian theme. This book will be of interest to students of literary theory.

First published in 1994. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This title, first published in 1991, opens with an account by Gadamer of his own life and work and their relation to the achievements of hermeneutics. Building upon the key theme of dialogue, Gadamer and Hermeneutics provides a series of essays, either linked Gadamer to other major contemporary philosophers or focusing on a given Gadamerian theme. This book will be of interest to students of literary theory.

De-Signing Design: Cartographies of Theory and Practice throws new light on the terrain between theory and practice in transdisciplinary discourses of design and art. The editors, Elizabeth Grierson, Harriet Edquist, and Helene Frichot, bring together diverse approaches to design theory, practice, and philosophy from leading scholars in Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the United Kingdom. Themes include spatiality, difference, cultural aesthetics, and identity in the expanded field of place-making and being. The concept that design can be de-signed is presented as a way of exploring different approaches to an experimental and experiential thinking-doing that promises to further open up research possibilities in the fields of design and art thinking and practice. The book enacts a series of cartographic devices to articulate the spaces between theory and practice.

Subjects and Simulations presents essays focused on suffering and sublimity, representation and subjectivity, and the relation of truth and appearance in the twenty-first century. Inspired by the work of Jean Baudrillard, Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and JeanLuc Nancy, sixteen authors study how the real reasserts itself in an age of every more fragmented media, and how art and literature give us access to forms of truth that elude philosophy. How does representation grant us access to the place once occupied by the subject? Is political life possible? Can plural thinking be retrieved? Will metaphor and simulation give us ways of being in an evanescent world? The volume engages discussions of French and Continental philosophy, post-structuralism, deconstruction, simulacra, aesthetics, existentialism, and media theory.

Bringing together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars, Intermedialities: Philosophy, Arts, Politics is a comprehensive collection devoted to the new field of research called 'intermedialities.' The concept of intermedialities stresses the necessity of situating philosophical and political debates on social relations in the divergent contexts of media theories, avant-garde artistic practices, continental philosophy, feminism, and political theory. The 'intermedial' approach to social relations does not focus on the shared identity but instead on the epistemological, ethical, and political status of inter (being-in-between). At stake here are the political analyses of new modes of being in common that transcend national boundaries, the critique of the new forms of domination that accompany them, and the search for new emancipatory possibilities. Opening a new approach to social relations, intermedialities investigates not only engagements between already constituted positions but even more the interval, antagonism, and differences that form and decenter these positions. Consequently, in opposition to the resurgence of cultural and ethnic particularisms and to the leveling of difference produced by globalization, the political and ethical analysis of the 'in-between' enables a conception of community based on difference, exposure, and interaction with others rather than on an identification with a shared identity. Investigations of 'in-betweenness,' both as medium specific and between heterogeneous 'sites' of inquiry, range here from philosophical conceptuality to artistic practices, from the political circulation of money and power to the operation of new technologies. They inevitably invoke the crucial role of embodiment in creative thought and collective acting. As a mediating instance between the psyche and society, matter and spirit, nature and culture, and biology and technology, the body is another interval forming and informed by socio-linguistic relations. As these complex intersections between media, materiality, art, and the philosophy and politics of the in-between suggest, the project of intermedialities provides new ways of rethinking relations among arts, politics, and science.

Bringing together an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars, Intermedialities: Philosophy, Arts, Politics is a comprehensive collection devoted to the new field of research called "intermedialities." The concept of intermedialities stresses the necessity of situating philosophical and political debates on social relations in the divergent contexts of media theories, avant-garde artistic practices, continental philosophy, feminism, and political theory. The "intermedial" approach to social relations does not focus on the shared identity but instead on the epistemological, ethical, and political status of inter (being-in-between). At stake here are the political analyses of new modes of being in common that transcend national boundaries, the critique of the new forms of domination that accompany them, and the search for new emancipatory possibilities. Opening a new approach to social relations, intermedialities investigates not only engagements between already constituted positions but even more the interval, antagonism, and differences that form and decenter these positions. Consequently, in opposition to the resurgence of cultural and ethnic particularisms and to the leveling of difference produced by globalization, the political and ethical analysis of the "in-between" enables a conception of community based on difference, exposure, and interaction with others rather than on an identification with a shared identity. Investigations of "in-betweenness," both as medium specific and between heterogeneous "sites" of inquiry, range here from philosophical conceptuality to artistic practices, from the political circulation of money and power to the operation of new technologies. They inevitably invoke the crucial role of embodiment in creative thought and collective acting. As a mediating instance between the psyche and society, matter and spirit, nature and culture, and biology and technology, the body is another interval forming and informed by socio-linguistic relations. As these com

Jean-François Lyotard, the highly influential twentieth-century philosopher of the postmodern, has had an enormous impact on the course and commitment of contemporary philosophy. Lyotard: Philosophy, Politics and the Sublime is a thoroughgoing reassessment of his extraordinary legacy and contribution to contemporary cultural, political, ethical, and aesthetic theory, and an indispensable guide to key issues in his philosophy. Fifteen distinguished scholars have contributed.

"Philosophy and Desire," the seventh book in the well-known Continental Philosophy series, examines questions of desire--desire for another person, desire for happiness, desire for knowledge, desire for a better world, desire for the impossible, desire in text, desire in language and desire for desire itself. The theme of desire is explored through readings of contemporary figures such as Merleau-Ponty, Bataille, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Levinas, Irigaray, Barthes, Derrida, and Derrida. A hot, timely topic in philosophy today Expands the contemporary debates

Cultural Semiosis traces the theoretical itinerary of the signifier in the continental tradition. Cultural semiosis provides links for cultural studies to the philosophical, the literary, the historical and the social. Understood semiotically, cultural signs and signifiers are inscribed in the fabric of cultural practices. Cultural semiosis enters the spaces of everyday language, visuality, sexuality and symbolization. These original essays interpret and provide tools for the understanding of cultural studies within a philosophical framework.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415919541

"Cultural Semiosis" traces the theoretical itinerary of the signifier in the continental tradition. Cultural semiosis provides links for cultural studies to the philosophical, the literary, the historical and the social. Understood semiotically, cultural signs and signifiers are inscribed in the fabric of cultural practices. Cultural semiosis enters the spaces of everyday language, visuality, sexuality and symbolization. These original essays interpret and provide tools for the understanding of cultural studies within a philosophical framework.
Contributors: M. Alison Arnett, Debra Bergoffen, Peter Carravetta, Alessandro Carrera, Julia Kristeva, John Llewelyn, Michael Naas, Kelly Oliver, Adi Ophir, Francois Raffoul, Mark Roberts, Stephanie Sage, Hugh J. Silverman.

First published in 1993. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor and Francis, an informa company.

This book, first published in 1990, addresses the broad cultural phenomenon that is postmodernism. The first part of the book raises some general theoretical questions about postmodernism - its language and its politics, for example. The second section attends to particular 'sites', namely the various arts themselves and the philosophical understanding of them. Here one finds specific readings of architecture, painting, literature, theatre, photography, film, television, dance and fashion.

The effects of Derrida's writings have been widespread in literary circles, where they have transformed current work in literary theory. By contrast Derrida's philosophical writings--which deal with the whole range of western thought from Plato to Foucault--have not received adequate attention by philosophers. Organized around Derrida's readings of major figures in the history of philosophy, Derrida and Deconstruction focuses on and assesses his specifically philosophical contribution. Contemporary continental philosophers assess Derrida's account of philosophical tradition, with each contributor providing a critical study of Derrida's position on a philosopher she or he has already studied in depth These figures include Plato, Meister Eckhart, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Foucault.

"Textualities" is both an account of recent developments in continental philosophy and a demonstration of philosophy as a distinctive theoretical practice of its own. It can be read as a presentation and evaluation of major figures from Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty to Focault and Derrida, with detailed accounts of Nietzsche, Sartre, Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Blanchot and Kristeva as well. Linked with the formulation of a hermeneutic semiology, "Textualities" assesses the texture of theory, in particular a theory of textuality, and offers juxtapositional deconstructive readings of alternative textualities, such as "autobiographical textualities", "photobiographical textualities", "visible textualities" and "institutional textualities".

The topic of foundations has long been the focus of philosophical debate. Critiques of the claim to absolute knowledge, to ultimate ground, and to essential truth have called into question the very desire and need for founding principles. The concept of foundation has itself come under extensive scrutiny. This fifth volume of the "Continental Philosophy" series addresses the problem of a contemporary world devoid of foundations. It seeks to explore a post-foundational context of subverted truths, shattered identities, and fragmented cultures. The continental tradition of philosophy has long focused its energies on the question of foundations, from Kant and Hegel, Nietzsche and Kierkgaard, Heidegger and Gadamer, Foucault and Derrida, Lyotard and Deleuze. From this vantage point with its range of perspectives, the essays reopen the conventional understanding of the classical themes upon which philosophy has been based since its inception. This text is divided into three parts - "truth", "subjectivity" and "culture". The topics covered include considerations as diverse as science, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, feminism, visual representation, poetry, and post-colonialism.

The effects of Derrida's writings have been widespread in literary circles, where they have transformed current work in literary theory. By contrast Derrida's philosophical writings--which deal with the whole range of western thought from Plato to Foucault--have not received adequate attention by philosophers. Organized around Derrida's readings of major figures in the history of philosophy, Derrida and Deconstruction focuses on and assesses his specifically philosophical contribution. Contemporary continental philosophers assess Derrida's account of philosophical tradition, with each contributor providing a critical study of Derrida's position on a philosopher she or he has already studied in depth These figures include Plato, Meister Eckhart, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Foucault.

eBook available with sample pages: HB:0415919568

In an age of terrorism, religious skirmishing, global revolution and counterrevolution, political assassinations, moral conflict, and unceasing turmoil, there are many ideas and concepts that remain in desperate need of clarification not the least of these are fanaticism and hypocrisy. Newman's fascinating investigation sheds much-needed light on these concepts.

Jean-François Lyotard, the highly influential twentieth-century philosopher of the postmodern, has had an enormous impact on the course and commitment of contemporary philosophy. Lyotard: Philosophy, Politics, and the Sublime is a thoroughgoing reassessment of his extraordinary legacy and contribution to contemporary cultural, political, ethical, and aesthetic theory and an indispensable guide to key issues in his philosophy. Fifteen distinguished scholars have contributed new, original essays examining the main themes in Lyotard's work with a focus on the special intersetions of philosophy, psycholanalysis, politics and the experience of the sublime in art. The volume includes an up-to-date bibliography of works by and about Lyotard, previously unpublished photographs of Lyotard and an incisive essay by Lyotard himself on the philosophical significance of Freud's case of Emma.