Spatial Ecologies takes a new look at the "spatial turn" in French cultural and critical theory since 1968. Verena Andermatt Conley examines how Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Jean Baudrillard, Marc Auge, Paul Virilio, Bruno Latour and Etienne Balibar reconsider the experience of space in the midst of considerable political and economic turmoil. The book considers why French critical theorists turned away from questions of time and looked instead toward questions of space. It asks what writing about space can tell us about life in late capitalism. Conley links this question to the problematic of habitality, taking us back to Heidegger and showing how it informs much of French theory. Building on the author's acclaimed earlier study Ecopolitics, Spatial Ecologies argues, through the voices of the authors taken up the eight chapters, for recognition of the virtue of spatial theory and its pragmatic applications in the global milieu. It will be required reading for scholars of literary and cultural theory, and twentieth- and twenty-first century French culture.

Ecopolitics is a study of environmental awareness - or non-awareness - in contemporary French theory. Arguing that it is now impossible not to think in an ecological way, the author traces the roots of today's concern for the environment back to the intellectual climate of the late 50s and 60s. Major thinkers of 1968, the author argues, changed the way we think the world; this owes much to an ecological awareness that remains at the heart of issues concerning cultural theory in general. The book points to critiques of ecology in the work of Luc Ferry and Jean Baudrillard before turning to more complicated ecological awareness primarily in French thought. The author considers key texts by influential figures such as Michael Serres, Paul Virilio, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Michel de Certeau, Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray. The volume rehabilitates some ecological components of French intellectual thought since the 1960s, and reassesses French poststructural thinkers who explicitly deal with ecology in their work.

Series Information:
Opening Out: Feminism for Today

Spatial Ecologies takes a new look at the "spatial turn" in French cultural and critical theory since 1968. Verena Andermatt Conley examines how Henri Lefebvre, Michel de Certeau, Jean Baudrillard, Marc Auge, Paul Virilio, Bruno Latour and Etienne Balibar reconsider the experience of space in the midst of considerable political and economic turmoil. The book considers why French critical theorists turned away from questions of time and looked instead toward questions of space. It asks what writing about space can tell us about life in late capitalism. Conley links this question to the problematic of habitality, taking us back to Heidegger and showing how it informs much of French theory. Building on the author's acclaimed earlier study Ecopolitics, Spatial Ecologies argues, through the voices of the authors taken up the eight chapters, for recognition of the virtue of spatial theory and its pragmatic applications in the global milieu. It will be required reading for scholars of literary and cultural theory, and twentieth- and twenty-first century French culture.

This exciting collection of work introduces a major shift in debates on sexuality: a shift away from discourse, identity and signification, to a radical new conception of bodily materialism. Moving away from the established path known as queer theory, it suggests an alternative to Butler's matter/representation binary. It thus dares to ask how to think sexuality and sex outside the discursive and linguistic context that has come to dominate contemporary research in social sciences and humanities. Deleuze and Queer Theory is a provocative and often militant collection that explores a diverse range of themes including: the revisiting of the term 'queer'; a rethinking of the sex-gender distinction as being implied in Queer Theory; an exploration of queer temporalities; the non/re-reading of the homosexual body/desire and the becoming-queer of the Deleuze/Guattari philosophy. It will be essential reading for anyone interested not just in Deleuze's and Guattari's philosophy, but also in the fields of sexuality, gender and feminist theory.

Born in Algeria in 1937, Helene Cixous achieved world fame for her short stories, criticism, and fictionalized autobiography (Dedans, 1969). Her work quickly became controversial because it frankly tested a distinction between male and female writing. Her literary experiments and her conclusions make her one of the most stimulating and most elusive feminist theorists of our time.

Verena Andermatt Conley, a professor of French and women's studies at Miami University, has written the first full-length study of Cixous in English. Looking at Cixous as writer, teacher, and theoretician, Conley takes up Cixous's ongoing exploration of the "feminine" as related to the "masculine"--words not to be equated with "woman" and "man"--and her search for a terminology less freighted with emotion and prejudgment. Conley has updated this paperback edition with a new preface, bibliography, and interview with Cixous conducted by the editors of "Hors Cadre."

This exciting collection of work introduces a major shift in debates on sexuality: a shift away from discourse, identity and signification, to a radical new conception of bodily materialism. Moving away from the established path known as queer theory, it suggests an alternative to Butler's matter/representation binary. It thus dares to ask how to think sexuality and sex outside the discursive and linguistic context that has come to dominate contemporary research in social sciences and humanities. Deleuze and Queer Theory is a provocative and often militant collection that explores a diverse range of themes including: the revisiting of the term 'queer'; a rethinking of the sex-gender distinction as being implied in Queer Theory; an exploration of queer temporalities; the non/re-reading of the homosexual body/desire and the becoming-queer of the Deleuze/Guattari philosophy. It will be essential reading for anyone interested not just in Deleuze's and Guattari's philosophy, but also in the fields of sexuality, gender and feminist theory.