What's Left of Theory?

What's Left of Theory? PDF Author: Judith Butler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135962863
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 455

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Book Description
For several years, write the editors of What's Left of Theory , a debate on the politics of theory has been conducted energetically within literary studies. The terms of the debate, however, are far from clear. What is meant by politics? What is meant by theory? What's Left of Theory is a vigorous engagement with that thorniest of critical questions: how today are theory and progressive thought connected? Michael Warner, activist and critic, examines 'zones of privacy and zones of theory' while law professor Janet Halley considers theory and its applicability to sex harassment. Jeff Nunokawa examines Oscar Wilde, Marjorie Levinson reads Elizabeth Bishop alongside National Geographic ; John Brenkman considers 'extreme criticism', Michael Berube the 'future of contingency'; William Connolly addresses the matter of secularism, Gayatri Spivak explores what she calls 'theory-remains', and Jonathan Culler demonstrates once again his gift for explaining the complex in an essay that identifies 'the literary in theory'. Editors Butler, Guillory, and Thomas have brought together not only outstanding questioners, but outstanding questions. As their introduction puts it, Are there ways of pursuing a politically reflective literary analysis that have definitively left theory behind, and must 'theory' be left behind for left literary analysis to emerge? Has the study of literature passed beyond its encounter with theory? If so, in passing beyond theory, has it remained unchanged? Does the recent cry for a 'return to literature' signal the surpassing of theory, the fact that literature remains after theory? Does literature remain (the same) after theory? For students of literature and the humanities in general, these questions are not only left: they endure.

What's Left of Theory?

What's Left of Theory? PDF Author: Judith Butler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135962863
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 455

Get Book Here

Book Description
For several years, write the editors of What's Left of Theory , a debate on the politics of theory has been conducted energetically within literary studies. The terms of the debate, however, are far from clear. What is meant by politics? What is meant by theory? What's Left of Theory is a vigorous engagement with that thorniest of critical questions: how today are theory and progressive thought connected? Michael Warner, activist and critic, examines 'zones of privacy and zones of theory' while law professor Janet Halley considers theory and its applicability to sex harassment. Jeff Nunokawa examines Oscar Wilde, Marjorie Levinson reads Elizabeth Bishop alongside National Geographic ; John Brenkman considers 'extreme criticism', Michael Berube the 'future of contingency'; William Connolly addresses the matter of secularism, Gayatri Spivak explores what she calls 'theory-remains', and Jonathan Culler demonstrates once again his gift for explaining the complex in an essay that identifies 'the literary in theory'. Editors Butler, Guillory, and Thomas have brought together not only outstanding questioners, but outstanding questions. As their introduction puts it, Are there ways of pursuing a politically reflective literary analysis that have definitively left theory behind, and must 'theory' be left behind for left literary analysis to emerge? Has the study of literature passed beyond its encounter with theory? If so, in passing beyond theory, has it remained unchanged? Does the recent cry for a 'return to literature' signal the surpassing of theory, the fact that literature remains after theory? Does literature remain (the same) after theory? For students of literature and the humanities in general, these questions are not only left: they endure.

Left Hemisphere

Left Hemisphere PDF Author: Razmig Keucheyan
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1781682313
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
As the crisis of capitalism unfolds, the need for alternatives is felt ever more intensely. The struggle between radical movements and the forces of reaction will be merciless. A crucial battlefield, where the outcome of the crisis will in part be decided, is that of theory. Over the last twenty-five years, radical intellectuals across the world have produced important and innovative ideas. The endeavour to transform the world without falling into the catastrophic traps of the past has been a common element uniting these new approaches. This book – aimed at both the general reader and the specialist – offers the first global cartography of the expanding intellectual field of critical contemporary thought. More than thirty authors and intellectual currents of every continent are presented in a clear and succinct manner. A history of critical thought in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is also provided, helping situate current thinkers in a broader historical and sociological perspective.

Walk Away

Walk Away PDF Author: Lee Trepanier
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498595200
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
This book examines key twentieth-century philosophers, theologians, and social scientists who began their careers with commitments to the political left only later to reappraise or reject them. Their reevaluation of their own previous positions reveals not only the change in their own thought but also the societal changes in the culture, economics, and politics to which they were reacting. By exploring the evolution of the political thought of these philosophers, this book draws connections among these thinkers and schools and discovers the general trajectory of twentieth-century political thinking in the West.

The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt

The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt PDF Author: Jens Meierhenrich
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199916934
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 873

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Book Description
The Oxford Handbook of Carl Schmitt collects thirty original chapters on the diverse oeuvre of one of the most controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. Uniquely located at the intersection of law, the social sciences, and the humanities, it brings together sophisticated yet accessible interpretations of Schmitt's sprawling thought and complicated biography.

Generation Left

Generation Left PDF Author: Keir Milburn
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509532269
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 79

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Book Description
Increasingly age appears to be the key dividing line in contemporary politics. Young people across the globe are embracing left-wing ideas and supporting figures such as Corbyn and Sanders. Where has this ‘Generation Left’ come from? How can it change the world? This compelling book by Keir Milburn traces the story of Generation Left. Emerging in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crash, it has now entered the electoral arena and found itself vying for dominance with ageing right-leaning voters and a ‘Third Way’ political elite unable to accept the new realities. By offering a new concept of political generations, Milburn unveils the ideas, attitudes and direction of Generation Left and explains how the age gap can be bridged by reinventing youth and adulthood. This book is essential reading for anyone, young or old, who is interested in addressing the multiple crises of our time.

Elegy for Theory

Elegy for Theory PDF Author: D. N. Rodowick
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674727010
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Rhetorically charged debates over theory have divided scholars of the humanities for decades. In Elegy for Theory, D. N. Rodowick steps back from well-rehearsed arguments pro and con to assess why theory has become such a deeply contested concept. Far from lobbying for a return to the "high theory" of the 1970s and 1980s, he calls for a vigorous dialogue on what should constitute a new, ethically inflected philosophy of the humanities. Rodowick develops an ambitiously cross-disciplinary critique of theory as an academic discourse, tracing its historical displacements from ancient concepts of theoria through late modern concepts of the aesthetic and into the twentieth century. The genealogy of theory, he argues, is constituted by two main lines of descent—one that goes back to philosophy and the other rooted instead in the history of positivism and the rise of the empirical sciences. Giving literature, philosophy, and aesthetics their due, Rodowick asserts that the mid-twentieth-century rise of theory within the academy cannot be understood apart from the emergence of cinema and visual studies. To ask the question, "What is cinema?" is to also open up in new ways the broader question of what is art. At a moment when university curriculums are everywhere being driven by scientism and market forces, Elegy for Theory advances a rigorous argument for the importance of the arts and humanities as transformative, self-renewing cultural legacies.

Theory of the Hashtag

Theory of the Hashtag PDF Author: Andreas Bernard
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509539204
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 114

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Book Description
This is a short book about the most prominent sign of our times. The simple # sign is now used so widely that it is easy to overlook the fundamental effects it has had in the structuring of public debate. With its help, statements are bundled together and discourse is organized and amplified around common buzzwords. This method enables us to navigate more easily the huge volume of online utterances, but it also increases the risk of leveling statements and extinguishing difference, as exemplified by the #MeToo debate. Andreas Bernard traces the young and spectacular career of the humble hashtag. He follows the history of the # sign, documenting its use by Twitter and Instagram, and then examines the most prominent contemporary domains of the sign in socio-political activism and in marketing – two apparently very different fields which are united in their passion for the hashtag. Theory of the Hashtag shines a bright light on a small but pervasive feature of our contemporary digital culture and shows how it is surreptitiously shaping the public sphere.

What's Left?

What's Left? PDF Author: Julia Swindells
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429817932
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
First published in 1990. What had been left out of Left thought? What had allowed the Left to substitute nostalgia for programme and action, and to continue to address itself exclusively to labouring men, despite insistent demands for inclusion from others – notably women – who recognised themselves as belonging to the Left? What’s Left?, a feminist challenge to the male-dominated ideology of the Labour Party, took shape under the pressure of two crucial events: the third successive election defeat of Labour by the Conservative Party, and the death of Raymond Williams. Swindells and Jardine analyse the difficulties the Left had including women in its account of class, to clarify general problems in British Left thought. They conclude that there was a serious and widely-perceived discrepancy between the Labour Party’s model of working-class consciousness and the experiences of the contemporary workforce as a whole. An important exploration of the intellectual history of the Labour Movement, What’s Left? looks critically at the Left from within the Left. It will be fascinating reading for students of cultural studies, history, politics and women’s studies.

The Idea of a Critical Theory

The Idea of a Critical Theory PDF Author: Raymond Geuss
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521284226
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
The purpose of this series is to help make contemporary European philosophy intelligible to a wider audience in the English-speaking world, and to suggest its interest and importance in particular to those trained in analytical philosophy.

Consuming Life

Consuming Life PDF Author: Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745655823
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
With the advent of liquid modernity, the society of producers is transformed into a society of consumers. In this new consumer society, individuals become simultaneously the promoters of commodities and the commodities they promote. They are, at one and the same time, the merchandise and the marketer, the goods and the travelling salespeople. They all inhabit the same social space that is customarily described by the term the market. The test they need to pass in order to acquire the social prizes they covet requires them to recast themselves as products capable of drawing attention to themselves. This subtle and pervasive transformation of consumers into commodities is the most important feature of the society of consumers. It is the hidden truth, the deepest and most closely guarded secret, of the consumer society in which we now live. In this new book Zygmunt Bauman examines the impact of consumerist attitudes and patterns of conduct on various apparently unconnected aspects of social life politics and democracy, social divisions and stratification, communities and partnerships, identity building, the production and use of knowledge, and value preferences. The invasion and colonization of the web of human relations by the worldviews and behavioural patterns inspired and shaped by commodity markets, and the sources of resentment, dissent and occasional resistance to the occupying forces, are the central themes of this brilliant new book by one of the worlds most original and insightful social thinkers.