Paul de Man's work is key to the American deconstruction movement and to the so-called political turn in critical theory. Seventeen years after his death, his works continue to arouse violent reactions among critics. This book explains why de Man is such an important voice, detailing his critical position, exploring his intellectual and historical contexts, tracing the influence of his work and enabling readers to undertake independent study of his criticism.
Paul de Man's work is key to the American deconstruction movement and to the so-called political turn in critical theory. Seventeen years after his de...
This guide offers students of literature and culture a refreshingly clear introduction to Butler's crucial ideas, including the formation of identity, subjecthood and gender performativity.
This guide offers students of literature and culture a refreshingly clear introduction to Butler's crucial ideas, including the formation of identity,...
An invaluable introduction to the life and work of one of today's most important cultural critics. Studied on most undergraduate literary and cultural studies courses, Fredric Jameson's writing targets subjects from architecture to science fiction, cinema to global capitalism. Of his works, The Political Unconscious remains one of the most widely cited Marxist literary-theoretical texts, and 'Postmodernism, or the cultural logic of late capitalism', is amongst the most influential statements on the nature of post-modernity ever published. Adam Roberts offers an ngaging introduction...
An invaluable introduction to the life and work of one of today's most important cultural critics. Studied on most undergraduate literary and cultural...
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak offers an overtly political challenge to the way we think about literature and culture. As she highlights the many legacies of colonialism, she re-defines the ethical horizons of contemporary critical thought. This volume focuses on her key theoretical concepts, intellectual context and critical reception, providing an accessible introduction to one of the most important thinkers of our time. Stephen Morton introduces Spivak's crucial work through an analysis of such issues as: * methodology and Spivak's 'difficult' style * deconstructive strategies *...
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak offers an overtly political challenge to the way we think about literature and culture. As she highlights the many legacies...
Paul Ricoeur is one of the most wide-ranging thinkers to emerge in the twentieth century. He has developed a unique 'theory of reading' or hermeneutics, which extends far beyond the reading of literary works to build into a theory for the reading of 'life'. For this reason, his work has impacted not only upon literary studies, but upon such disciplines as philosophy, psychoanalysis, history, religion, legal studies and politics. This introductory guide: * details Ricoeur's most significant contributions to contemporary critical thought * provides an intellectual context to...
Paul Ricoeur is one of the most wide-ranging thinkers to emerge in the twentieth century. He has developed a unique 'theory of reading' or hermene...
Why think? Not, according to Gilles Deleuze, in order to be clever, but because thinking transforms life. Why read literature? Not for pure entertainment, Deleuze tells us, but because literature can recreate the boundaries of life. With his emphasis on creation, the future and the enhancement of life, along with his crusade against 'common sense', Deleuze offers some of the most liberating, exhilarating ideas in twentieth-century thought. This book offers a way in to Deleuzean thought through such topics as: * 'becoming' * time and the flow of life * the ethics of thinking *...
Why think? Not, according to Gilles Deleuze, in order to be clever, but because thinking transforms life. Why read literature? Not for pure entertainm...
Jean-Francois Lyotard is one of the most celebrated proponents of what has become known as the 'postmodern'. More than almost any other contemporary theorist, he has explored the relations between knowledge, art, politics and history, in ways that offer radical new possibilities for thinking about modern culture. Simon Malpas introduces students to issues at the heart of Lyotard's work, including *modernity and the postmodern *the sublime *ethics *history and representation *art and the unpresentable *knowledge, the university and the future. Lyotard's work is...
Jean-Francois Lyotard is one of the most celebrated proponents of what has become known as the 'postmodern'. More than almost any other contemporary t...
Jacques Lacan is one of the most challenging and controversial of contemporary thinkers, as well as the most influential psychoanalyst since Freud. Lacanian theory has reached far beyond the consulting room to engage with such diverse disciplines as literature, film, gender and social theory. This book covers the full extent of Lacan's career and provides an accessible guide to Lacanian concepts and his writing on: the imaginary and the symbolic; the Oedipus Complex and the meaning of the phallus; the subject and the unconscious; the real; sexual difference. Locating Lacan's work in the...
Jacques Lacan is one of the most challenging and controversial of contemporary thinkers, as well as the most influential psychoanalyst since Freud. La...
James Procter's introduction places Hall's work within its historical contexts, providing a clear guide to his key ideas and influences, as well as to his critics and his intellectual legacy.
Stuart Hall has been pivotal to the development of cultural studies during the past forty years. Whether as director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, or as one of the leading public intellectuals of the postwar period, he has helped transform our understanding of culture as both a theoretical catagory and a political practice.
Topics include:
* popular culture...
James Procter's introduction places Hall's work within its historical contexts, providing a clear guide to his key ideas and influences, as well as...
In the early twentieth century the Modernist novel tested literary conventions and expectations, challenging representations of reality, consciousness and identity. These novels were not simply creative masterpieces, however, but also crucial articulations of revolutionary developments in critical thought. Tracing the developing modernist aesthetic in the thought and writings of James Joyce, Dorothy Richardson and Virginia Woolf, Deborah Parsons considers the cultural, social and personal influences upon the three writers. Exploring the connections between their theories, Parsons pays...
In the early twentieth century the Modernist novel tested literary conventions and expectations, challenging representations of reality, consciousness...
