You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Poststructuralism, particularly through the writings of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, has achieved remarkable success in challenging our belief in natural sex categories and instincts. Here, Carrie Hull endorses the progressive ideals of poststructuralism while demonstrating the superiority of a realist account of sex and sexuality. Embracing biological and cultural variability, Hull nonetheless shows that the sexed body is naturally structured and deeply meaningful. Poststructuralist philosophers have argued that biological sex is a continuum rather than a binary, and that sex identity and drive are entirely performances of cultural norms rather than expressions of innate qualities. Hu...
"A comprehensive modern-day bestiary."--The New Yorker
This book considers whether critical theory is up to the task of addressing our contemporary crises, including the question of ‘post-truth’ discourse, psycho-social pathologies, the rise of right-wing populism, the Covid-19 pandemic, the anticolonial deficit in critical theory, and the neo-liberal management of the academy. The contributors offer a series of timely and complex reflections on the nature of critical theory, its role in contemporary society, and its various developments since the early twentieth century. In doing so, they analyse a variety of contemporary issues that, through critical reflection, can help us to navigate these problems. This volume seeks to highlight problems and possibilities within this field of thought, and endeavours to contribute towards reconsidering its capabilities and relevance.
Through examination of the functions of language and cross-cultural readings of literature – from African queer reading to postcolonial Shakespeare – Rooney explores the nature of the real, providing: a way out of some of the current deadlocks of feminist theory an anti-essentialist approach to gender in which both male and female readers may address a consciousness of the feminine a platform for postcolonial and postmodernist thinkers to engage in a dialogue around the status of the performative in regard to the other a new theory of poetic realism in both canonical and postcolonial literatures a re-reading of the Enlightenment legacy in terms of postcolonial liberation theory a comparison of contemporary debates on the real across the humanities and the sciences. Exploring current ideas of performativity in literature and language, and negotiating a path between feminist theory’s common pitfalls of essentialism and constructivism, Caroline Rooney argues convincingly that by rethinking our understanding of gender we might also equip ourselves to resist racism and totalitarianism more effectively.
Dictionary of Critical Realism fulfils a vital gap in the literature, Critical Realism is often criticised for being too opaque and deploying too much jargon, thereby making the concepts inaccessible for a wider audience. However, as Hartwig puts it 'Just as the tools of the various skilled trades need to be precision-engineered for specific, interrelated functions, so meta-theory requires concepts honed for specific interrelated tasks: it is impossible to think creatively at that level without them.' This Dictionary seeks to redress this problem; to throw open the important contribution of Critical Realism to a wider audience for the first time, by thoroughly explaining all the key concepts...
The weekly source of African American political and entertainment news.