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Feminism and Power: the Need for Critical Theory is a six-chapter manuscript which offers an important critique of “power feminism.” The latter, having produced such spinoffs as “grrrl power,” “choice,” “babe,” “lipstick,” and “stiletto” feminisms, encourages women to be strong, self-sufficient, feisty, and independent. While I have no argument with much of that tough-minded ideal, I ask whether this “brave new girl” doesn’t too readily acquiesce in a neo-liberal ideology whose underlying tenets derive from American rugged individualism. At its worst, this strain within Third Wave feminism contains no critique of capitalism, no distance on neoliberal theory, no ...
'...a fascinating analysis of the status of the obscene and its representation in pornography in modern culture.... Caputi's thesis is masterfully argued....'-James Glass, University of Maryland
In response to this current political and economic climate, Teaching Marx & Critical Theory in the 21st Century defends the importance, and difficulties, of teaching Marx and critical theory—and the crucial insights of critical pedagogy—through variously original and republished chapters, which, each in their own ways, reflect on ways to teach and reach twenty-first century students. This volume presents unique perspectives on teaching Marx and critical theory in various contexts, sub-fields, and geographies, and underscores the need for students of the modern world to be versed in Marxist thought and for pedagogues to push the limits of critical pedagogical strategies in the classroom—and beyond. Contributors include: Allan Ardill, Mary Caputi, Mauro Caraccioli, Zachary Casey, Ronald Cox, Kevin Funk, Maylin M. Hernandez, Douglas Kellner, Jason Morrissette, Sebastian Sclofsky, Bryant William Sculos, Sean Walsh.
This edited collection showcases the contribution of women to the development of political ideas during the Enlightenment, and presents an alternative to the male-authored canon of philosophy and political thought. Over the course of the eighteenth century increasing numbers of women went into print, and they exploited both new and traditional forms to convey their political ideas: from plays, poems, and novels to essays, journalism, annotated translations, and household manuals, as well as dedicated political tracts. Recently, considerable scholarly attention has been paid to women’s literary writing and their role in salon society, but their participation in political debates is less wel...
Queer Retrosexuality: The Politics of Reparative Return analyzes the cultural, theoretical, and political value of thinking about retrospection in conjunction with queerness. It historically grounds and exemplifies the call for a more "reparatively" informed queer theory in its contextualization of reparation through the return to the 1950s. The book thus contributes and furthers some of the dynamic conversations around the politics of queer temporality and historiography.
Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts highlights the Derridean assertion that the university must exist 'without condition' - as a bastion of intellectual freedom and oppositional activity whose job it is to question mainstream society. Derrida argued that only if the life of the mind is kept free from excessive corporate influence and political control can we be certain that the basic tenets of democracy are being respected within the very societies that claim to defend democratic principles. This collection contains eleven essays drawn from international scholars working in both the humanities and social sciences, and makes a well-grounded and comprehensive case for the importance of Derridean thought within the liberal arts today. Written by specialists in the fields of philosophy, literature, history, sociology, geography, political science, animal studies, and gender studies, each essay traces deconstruction's contribution to their discipline, explaining how it helps keep alive the 'unconditional', contrapuntal mission of the university. The book offers a forceful and persuasive corrective to the current assault on the liberal arts.
“In the Norman Rockwell paintings of the 1940s and 1950s,” wrote Newt Gingrich, “there was a clear sense of what it meant to be an American.” Gingrich’s words underline what Mary Caputi sees as a desire of the neoconservative movement to set a foundation for modern America that ennobles the past. Analyzing these competing uses of the past, A Kinder, Gentler America reveals how longing for the era of “the greatest generation” actually exposes a disillusionment with the present. Caputi draws on the theoretical frameworks of Julia Kristeva and Walter Benjamin to look at how the decade has been portrayed in movies such as Pleasantville and Far from Heaven and delves further to inve...
As rich and complex as The Sopranos or The Wire, Mad Men demands a critical look at its narrative and characters as representative of both the period it depicts and of our memories and assumptions of the period. Mad Men, Women, and Children: Essays on Gender and Generation, edited by Heather Marcovitch and Nancy Batty, focuses on women and children, two groups that are not only identified together in this period (women characters in this show are often treated as coddled children and the children look to their parents as models of adult behaviors) but are also two groups who are beginning to gain political and social rights in this period. The connections between the women of Mad Men, early ...
"Medieval Obscenities examines the complex and contentious role of the obscene - what is offensive, indecent or morally repugnant - in medieval culture from late antiquity through to the end of the middle ages in western Europe. Its approach is multidisciplinary, its methodologies divergent and it seeks to formulate questions and stimulate debate." "The essays examine topics as diverse as Norse defecation taboos, the Anglo-Saxon sexual idiom, sheela-na-gigs, impotence in the church courts, bare ecclesiastical bottoms, rude sounds and dirty words, as well as the modern reception and representation of the medieval obscene. The volume demonstrates not only the vitality of medieval obscenity, but its centrality to our understanding of medieval life."--Jacket.
In this book, Sarosh Koshy strives to go beyond the mission model of Christianity that emerged alongside and within the colonial enterprise and ethos since the sixteenth century. Rather than denounce the inheritance of the mission movement that transformed both the church and world in innumerable ways, it is a simultaneous expression of appreciation for this precious heritage, and an attempt to do justice by it through a yearning quest for relevant paradigms of Christian engagement.Indeed, there is an intense tension within this book, and in fact a twin tension at that. The tension is between those seeking to keep the current mission paradigm alive out of habit or as a self-serving device, t...