Critical Theory

Origin of the German Trauerspiel was Walter Benjamin's first full, historically oriented analysis of modernity. Readers of English know it as "The Origin of German Tragic Drama," but in fact the subject is something else-the play of mourning. Howard...

Liberate yourself by understanding and mastering power dynamics All social relations are laden with power. Getting out from under dominant power relations and mastering power dynamics is perhaps the most essential skill for change agents across all...

This remarkable text, first published in 1964, was a landmark of its era and remains, in the words of Michael Loewy, a work of "remarkable richness." Drawing on Georg Lukacs' History and Class Consciousness, Lucien Goldmann applies the concept of "world...

The fall of the Berlin Wall marked the end of the Cold War but also the rise of a melancholic vision of history as a series of losses. For the political left, the cause lost was communism, and this trauma determined how leftists wrote the next chapter in...

Here, for the first time, Christopher Kul-Want brings together twenty-five texts on art written by twenty philosophers. Covering the Enlightenment to postmodernism, these essays draw on Continental philosophy and aesthetics, the Marxist intellectual...

First published in 1989, The Sublime Object of Ideology was Zizek's breakthrough work, and is still regarded by many as his masterpiece. It was an iconoclastic reinvention of ideology critique that introduced the English-speaking world to Zizek's...

The Film Theory in Practice Series fills a gaping hole in the world of film theory. By marrying the explanation of film theory with interpretation of a film, the volumes provide discrete examples of how film theory can serve as the basis for textual...

'Fabulous.' Dan Richards, author of Holloway 'Terrifically strange and thrilling.' Melissa Harrison, author of All Among the Barley 'A modern-day bard.' Madeline Miller, author of Circe This is a book of literary activism - an antidote to the...

Recognition is one of the most debated concepts in contemporary social and political thought. Its proponents, such as Axel Honneth, hold that to be recognized by others is a basic human need that is central to forming an identity, and the denial of...

Estelle Ferrarese argues for an understanding of morality that is materialist and political. Taking the Frankfurt School philosopher Theodor W. Adorno as a point of departure, she questions his social philosophy by submitting it to ideas deriving from...

Newly published lectures by Foucault on critique, Enlightenment, and the care of the self. On May 27, 1978, Michel Foucault gave a lecture to the French Society of Philosophy where he redefined his entire philosophical project in light of Immanuel...

Mari Ruti combines theoretical reflection, cultural critique, feminist politics, and personal experience to analyze the prevalence of bad feelings in contemporary everyday life. Proceeding from a playful engagement with Freud's idea of penis envy, Ruti's...

This is the essential toolkit for anyone approaching Deleuze for the first time. "Difference and Repetition" (first published in 1968) is widely accepted as Gilles Deleuze's most important work of philosophy and one of the most significant texts of...

What is behind the upsurge of virulent nationalism and intransigent politics across the globe today? In Fear of Breakdown, Noelle McAfee uses psychoanalytic theory to explore the subterranean anxieties behind current crises and the ways in which...

Fanon, Phenomenology, and Psychology is the first edited collection dedicated to exploring the explicitly phenomenological foundations underlying Frantz Fanon's most important insights. Featuring contributions from many of the world's leading scholars on...

Psychiatry and psychology have constructed a mental health system that does no justice to the problems it claims to understand and creates multiple problems for its users. Yet the myth of biologically-based mental illness defines our present. The book...

Critical theory and dystopia offers a uniquely rich study of dystopian fiction, drawing on the insights of critical theory. Asking what ideological work these dark imaginings perform, the book reconstructs the historical emergence, consolidation and...

Does critical theory still need psychoanalysis? In Critique on the Couch, Amy Allen offers a cogent and convincing defense of its ongoing relevance.Countering the overly rationalist and progressivist interpretations of psychoanalysis put forward by...

Critical philosophy has always challenged the division between theory and practice. At its best, it aims to turn contemplation into emancipation, seeking to transform society in pursuit of equality, autonomy, and human flourishing. Yet today's critical...

Almost fifty years ago, Jean-Louis Comolli and Jean Narboni published the manifesto "Cinema/Ideology/Criticism," helping to set the agenda for a generation of film theory that used cinema as a means of critiquing capitalist ideology. In recent decades,...

The engagement of Gilles Deleuze with psychoanalysis has led to the development of a remarkable and highly influential theory about human desire. The most systematic account of this theory, crucial for anyone interested in the work of Deleuze and Felix...

Walter Benjamin is one of the twentieth century's most important intellectuals, and also one of its most elusive. His writings-mosaics incorporating philosophy, literary criticism, Marxist analysis, and a syncretistic theology-defy simple categorization...

Logics of Worlds is the sequel to Alain Badiou's masterpiece, Being and Event. Tackling the questions that had been left open by Being and Event, and answering many of his critics in the process, Badiou supplements his pioneering treatment of multiple...

Does history produce discernible meaning? Are human struggles intelligible? These questions form the starting-point for the second volume of Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason. Drafted in 1958 and published in France in 1985, this magisterial work...

Big ideas that just might save the world. the Guardian A serious book on an important subject. Without imagination, where are we? Sir Quentin Blake What if we took play seriously? What if we considered imagination vital to our health? What if we...

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...

"Taken as a trilogy, consent not to be a single being is a monumental accomplishment: a brilliant theoretical intervention that might be best described as a powerful case for blackness as a category of analysis."-Brent Hayes Edwards, author of...

A classic of Western Marxism, The Destruction of Reason is Georg Lukacs's trenchant criticism of German philosophy after Marx and the role it played in the rise of National Socialism. Originally published in 1952, the book is a sustained and detailed...

In this innovative addition to the New Horizons in Leadership Studies series, Leah Tomkins explores Franz Kafka's expertise in the exercise of power, emphasising his own work as a leader. Through extensive primary research and original translation, she...

Philosophers on Film from Bergson to Badiou is an anthology of writings on cinema and film by many of the major thinkers in continental philosophy. The book presents a selection of fundamental texts, each accompanied by an introduction and exposition by...

We need a new philosophy of the earth. Geological time used to refer to slow and gradual processes, but today we are watching land sink into the sea and forests transform into deserts. We can even see the creation of new geological strata made of...

At the outset of the twentieth century, Lenin argued that materialism has to change its form with each new scientific discovery. Today, argues Slavoj Zizek in this major new work, we should apply this stricture to Lenin himself. Philosophical materialism...

While post- and decolonial theorists have thoroughly debunked the idea of historical progress as a Eurocentric, imperialist, and neocolonialist fallacy, many of the most prominent contemporary thinkers associated with the Frankfurt School-Jurgen...

The second annual Alchemy Lecture brought together five artists, thinkers, and writers who proposed new ways of being and discussed radical visions for the future. Five Manifestos for the Beautiful World captures and expands these lectures to illuminate...

The 2008 global financial crisis has led to the re-emergence in public discourse of the idea that capitalism could end. For many, it was proof of the notion that capitalist civilisation has an endemic tendency towards crisis that will ultimately bring...

This book employs recursivity and contingency as two principle concepts to investigate into the relation between nature and technology, machine and organism, system and freedom. It reconstructs a trajectory of thought from an Organic condition of...

In an effort to deny the ongoing effect of colonialism and imperialism on contemporary political life, the death knell for a multicultural society has been sounded from all sides. That's the provocative argument Paul Gilroy makes in this unorthodox...

The devolved and dispersed character of human agency and moral responsibility in the contemporary condition appears linked with the deepening global trauma of 'inhumanism' as a paradox of the Anthropocene. Reclaiming human agency and accountability...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780615600468Author Eugene ThackerFormat PaperbackPage Count 310Imprint Punctum BooksPublisher Punctum BooksWeight(grams) 308gDimensions(mm) 203mm * 127mm *...

Dominick LaCapra's History and Its Limits articulates the relations among intellectual history, cultural history, and critical theory, examining the recent rise of "Practice Theory" and probing the limitations of prevalent forms of humanism. LaCapra...