Critical theory Books

The twentieth century holds many titles that emphasise the extraordinary. It was a century of totalitarianism, but also one of betrayal, an age of extremes and the incomprehensible. Betrayed, that is, at the mercy of unrestrained violence, were not only...

A reading of Theory when and where it arises in the event of reading and how Theory might best be handled in the context of higher education today.'A splendid set of studies from a consummate critical theorist. Leading us into theoretical discourse with...

A comprehensive and original comparison of two of the most important and influential contemporary social theoristsThis major new contribution forms a constructive comparison of the social theories of Jrgen Habermas and Anthony Giddens that focuses on...

Louis Althusser argued that Marx initiated a transformation of philosophy, a new way of doing philosophy. This book follows that provocation to examine the way in which central Marxist concepts and problems from primitive accumulation to real abstraction...

Andy Blunden's Hegel Marx & Vygotsky, Essays in Social Philosophy presents his novel approach to social theory in a series of essays. Blunden aims to use the cultural psychology of Lev Vygotsky and the Soviet Activity Theorists to renew Hegelian...

Taking an analytic and historical approach, this work develops and defends Althusserian critical theory. This theory, it is argued, produces knowledge of how a particular class of people, in a particular time, in a particular place, is dominated,...

A key contribution to post-war Marxist thinking, finally back in print.Alfred Sohn-Rethel's Intellectual and Manual Labour is one of the major texts of post-war Marxist theory. A tremendous influence on the central figures of the Frankfurt School, with...

Y'all Means All is a celebration of the weird and wonderful aspects of a troubled region in all of their manifest glory! This collection is a thought-provoking hoot and a holler of "we're queer and we're here to stay, cause we're every bit a piece of the...

This book offers a unique and timely reading of the early Frankfurt School in response to the recent 'affective turn' within the arts and humanities. Resisting the overly rationalist tendencies of political philosophy, it argues that...

This book provides a concise overview of the social theoretical foundations of Critical Theory.The social-theoretical foundations of critical theory have crumbled. This is a result of the unchecked embrace of an aggressive variant of...

Provides an overview of post-concepts used in the humanities and the social sciences. Postmodern, postcolonial and post-truth are broadly used terms. But where do they come from? When and why did the habit of interpreting the world in post-terms emerge?...

Bringing the resources of critical theory to bear on the genre of dystopian fiction, this volume demonstrates both the continuing potential of Theodor Adorno's work on literature, and the meaning of dystopia when considered in the light of Adorno's...

This volume in the Critical Theory and Contemporary Society series explores the arguments between critical theory and epistemology in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Focusing on the first and second generations of critical theorists and...

Critical theory is one of the most important and exciting areas within the study of international relations. Its purpose is not only to describe how the world operates but to also help us imagine how we might achieve a more equitable and sustainable way...

Critical Theory and Human Rights describes how human rights have given rise to a vision of benevolent governance that, if fully realised, would be antithetical to individual freedom. It describes human rights' evolution into a grand but nebulous...

Populism is a powerful force today, but its full scope has eluded the analytical tools of both orthodox and heterodox 'populism studies.' This book provides a valuable alternative perspective. It reconstructs in detail for the first...

This volume collects and revises the key essays of Gunther Teubner, one of the world's leading sociologists of law.Written over the past twenty years, these essays examine the 'dark side' of functional differentiation and the...

Democracy in the twenty-first century faces a number of major challenges, populism, neoliberalism and globalisation being three of the most prominent. This book examines such challenges by investigating how the conditions of democratic statehood have...

A groundbreaking look at Gaia theory's intersections with neocybernetic systems theory Often seen as an outlier in science, Gaia has run a long and varied course since its formulation in the 1970s by atmospheric chemist James Lovelock and microbiologist...

Winner of the NAVSA Best Book of the Year, North American Victorian Studies AssociationFrom the opening of trade with Britain in the 1850s, Japan occupied a unique and contradictory place in the Victorian imagination, regarded as both a rival empire and...