Cultural Semantics: Keywords of Our Time - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0485300869 ISBN 13: 9780485300864

Publisher: Athlone Press

Synopsis

In this account of some of the central concepts in modern life and thought, Professor Jay investigates how language cannot fail to change and mediate experience. The topics he treats range from "theory" and "experience" to the meaning of "multiculturalism" and the dynamic of "cultural subversion", and among the thinkers he engages are Bataille, Foucault, Adorno, Walter Benjamin and Lyotard.

About this title

About the Author

Martin Jay is professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute for Social Research, 1923-1950; Marxism and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukács to Habermas; and Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought.

Review

In this book we are confronted with Jay's consistently high level of conceptual clarity, his forceful refusal to bend to current trends, and a remarkable generosity toward his intellectual opponents.... His ability to connect journalistic controversies with more serious academic concerns is especially evident throughout.

(Anson Rabinbach, Princeton University)

Edition details

• Publisher: Athlone Press
• ISBN 10: 0485300869
• ISBN 13: 9780485300864
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English