The Left Hemisphere: Mapping Critical Theory - Hardcover

Keucheyan, Razmig

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9781781681022: The Left Hemisphere: Mapping Critical Theory

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1781681023 ISBN 13: 9781781681022

Publisher: Verso, 2013

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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 decided, is that of theory. Over the last twenty-five years, radical intellectuals across the world have produced important and innovative ideas.

The endeavour to transform the world without falling into the catastrophic traps of the past has been a common element uniting these new approaches. This book – aimed at both the general reader and the specialist – offers the first global cartography of the expanding intellectual field of critical contemporary thought. More than thirty authors and intellectual currents of every continent are presented in a clear and succinct manner. A history of critical thought in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is also provided, helping situate current thinkers in a broader historical and sociological perspective.

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About the Author:

Razmig Keucheyan is an Assistant Professor in Sociology at the university of Paris-Sorbonne. He is the author of Le constructivisme. Des origines a nos jours and has recently edited a selection from Antonio Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks in French.

From Publishers Weekly:

Sociology professor Keucheyan maps the contemporary inheritance of critical thinking. The author tackles the history of radical movements and the important use of critical theory. He illustrates the ways in which critical thought has been re-appropriated and taken up by divergent threads of left-leaning politics, such as Marxist ecology, post-feminism, and African post-colonial political resistance. The book extensively surveys the relative positions of the major theorists, including Zizek, Benjamin, Gramsci, Agamben, Habermas, Balibar, Fraser, Anderson, and Said. The product is succinct and readable despite the breadth and depth of the inquiry and the complexity of the topic. Keucheyan's writing is just as approachable for the curious initiate as it is stimulating for the advanced political thinker. The intricate nexus of ideas, thinkers, movements, and events portrayed exhibits the panoply of the left and radical politics. This indispensable compendium demystifies a complex conceptual framework, thus allowing its readers to join this rich conversation.

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