Postmodern Theory Critical Interrogations

by Best, Steven; Kellner, Douglas

• ISBN13: 9780898624182
• ISBN10: 0898624185
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1991-11-15
• Publisher: The Guilford Press

Summary

In this timely volume, the authors systematically analyze postmodern t heory to evaluate its relevance for critical social theory and radical politics today. The authors claim that while postmodern theory provi des insights into contemporary developments, it lacks adequate methodo logical and political perspectives to provide a critical social theory and radical politics for the present age.

Author Biography

Steven Best, Ph.D., is a Professor of Humanities and Philosophy at the University of Texas, El Paso. He has published articles on Marx, postmodern theory, Baudrillard, Debord, Jameson, film, television, and cultural theory
Douglas Kellner is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin and is the author of Karl Korsch: Revolutionary Theory; Marxism and Modernity; Jean Baudrillard: From Marxism to Postmodernism and Beyond; Camera Politica: The Politics and Ideology of Contemporary Hollywood Film (with Michael Ryan); and Television and the Crisis of Democracy

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements	viii
In Search of the Postmodern	1	(33)
Archaeology of the Postmodern	5	(11)
The French Scene: From Structuralist to Postmodern Theory	16	(13)
The Poststructuralist Critique	20	(5)
The Postmodern Turn	25	(4)
Critical Theory and the Postmodern Challenge	29	(5)
Foucault and the Critique of Modernity	34	(42)
Postmodern Perspectives and the Critique of Modernity	36	(12)
Archaeology and Discontinuity	40	(5)
Nietzsche and Genealogy	45	(3)
Power/Knowledge/Subjectivity: Foucault's Postmodern Analytics	48	(6)
Domination and Resistance: Foucault's Political Fragments	54	(14)
Post-Marxist/Postmodern Strategies: Politics of Genealogy	56	(3)
Ethics and Technologies of the Self	59	(9)
Foucauldian Perspectives: Some Critical Comments	68	(8)
Deleuze and Guattari: Schizos, Nomads, Rhizomes	76	(35)
Deleuze's Nietzsche	79	(6)
Anti-Oedipus: Psychoanalysis, Capitalism, and Normalization	85	(12)
Desire, Modernity, and Schizoanalysis	86	(7)
The Micropolitics of Desire	93	(4)
A Thousand Plateaus for the Postmodern!	97	(7)
Critical Reservations: Bodies Without Politics?	104	(7)
Baudrillard en route to Postmodernity	111	(35)
Exploring Modernity	112	(6)
From Symbolic to Productivist Societies	114	(1)
Symbolic Exchange, Micropolitics, and Cultural Revolution	115	(3)
From Modernity to Postmodernity	118	(8)
The Holy Trinity: Simulations, Implosion and Hyperreality	118	(4)
Baudrillard vs. Foucault	122	(4)
Postmodernity, Metaphysics, and Postpolitics	126	(20)
Metaphysical Turn: Baudrillard in the 1980s	128	(5)
The End of History	133	(4)
Aporia and Blindspots	137	(9)
Lyotard and Postmodern Gaming	146	(35)
Drifting with Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche: Early Writings	147	(16)
Discours, Figure	148	(4)
Lyotard's Nietzschean Drift: Libidinal Economy and the Politics of Desire	152	(8)
Paganism, Just Gaming, and the Postmodern Turn	160	(3)
The Postmodern Condition	163	(4)
Between Kant and the Postmodern: The Differend	167	(4)
Postmodern Aporia	171	(10)
Language Games, Consensus, and the Fetishism of Difference	175	(2)
Sociological and Political Deficits	177	(4)
Marxism, Feminism, and Political Postmodernism	181	(34)
Jameson's Postmodern Marxism	182	(10)
Postmodernism as the Cultural Logic of Capital	184	(4)
Cognitive Mapping and Cultural Politics	188	(4)
Laclau and Mouffe: Between the Modern and Postmodern	192	(13)
Hegemony and the Marxist Tradition	194	(2)
Socialism, Radical Democracy, and Discourse Struggle	196	(4)
Beyond Marxism?: The Limits of Discourse Theory	200	(5)
Postmodern Feminism and the Politics of Identity and Difference	205	(10)
Critical Theory and Postmodern Theory	215	(41)
Critical Theory and Modernity	217	(8)
Adorno's Proto-Postmodern Theory	225	(8)
Habermas and Modernity	233	(13)
Modernity as Unfinished Project	234	(6)
Habermas vs. Postmodern Theory	240	(6)
Sibling Rivalries: The Habermas--Lyotard Debate	246	(10)
Towards the Reconstruction of Critical Social Theory	256	(49)
For a Multidimensional and Multiperspectival Critical Theory	263	(11)
Postmodernity, Postindustrial Society, and the Dialectics of Continuity and Discontinuity	274	(9)
Postmodern Politics: Subjectivity, Discourse, and Aestheticism	283	(11)
Theory, Culture, and Politics: Conflicting Models	294	(11)
Bibliography	305	(15)
Index	320