Critical Theory at a Crossroads: Conversations on Resistance in Times of Crisis

Published by Columbia University Press 2018

Critical Theory at a Crossroads

Conversations on Resistance in Times of Crisis

Edited by: Stijn De Cauwer
With contributions by: Tariq Ali , Zygmunt Bauman , Rosi Braidotti , Wendy Brown , Roberto Esposito , Maurizio Lazzarato , Angela McRobbie , Jean-Luc Nancy , Antonio Negri , Jacques Rancière , Saskia Sassen and Joseph Vogl

https://doi.org/10.7312/de-c18678

Overview
Contents

About this book

Critical Theory at a Crossroads presents conversations with prominent theorists about the crises that have marked the past years and the use of the term "crisis" in political discourse. They offer their views on contemporary challenges and how we might address them, candidly discussing the alternatives that new social movements have offered.

Author / Editor information

Cauwer Stijn De :

Stijn de Cauwer (PhD, Literary Studies, Leuven) is Researcher in the Department of Literary and Cultural Studies, University of Leuven. He is the author of A Diagnosis of Modern Life: Robert Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften as a Critical-Utopian Project (Peter Lang, 2014) and the editor of several special issues of journals, including “Immunity, Society and the Arts,” Configurations (#25, 2017), “Georges Didi-Hubermann,” Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities (2018), and “Immunity and Modernity: Picturing Threat and Protection,” Boundary 2: an International Journal of Literature and Culture. He has also published articles in a number of journals, including (in English) Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literatures, Interiors: Design, Architecture and Culture, Studies in Social and Political Thought, and Meridian Critic. He is also the founder and director of IdeaLab: The Biopolitical Condition, a forum for research on contemporary theories about biopolitics.Brown Wendy :

Wendy Brown (PhD, Political Philosophy, Princeton) is Class of 1936 First Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley. She is the author of Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism's Stealth Revolution (Zone, 2015), Walled States, Waning Sovereignty (Zone, 2010), and Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Empire and Identity (Princeton, 2006) and coauthor (with Rainer Forst) of The Power of Tolerance (Columbia, 2014), among a number of other titles. Her interests include political theory, critical theory, continental philosophy, psychoanalysis, democratic theory, capitalism, and neoliberalism.Stijn De Cauwer is a postdoctoral researcher in cultural studies and literary studies at the University of Leuven in Belgium. He is the author of A Diagnosis of Modern Life: Robert Musil’s Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften as a Critical-Utopian Project (2014).

Reviews

Arne De Boever, California Institute of the Arts:
Critical Theory at a Crossroads consists of eleven conversations with distinguished interviewees about various crises in the contemporary world, as well as a letter exchange in its concluding twelfth chapter. All of its contributions reflect and engage the work of the interviewees included in the book but also add new insights to it. This timely collection both develops a theoretical/philosophical reflection about crisis and a practical investigation of actually developing political or economic phenomena that have been characterized as 'crises.'

Roberto Esposito, author of Bios: Biopolitics and Philosophy:
In this book the concept of 'crisis' is examined in all of its multiple expressions—historical, social, and philosophical. The result is extraordinarily rich and penetrating. Against the idea that 'there is no alternative,' a form of resistance emerges that is capable of overcoming national confines and of opening a new space for action and thought.

Jodi Dean, author of The Communist Horizon:
The benefits of this collection of interviews are many: an introduction to the thought of some leading critical intellectuals, a compendium of the terms and questions most pressing in contemporary theory, a confrontation with the political challenges of the present moment, and more. If you want an answer to 'what is to be done?' you won’t find it here. But you will encounter the work of thought necessary for ideas capable of turning current crises into emancipatory possibilities.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	ix
Introduction. Resistance in Times of Crisis Stijn De Cauwer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xi
1. A Critical Europe Can Do It! Interview with Rosi Braidotti Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. We Should be Modest, When It Comes to the Designation of the Possible Subjects of a New Politics Interview with Jacques Rancière Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
3. The History of the Notion of Crisis Interview with Joseph Vogl Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
4. Neoliberalism Against the Promise of Modernity Interview with Wendy Brown Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	75
5. The European Union Is a Cage Interview with Antonio Negri Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
6. We Need to Have a Clear Alternative Interview with Tariq Ali Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	99
7. Finance Is an Extractive Sector Interview with Saskia Sassen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
8. How to Think a War Machine? Interview with Maurizio Lazzarato Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
9. The Creativity Dispositive: Labor Reform by Stealth Interview with Angela McRobbie Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	146
10. The Idea of Crisis Interview with Jean-Luc Nancy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	159
11. Terror and the Rejection of Sense Interview with Jean-Luc Nancy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	173
12. Community in Crisis A Letter Exchange Between Zygmunt Bauman and Roberto Esposito Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	188
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;

eBook

Published: December 3, 2018
ISBN: 9780231546836