Showing papers on "Critical theory published in 1989"

Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory

Abstract: Acknowledgements. Introduction. Part I: Powers, Norms, and Vocabularies of Contestation:. 1. Foucault on Modern Power:. Empirical Insights and Normative Confusions. 2. Michael Foucault: A a Young Conservativea ?. 3. Foucaulta s Body Language: A Posthumanist Political Rhetoric?. Part II: On the Political and the Symbolic:. 4. The French Derrideans:. Politicizing Deconstruction or Deconstructing the Political?. 5. Solidarity or Singularity?:. Richard Rorty between Romanticism and Technocracy. Part III: Gender and the Politics of Need Interpretation:. 6. Whata s Critical about Critical Theory?. The Case of Habermas and Gender. 7. Women, Welfare, and the Politics of Need Interpretation. 8. Struggle over Needs: Outline of a Socialist--Feminist Critical. Theory of Late Capitalist Political Culture. Index.

Critical theory, Marxism, and modernity

Abstract: Preface and Acknowledgements. Part 1: Theory, Politics, and History: 1. 1. Critical Theory and Modernity. 1. 2. Critical Theory and the Crisis of Marxism. 1. 3. The Institute for Social Research. Part 2: From Supradisciplinary Materialism to Critical Theory: 2. 1. Supradisciplinary Materialism. 2. 2. Toward a Materialist Social Psychology. 2. 3. Traditional and Critical Theory. Part 3: State, Society, Economy: New Theories of Capitalism and Fascism: 3. 1. Political Sociology and Political Economy. 3. 2. From Market to Monopoly / State Capitalism. 3. 3. Fascism. 3. 4. Fragments of a Theory of Society. Part 4: From Dialectic of Enlightenment to the Authoritarian Personality: Critical Theory in the 1940s: 4. 1 Science, Reason and Dialectic of Enlightenment. 4. 2. Eclipse of Reason. 4. 3. Critical Theory, the Proletariat and Politics. 4. 4. Studies in Prejudice and the Return to Germany. Part 5: From 'Authentic Art' to the Culture of Industries: Critical Theory and the Dialectics of Culture: 5. 1. Dialectics of Culture. 5. 2. Critical Theory and the Culture Industry. 5. 3. New Critical Perspectives on Commodities, Needs and Consumption. Part 6: From the Consumer Society to Postmodernism: Critical Theory and the Vicissitudes of Capitalism: 6. 1. Critical Theory and the Consumer Society. 6. 2. New Critical Perspectives on Commodities, Needs and Consumption. 6. 3. Critical Theory, Modernity and Post-Modernity. Part 7: Techno-Capitalism: 7. 1. Technology, Capitalism and Domination. 7. 2. The Capitalist State. 7. 3. Toward a New Crisis Theory: Habermas and Offe. Part 8: Theory and Practice: The Politics of Critical Theory: 8. 1. Critical Theory and Radical Politics. 8. 2. Techno-Capitalism, Crisis and Social Transformation. 8. 3. New Social Movements and Socialist Politics. 8. 4. For Supradisciplinary Radical Social Theory with a Practical Intent. Notes. Index.

The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia

Abstract: The utopian design and organization of Brasilia-the modernist new capital of Brazil-were meant to transform Brazilian society. In this sophisticated, pioneering study of Brasilia from its inception in 1957 to the present, James Holston analyzes this attempt to change society by building a new kind of city and the ways in which the paradoxes of constructing an imagined future subvert its utopian premises. Integrating anthropology with methods of analysis from architecture, urban studies, social history, and critical theory, Holston presents a critique of modernism based on a powerfully innovative ethnography of the city."

On symbols and society

Abstract: Kenneth Burke's innovative use of dramatism and dialectical method have made him a powerful critical force in an extraordinary variety of disciplines-education, philosophy, history, psychology, religion, and others. While most widely acclaimed as a literary critic, Burke has elaborated a perspective toward the study of behavior and society that holds immense significance and rich insights for sociologists. This original anthology brings together for the first time Burke's key writings on symbols and social relations to offer social scientists access to Burke's thought. In his superb introductory essay, Joseph R. Gusfield traces the development of Burke's approach to human action and its relationship to other similar sources of theory and ideas in sociology; he discusses both Burke's influence on sociologists and the limits of his perspective. Burke regards literature as a form of human behavior-and human behavior as embedded in language. His lifework represents a profound attempt to understand the implications for human behavior based on the fact that humans are "symbol-using animals." As this volume demonstrates, the work that Burke produced from the 1930s through the 1960s stands as both precursor and contemporary key to recent intellectual movements such as structuralism, symbolic anthropology, phenomenological and interpretive sociology, critical theory, and the renaissance of symbolic interaction.

Theories of Discourse: An Introduction

Abstract: This is the first critical introduction to the theories of discourse advanced by Foucault, Althusser, PUcheux and Hindess and Hirst. Discourse theory proposes that in our daily activities the way we speak and write is shaped by the structures of power in our society, and that because our society is defined by struggle and conflict our discourses reflect and create conflicts. The words, expressions and forms of knowledge in institutions (schools and universities, the church and the media) become political as they are traversed and rearranged by the pressure of forces. Diane Macdonell reveals the various lines of thought in recent work on discourse, showing how the central conception of discourse as a political and social tool could diversify into several different critical theories and ideologies. This book is of particular interest as it calls for a reappraisal of Althusser whose work, Macdonell argues, has been wrongly debunked. This is the first overview and introduction to a notoriously complex area of critical theory, an area which is at the heart of debates about form, meaning, ideology, literary criticism and the humanities.

A critical theory of education: Habermas and our children's future

Abstract: The modern educational crisis from interest to practice emancipation and education traditional schooling and responsible critique traditional teaching and learning contexts for research and action the organization of educational enlightenment concluding remarks.

International Relations and the Search for Thinking Space: Another View of the Third Debate

Abstract: Recent debates in International Relations have seen some of the characteristic dichotomies of the discipline under severe and sophisticated challenge. The proposition, for example, that the study of International Relations, is somehow "independent" of mainstream debates on theory and practice in the social sciences is now widely rejected. The disciplines change in attitude on this issue owes much, in the 1980s, to the influences of an as yet small group of scholars who have infused the "third debate" in International Relations with an appreciation for previously "alien" approaches to knowledge and society, drawn from interdisciplinary sources, which repudiate (meta) theoretical dualism in all its forms. Utilizing the sponge term "postpositivism" Yosef Lapid has concentrated on an important aspect of the "third debate," one which has seen positivist based perspectives repudiated in favor of critical perspectives derived, primarily, from debates on the philosophy of science. This paper takes a broader view of the "third debate" in focusing on some of the broader patterns of dissent in social theory that are now evident in its literature. It argues that for all the differences associated with the new critical social theory approaches, theirs is critique with common purpose. Its purpose: to help us understand more about contemporary global life by opening up for questioning dimensions of inquiry which have been previously closed off and supressed; by listening closely to voices previously unheard; by examining "realities" excluded from consideration under a traditional (realist) regime of unity and singularity. Its purpose, reiterated: the search for "thinking space" within an International Relations discipline produced by and articulated through Western modernist discourse.

The analysis of ideology

Abstract: Distinguished French sociologist Raymond Boudon presents here a critical theory history of the concept of ideology. His highly original and lucidly argued study addresses the core question of any account of ideology. How do individuals come to adhere to false or apparently irrational beliefs, and how do such beliefs become collectively accepted as true? Boudon begins by providing an exhaustive and subtle critique of sociological explanations of ideology from early conceptions to its current usage in the works of Barthes, Foucault, Habermas, Sartre, and others. He then offers his own interpretation of the origins and emergence of ideological beliefs. In opposition to those views which associate ideology with irrationalism, Boudon shows that ideologies are a natural ingredient of social life; he develops a rationalist theory that helps to explain why certain ideas are believed by individuals and thereby effective in the social world. Finally, he examines case studies of two modern-day ideologies developmentalism and Third Worldism. Moving easily across disciplinary boundaries, Boudon's provocative contribution to a subject of growing significance will be of great interest to scholars in sociology and social theory, as well as philosophy, political science, and development studies."

Wittgenstein and Political Philosophy: Understanding Practices of Critical Reflection

Abstract: My aim in this article is to draw our attention to, and so enable us to free ourselves from, a widespread but mistaken convention of contemporary political thought: that our way of political life is free and rational only if it is founded on some form or other of critical reflection. I do this by means of a survey of two well-known practices of critical reflection that have been presented as candidates for this foundational role: the justificational or "validational" form advanced by Jiirgen Habermas and the interpretational or hermeneutical form advanced by Charles Taylor. It is our engagement in the discussion itself-the discussion in the philosophy of social science between critical theory and hermeneutics, among others, about which sort of critical reflection is essential to political freedom and reason-that tends to hold in place, beyond question, and thereby render conventional, the rule that some form must be foundational. In surveying and clarifying language-games of critical reflection we can see that no form of critical reflection can (or need) play the role presupposed for it in this discussion. The survey thus dissolves the problem around which the discussion turns. In so doing, it also gives us a clearer view of the many important but nonfoundational roles that the plurality of activities of critical reflection play in our political life-including the role of the critically reflexive survey in freeing us from customary misunderstandings of critical reflection.

The power of ideology

Abstract: PART 1: THE NECESSITY OF IDEOLOGY 1. Introductory 2. The Socio-economic Parameters 3. Politics and Ideology Part 2: SCIENCE, IDEOLOGY AND METHODOLOGY 4. Science as Legitimator of Ideological Interests 5. Science under the Shadow of the Military/Industrial Complex 6. Methodology and Ideology Part 3: IDEOLOGY AND EMANCIPATION 7. Social Revolution and the Division of Labour 8. The Constitution of Solidarity 9. Ideology and Autonomy Notes Bibliography Index

Exploring Epistemologies: Social Work Action as a Reflection of Philosophical Assumptions.

Abstract: Using Habermas' (1971) Grand Theory and Schaefer's (1979) notion of Theory as Fiction, two major philosophical assumptions that undergird the literature, practice and teaching of social work are reviewed. Empiricism dominates social work theory and aims at technical control. Existentialism has been an important but marginal voice and attempts to explain subjective meaning. Two newer theoretical positions also are introduced: Critical theory, which considers humanity's ability to reflect on history to be an agent of societal change; and deconstruction, which questions the validity of any structure. The article concludes with a consideration of the implications of using each position as a context for teaching.

Social Inequality, Cultural Discontinuity, and Equity in School Mathematics

Abstract: In order to achieve equity in school mathematics, mathematics educators must question their assumptions about its nature and worth. Culture practice theory, based on the idea that knowledge is situated within particular contexts, explains the difficulty particular groups have with school mathematics as the result of a discontinuity between schooling and other cultural contexts in their lives. Critical theory, based on the idea that political and economic power are unequally and unjustly distributed in society, describes the school curriculum as a result of a selective tradition that provides the greatest benefits to powerful social groups. Missing from culture‐practice theory is an analysis of the relationship between cultural discontinuity and social inequality; missing from critical theory is an analysis of the privileged position of mathematics in the school curriculum. Taken together, culture practice theory and critical theory provide the foundation of a reform and research agenda for equity...

Modern Culture and Critical Theory: Art, Politics, and the Legacy of the Frankfurt School

Abstract: Since the 1930s the theoretical writings of the Frankfurt School have provided tools for analyses of political and cultural developments in Europe and the United States. Initially a response to Hitler's reign of terror, this influential wing of Western Marxism focused on analyzing the totalitarian potential inherent in any democratic society. Are the arguments of the Frankfurt School still relevant? "Modern Culture and Critical Theory" investigates this question in the context of important issues in contemporary cultural politics: neo-conservatism and new social movements, discontents with modernity and debates on postmodernism, the political hegemony of Ronald Reagan and the cultural hegemony of structuralism and poststructuralism. Throughout, Berman argues that the analysis of political processes must have an aesthetic component. The legacy of the Frankfurt School, he concludes, is one that can tell us much about our contemporary society. It offers us an alternative to the obvious conservatism in the political arena and the less obvious but significant conservatism of some contemporary critical theory.

Theory and practice in the study of adult education : the epistemological debate

Abstract: 1. Introduction: The Epistemological Imperative Barry P. Bright 2. Philosophy and Adult Education Ronald W.K. Paterson 3. Epistemological Vandalism: Psychology in the Study of Adult Education Barry P. Bright 4. Locating Adult Education in the Practical Robin S. Usher, The University of Southampton 5. Right for the Wrong Reasons: A Critique of Sociology in Professional Adult Education Paul F. Armstrong 6. Cultural Studies, Critical Theory and Adult Education Colin Griffin, Hillcroft College, Surrey 7. The Epistemology of Adult Education in the United States and Great Britain: A Cross-Cultural Analysis Stephen D. Brookfield 8. Overview and Conclusions Barry P. Bright 9. Rejoinders and Further Comments R.W.K. Paterson, P.F. Armstrong, and R.S. Usher.

Social theory as critique

Abstract: Structuration theory is intrinsically incomplete if not linked to a conception of social science as critical theory. The Constitution of Society , p. 287 The extensive oeuvre of Anthony Giddens is already a remarkable achievement. There are few contemporary social theorists and sociologists whose thinking exhibits comparable scope, diversity and subtlety. Giddens is in the process of attempting nothing less than a rethinking of the modern sociological tradition. He has written incisively and provocatively about Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Parsons and Habermas. He has grappled with every major sociological movement, including the varieties of structuralism, functionalism, systems theory, ethnomethodology, phenomenological sociology and symbolic interactionism. He has a keen sense of the relevance of contemporary philosophic currents for social thought ranging over Anglo-American, German and French philosophy. He has expanded the domain of sociological thinking by showing the importance of themes as diverse as Heidegger's reflections on temporality and the significance of time–space studies in human geography. He is always seeking to explore the dialectical interplay between theory and empirical research, and has confronted thorny questions – neglected by many other social theorists – such as the distinctive character and role of nationalism and the nation-state in contemporary societies. And he has done all this with rare hermeneutical skill. Giddens combines a flair for judicious sympathetic exposition with an uncanny ability to locate and specify problems, strengths and weaknesses in the positions and thinkers he examines. The most important and impressive feature of his work is not his intellectual virtuosity, but the systematic impulse that is evident even in his earliest writings, and which has become more focused and dominant in his recent books.

The Return of the “Critical” and the Challenge of Radical Dissent: Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, and American Mass Communication Research

Abstract: This chapter outlines the development of a critical approach to the problems of communication and media in American social science scholarship. It traces the understanding of a “critical” position through four successive periods and their contribution to an intellectual history of the field: the pragmatism of the Chicago School, the empirical sociology of the Lazarsfeld tradition, the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, and the cultural studies movement in Great Britain. The essay argues that communication and media theorists in the United States have embraced a notion of critical research that emerged from a reformist environment and was based upon a sense of social responsibility among social scientists that operated well within the dominant ideology. Thus the introduction of radical social theories, including a critical, Marxist perspective since the 1940s, has been either ignored or considered a peripheral intellectual activity by communication and media scholarship, the most recent analyses of m...

Lost in the funhouse: Baudrillard and the politics of postmodernism

Abstract: ‘Forget Foucault’ was Baudrillard’s title for a nifty piece of polemics which, in the current French manner, staked his claim to be ‘post-’, just about everything, post-structuralism and Foucault included.1 I think we would do well to forget Baudrillard, though not without treating his texts to more in the way of argued critique than Baudrillard sees fit to provide when dealing with his own precursors and rivals on the intellectual scene. Baudrillard is undoubtedly the one who has gone furthest toward renouncing enlightenment reason and all its works, from the Kantian-liberal agenda to Marxism, Frankfurt Critical Theory, the structuralist ‘sciences of man’, and even — on his view — the residual theoreticist delusions of a thinker like Foucault. The nearest equivalents are Richard Rorty’s brand of postmodern neopragmatist anti-philosophy and the strain of so-called ‘weak thought’ (not unaptly so called) that has lately been canvassed by Gianni Vattimo and other Heideggerian apostles of unreason.2 But one suspects that Baudrillard would reject these comparisons, regarding them as moves in a pointless game whose rule-book has been endlessly re-written and should now be torn up for good and all.

Realizing the Promise of Humanistic Education: A Reconstructed Pedagogy for Personal and Social Change

Abstract: This article proposes an integration of critical theory and humanistic education. Strengths and limitations of each approach are discussed and the positive outcomes of their synthesis suggested. A ...

Bringing Progressivism into a Critical Theory of Education

Abstract: This paper argues for the theoretical and practical possibilities of applying a ‘critical theory’ of education to British primary schools. It traces the series of misconceptions and misinterpretations of progressive education which, coupled with the neglect of its own emancipatory potential, has allowed it to be discredited by right‐wing and left‐wing politics. Re‐establishing a fairer reading of its central tenets and coupling this with the developing concept of a ‘socially critical primary school’ provides for an emancipatory primary education which embraces critical theory.

Information Processing and the Reading of Literary Texts

Abstract: CONTROVERSY in modern literary criticism focuses not so much upon arguments about literary meaning as it does upon arguments about the legitimacy of differing critical methods and the kinds of evidence to accept in the interpretive process leading to meaning. But such arguments have remained essentially irreconcilable. No single position can ever be demonstrated correct or incorrect for the simple reason that no generally accepted standard of proof exists which can serve as the basis for impartial judgment. Adherents to different schools of critical inquiry derive their support not from their ability to point to some incontrovertible evidence in their favor, but rather from the rhetorical strength of their argumentation, the posited appropriateness of their examples, and often the volubility of their members. While this may be the tradition of scholarly inquiry in the humanities, it would seem to have reduced modern critical theory to an ideational combat zone in which the energy of discussion is expended more often in defending various sectors of the critical landscape than in direct attempts to confront the issue of how literature is understood.

Classrooms and Contexts: The Challenge of Feminist Pedagogy.

Abstract: From old-fashioned biographical criticism to the New Historicism, numerous, diverse critical approaches have been articulated by generations of literary critics For all of us who make our living through literature, our intellectual and political orientations and our formal literary training combine to determine our individual, often evolving, critical perspectives This variety and complexity of critical theories and methodologies sustain our discipline and our enthusiasm for it But few of us are full-time literary critics; most of us complement writing with teaching, and economic and social realities often dictate that our own books and articles languish half-written while we struggle daily to develop strategies to introduce the literature that we love to apathetic, even recalcitrant, students Too often, the compartmentalization of a profession that separately evaluates teaching, research, and service influences our perceptions of ourselves and our professional roles; and when we enter the undergraduate classroom, we forget, or ignore, that we carry in not only our critical perspectives, but much else, with the paperbacks and anthologies We forget, too, that when we enter the room we are confronted with our students' attitudes and experiences that will influence their experience of the text We may think that our post-structuralism, our gender, or our politics are irrelevant, that the play is the thing when it is produced for forty undergraduates, but our refusal to recognize that our classrooms and the dynamics of teaching involve an extensive range of contexts is short-sighted and just plain bad for the education of our students