Critical theory

About: Critical theory is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 5372 publications have been published within this topic receiving 164765 citations.

Through the Prism of Critical Race Theory: "Niceness" and Latina/o Leadership in the Politics of Education.

Abstract: Utilizing a critical race theory (CRT) framework, I conduct a rhetorical and discursive analysis of data from a study of Utah Latino/a educational and political leaders. In analyzing how participants advocate closing the achievement gaps that affect Latina/o and Chicana/o students, I find that participants' political discourse is shaped by concepts such as “niceness,” “respect,” and “decorum,” which ultimately limits their critique and silences the experiences of students in their communities. I argue that CRT scholarship and practice frameworks play a vital role in enacting socially just policies and preparing educational leaders to engage critically in the politics of education.

Foucault and the politics of our selves

Abstract: Exploring the apparent tension between Foucault's analyses of technologies of domination -- the ways in which the subject is constituted by power-knowledge relations -- and of technologies of the self -- the ways in which individuals constitute themselves through practices of freedom -- this article endeavors to make two points: first, the interpretive claim that Foucault's own attempts to analyse both aspects of the politics of our selves are neither contradictory nor incoherent; and second, the constructive claim that Foucault's analysis of the politics of our selves, though not entirely satisfactory as it stands, provides important resources for the project of critical social theory.

Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy: On Subversion and Negative Reason

Abstract: Dedication Acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Critical Theory and the Critique of Political Economy Section I: On the Critique of Political Economy as a Critical Social Theory 2. Political Economy and Social Constitution: On the Meaning of Critique 3. Society as Subject and Society as Object: On Social Praxis Section II: Value: On Social Wealth and Class 4. Capital and Labour: Primitive Accumulation and the Force of Value 5. Class and Struggle: On the false Society 6. Time is Money: On Abstract Labour Section III: Capital, World Market and State 7. State, World Market and Society 8. On the State of Political Economy: Political Form and the Force of Law Section IV Anti-Capitalism: Theology and Negative Practice 9. Anti-Capitalism and the Elements of Antisemitism: On Theology and Real Abstractions 10. Conclusion: On the Elements of Subversion and Negative Reason Selected Bibliography Index

Critical political ecology and the seductions of posthumanism

Abstract: "Posthumanist" theories have become increasingly popular among scholars in political ecology and other fields in the human sciences. The hope is that they will improve our grasp of relations between humans and various nonhumans and, in the process, offer the means to recompose the "social" and the "natural" domains. In this paper, I assess the merits of posthumanisms for critical scholarship. Looking specifically at the work of Bruno Latour (including his latest book, An inquiry into modes of existence) and Donna Haraway, I argue that posthumanist thinking offers not only analytical but normative advantages over conventional and even Marxian approaches. But these newer frameworks contain their own ethico-political limitations and, to the extent that they are useful for addressing conditions of injustice, they continue to depend upon conceptual resources from their precursors. For this reason, a critical political ecology would best be served by preserving a tension between humanist and posthumanist methods. Keywords: posthumanism, critical theory, political ecology, human-nonhuman relations, Bruno Latour, Donna Haraway

Reconstructing Dewey: The Philosophy of Critical Pragmatism

Abstract: The historical relationship between pragmatism and critical theory is one in which the antifoundational and practice-oriented dimensions of pragmatism appear to exist in tension, if not outright conflict, with the emancipatory commitments of the neo-Marxist legacy of critical theory. While Deweyan pragmatism is most often understood in its deliberative, experimental, open-ended, and contextual dimensions, little attention has been paid to the critical dimensions of Dewey's thought. In what follows, I take the initial steps in recovering the critical features of Dewey's pragmatism by developing my analysis along two lines. First, I sketch the general contours of the relationship between pragmatism and critical theory in order to account for and unpack the long-standing hostility of critical theorists toward pragmatism. Second, I argue that these hostilities are unwarranted, and that they have been passed to us in the form of a persistent inability to appreciate the critical features of Dewey's pragmatism. Through an investigation of the philosophical underpinnings of Dewey's pragmatism, I hope to show that Dewey's democratic commitments to the transformatory potential of lived experience, to a reconstructed conception of individualism, and to the cultivation of reflective social intelligence might be viewed as the basis of a critical theory worthy of greater attention and appreciation. Moreover, I hope that this effort will open avenues of inquiry into what might be called a model of “critical pragmatism.”