Critical theory

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

Post-Truth, Fake News and Democracy: Mapping the Politics of Falsehood

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. Political Theory in Post-Factual Times Part 1: Into Post-Truth Worlds 3. Prophecies of Post-Truth 4. US Politics in Post-Truth Worlds 5. Restoring Democracy Part 2: Out of Post-Truth Worlds 6. Post-Truth and Post-Politics: Splitting the Difference 7. Ways Out? Truth, Technology, Democracy 8. Conclusion: Looking to the Future

Postmodernism and Social Theory: The Debate over General Theory

Abstract: Part 1 Toward postmodernism - reconfiguring theory and politics: general social theory, irony, postmodernism, Charles Lemert postmodern social theory as narrative with a moral intent, Steven Seidman on the postmodern barricades - feminism, politics and theory, Linda Nicholson the strange life and hard times of the concept of general theory in sociology - a short history of hope, Stephen Turner. Part 2 Critics of postmodernism - in defense of scientific theory: defending social science against the postmodern doubt, Robert D'Amico the promise of positivism, Jonathan Turner three modes of sociology - scientific, practical, and evaluative, Randall Collins daring modesty - on metatheory, observation and theory growth, David Wagner. Part 3 Between modernism and postmodernism - towards a contextualizing general theory: social science and society as discourse - toward a sociology for civic competence, Richard Brown culture, history, and the problem of spcificity in social theory, Craig Calhoun the tensions of critical theory - is negative dialectics all there is?, Stanley Aronowitz general theory in the postpositivist mode - the "Epistemological Dilemma" and the search for present reason, Jeffrey Alexander.

Security after emancipation? Critical Theory, violence and resistance

Abstract: Within the current configuration of Critical Security Studies (CSS) the concept of ‘emancipation’ is upheld as the keystone of a commitment to transformative change in world politics, but comparatively little is said on the status of violence and resistance within that commitment. As a means of highlighting this relative silence, this article examines the nature of the connection between CSS and the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School. In particular it disinters the reflections of Herbert Marcuse on the connections between emancipatory change, violence and resistance as a means of interrogating and challenging the definition of ‘security as emancipation’. Doing so, it is argued, points towards some of the potential limitations of equating security and emancipation, and provides a provocation of contemporary CSS from within its own cited intellectual and normative foundations.

Towards a critical theory of disability in social work

Abstract: The dominant discourse on disability in social work has been that of an individual/medical model, which largely relegates the ‘problem’ of disability to a deficit within the individual. This paper calls for re-visioning disability: notions of disability in social work are contrasted with alternative frameworks, such as social and cultural constructions, materialist and political economy perspectives, and critiques of disciplinary power and the discourses of normalcy and measurement. These alternative conceptualizations drawn from humanities, social sciences, and disability studies can form the foundation of a dynamic critical theory of disability that questions impairment as necessarily a personal tragedy, and asserts that the notion of individual inadequacy is socially reproduced.