Critical Theory in Critical Times

Transforming the Global Political and Economic Order

Penelope Deutscher, Cristina Lafont

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9780231543620
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Jurisprudence

We live in critical times. We face a global crisis in economics and finance, a global ecological crisis, and a constant barrage of international disputes. Perhaps most dishearteningly, there seems to be little faith in our ability to address such difficult problems. However, there is also a more positive sense in which these are critical times. The world's current state of flux gives us a unique window of opportunity for shaping a new international order that will allow us to cope with current and future global crises.

In Critical Theory in Critical Times, eleven of the most distinguished critical theorists offer new perspectives on recent crises and transformations of the global political and economic order. Essays from Jürgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib, Cristina Lafont, Rainer Forst, Wendy Brown, Christoph Menke, Nancy Fraser, Rahel Jaeggi, Amy Allen, Penelope Deutscher, and Charles Mills address pressing issues including international human rights and democratic sovereignty, global neoliberalism, novel approaches to the critique of capitalism, critical theory's Eurocentric heritage, and new directions offered by critical race theory and postcolonial studies. Sharpening the conceptual tools of critical theory, the contributors to Critical Theory in Critical Times reveal new ways of expanding the diverse traditions of the Frankfurt School in response to some of the most urgent and important challenges of our times.

INDEX

Page numbers refer to the print edition but are hyperlinked to the appropriate location in the e-book.

abnormal, constructions of, 187, 222–24

acceptable political society, 78, 80, 85

accumulation, xx, 144, 145–47, 151, 157, 175–76; expropriation, 146–47, 149–50, 243

Adorno, Theodor, xxii–xxiii, 186–88; critical distance, 188, 194–95; Eurocentrism, 198–200; genealogy as problematization, 191–93; historicization of History, 190–91; negative dialectics, 194, 199–200; nonidentical, 194, 243; postcolonial studies and, 198–202; problematization and normative inheritance of modernity, 188, 195–97, 241, 247; reason, view of, 188–89; utopia and utopianism, 189–90

Adorno: A Critical Reader (ed. Gibson and Rubin), 199

African Americans, 235, 240, 244–45, 247

Afro-modernity, 244–45

agency, 27, 52, 75–76, 86, 242

Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), 57–59

Alexy, Robert, 28

Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 21

Allen, Amy, xvii–xxiv, 209, 233–35, 247; critical distance, 188, 194–95, 240–41; Foucauldian critique, view of, 211–15; genealogy as problematization, 188, 191–93, 240; historicization of History, 188, 190–91, 245; reason and power, 188–89, 240–44; reconciling, unifying logic of modernity, 194, 243–44; utopia and utopianism, 188–90, 204n20, 240, 245–46

Alston, Philip, 69n8

alterity, xxiii, 210, 214–15

American exceptionalism, 21–24

American exemptionalism, 22

American Revolution, 31–32

analytic tradition, 237–39

Anthropocene, 149

anticapitalism, 142, 156, 158

antidistortion rationale, 103

archaeology, 210, 214, 216, 231, 232n59

archive, 208

Aristotle, 36, 241, 242

Arrighi, Giovanni, 151

assemblages, 208–9

assets, 133–34

Australian states, 221

authority, xv–xvi, 134, 196; biopolitical,...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Series List
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Critical Theory in Critical Times
• I. The Future of Democracy
• II. Human Rights and Sovereignty
• III. Political Rights in Neoliberal Times
• IV. Criticizing Capitalism
• V. The End of Progress in Postcolonial Times
• Bibliography
• About the Contributors
• Index