Chantal Mouffe's writings have been innovatory with respect to democratic theory, Marxism and feminism. Her work derives from, and has always been engaged with, contemporary political events and ...intellectual debates. This sense of conflict informs both the methodological and substantive propositions she offers. Determinisms, scientific or otherwise, and ideologies, Marxist or feminist, have failed to survive her excoriating critiques. In a sense she is the original post-Marxist, rejecting economisms and class-centric analyses, and also the original post-feminist, more concerned with the varieties of 'identity politics' than with any singularities of 'women's issues'.
While Mouffe's concerns with power and discourse derive from her studies of Gramsci's theorisations of hegemony and the post-structuralisms of Derrida and Foucault, her reversal of the very terms through which political theory proceeds is very much her own. She centres conflict, not consensus, and disagreement, not finality. Whether philosophically perfectionist, or liberally reasonable, political theorists have been challenged by Mouffe to think again, and to engage with a new concept of 'the political' and a revived and refreshed notion of 'radical democracy'.
The editor has focused on her work in three key areas:
Hegemony: From Gramsci to 'Post-Marxism'
Radical Democracy: Pluralism, Citizenship and Identity
The Political: A Politics Beyond Consensus
The volume concludes with a new interview with Chantal Mouffe.
This major new book tackles key questions on Europe in the context of shifting parameters of East and West. The contributors - sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers and historians - show, from ...a variety of different perspectives, that the conventional equation of Europe with the West must be questioned. Featuring four thematically organized chapters, the book looks at: a post-Western world Asia in Europe: encounters in history between Europe and Asia otherness in Europe and Asia. Exploring new expressions of European self-understanding in a way that challenges recent ideological notions of the ‘clash of civilizations’, this outstanding work draws on recent scholarship that shows how Europe and Asia were mutually linked in history and in contemporary perspective. It argues that as a result of current developments and the changing geopolitical context, both Europe and Asia have much in common and that it is possible to speak of cosmopolitan links rather than clashes. This book will be of great value to students and researchers in the fields of sociology, European politics and history and cultural theory.
This is the only key concepts text in medical sociology and has already proven to be a bestseller. It will be used widely across sociology and health & nursing departments. All entries have been ...revised and updated, and there are five completely new entries.
Contemporary Theorists for Medical Sociology explores the work of key social theorists and the application of their ideas to issues around health and illness.
Encouraging students and researchers to ...use mainstream sociological thought to inform and deepen their knowledge and understanding of the many arenas of health and healthcare, this text discusses and critically reviews the work of several influential contemporary thinkers, including - Foucault, Bauman, Habermas, Luhmann, Bourdieu, Merleau-Ponty, Wallerstein, Archer, Deleuze, Guattari, and Castells.
Each chapter includes a critical introduction to the central theses of a major social theorist, ways in which their ideas might inform medical sociology and some worked examples of how their ideas can be applied. Containing contributions from established scholars, rising stars and innovative practitioners, this book is a valuable read for those studying and researching the sociology of health and illness.
Reflecting the first evaluation among British and American anthropologists of the relevance of Marxist theory for their discipline, the studies in this volume cover a wide geographical and social ...spectrum ranging from rural Indonesia, Imperial China, Highland Burma and the Abron kingdom of Gyaman. A critical survey assesses the value of some key ideas of Marx and Engels to social anthropology and places in historical perspective the changing attitudes of social anthropologists to the Marxist tradition. Originally published in 1975.