European University Institute Library

Critical practice from Voltaire to Foucault, Eagleton and beyond, contested perspectives, by John E. O'Brien

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Critical practice from Voltaire to Foucault, Eagleton and beyond

bibliography

861210863

by John E. O'Brien

Studies in critical social sciences, Volume 61

contested perspectives

Using the historical-materialist method to unravel the promise and limits of critical practice since the Revolutionary Age, John E. O'Brien investigates the problems and prospects of cultural criticism for the 21st century through absorbing studies of the contested perspectives of Voltaire, Friedrich Schiller, Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, Terry Eagleton and Hayden White. In spite of recurrent crises due to a flawed Western political-economy, why is there so much critical intellectual activity with so little effect? Framing his study with the early work by Max Horkheimer, Luc Boltanski and Teresa Ebert, O'Brien's investigation of resistance in America and Europe challenges the bourgeois philosophy of history, pointing to the urgency of critique as mode of analysis and intervention --, Provided by Publisher

Acknowledgments -- Preface -- Overview -- What is critical practice? -- Voltaire : setting the role of public intellectual -- Schiller : reform consciousness to change the world -- Foucault : the end of evasion -- Jean Baudrillard : critical practice as core extraction -- Eagleton : literary critic : literature or criticism? -- Hayden White : historic truth as story telling -- Liberation : project, method, object -- Appendix: technical note -- Bibliography -- Index