Overview

This book articulates the key theoretical assumptions of poststructuralism, but also probes its limits, evaluates rival approaches and elaborates new concepts. Building on the work of Derrida, Foucault, Heidegger, Lacan, Laclau, Lévi–Strauss, Marx, Saussure and Žižek, the book also provides a distinctive version of the poststructuralist project.

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9781349443215

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Reviews

In this intellectually rigorous volume David Howarth surveys the background to poststructuralism as a style of theorizing, summarizes the arguments of successive generations of post-structuralist scholars, and assesses its significant contributions to resolving or dissolving some of the most fundamental theoretical conundrums in the social sciences. Authoritative, systematic, and nuanced in its critical engagement, this book is a must read for all those interested in the philosophy of social sciences, current issues in social theory, and their relevance to real world problems. -Bob Jessop, Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University, UK A tour de force that is essential reading for anyone seeking an informed and critical guide to poststructuralism. Poststructuralism and After clearly lays out its precedents, its processes of formation and its relevance as an intervention into key theoretical debates, including those hinging around structure and agency, power and interests, identity and subjectivity. This exposition is instructively combined with a distinctive and challenging take on the centrality of affect and fantasy the empirical study of how social realities are reproduced and transformed. - Hugh Willmott, Research Professor in Organisational Studies, Cardiff University, UK How can you explain a social order if the object is never complete or well stabilized? How can you intervene ethically and politically if no mode of agency or the subject is self-grounded? Using these and other problems as points of departure David Howarth explores brilliantly three historical interations of post-structuralism. He then draws upon elements in them to explore the contemporary politics of the subject, democracy, discourse, and social science itself. This book is less a defense of post-structuralism than a demonstration of how it penetrates traditions of analysis that purport to reject it, including the social sciences. Howarth draws upon the former traditions to illuminate a key set of contemporary issues, and he explores how to carry them into new territory today. This is a timely and indispensable book. - William E. Connolly, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University, US

In this intellectually rigorous volume David Howarth surveys the background to poststructuralism as a style of theorizing, summarizes the arguments of successive generations of post-structuralist scholars, and assesses its significant contributions to resolving or dissolving some of the most fundamental theoretical conundrums in the social sciences. Authoritative, systematic, and nuanced in its critical engagement, this book is a must read for all those interested in the philosophy of social sciences, current issues in social theory, and their relevance to real world problems. -Bob Jessop, Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University, UK A tour de force that is essential reading for anyone seeking an informed and critical guide to poststructuralism. Poststructuralism and After clearly lays out its precedents, its processes of formation and its relevance as an intervention into key theoretical debates, including those hinging around structure and agency, power and interests, identity and subjectivity. This exposition is instructively combined with a distinctive and challenging take on the centrality of affect and fantasy the empirical study of how social realities are reproduced and transformed. - Hugh Willmott, Research Professor in Organisational Studies, Cardiff University, UK How can you explain a social order if the object is never complete or well stabilized? How can you intervene ethically and politically if no mode of agency or the subject is self-grounded? Using these and other problems as points of departure David Howarth explores brilliantly three historical interations of post-structuralism. He then draws upon elements in them to explore the contemporary politics of the subject, democracy, discourse, and social science itself. This book is less a defense of post-structuralism than a demonstration of how it penetrates traditions of analysis that purport to reject it, including the social sciences. Howarth draws upon the former traditions to illuminate a key set of contemporary issues, and he explores how to carry them into new territory today. This is a timely and indispensable book. - William E. Connolly, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University, US

In this intellectually rigorous volume David Howarth surveys the background to poststructuralism as a style of theorizing, summarizes the arguments of successive generations of post-structuralist scholars, and assesses its significant contributions to resolving or dissolving some of the most fundamental theoretical conundrums in the social sciences. Authoritative, systematic, and nuanced in its critical engagement, this book is a must read for all those interested in the philosophy of social sciences, current issues in social theory, and their relevance to real world problems. -Bob Jessop, Professor of Sociology, Lancaster University, UK A tour de force that is essential reading for anyone seeking an informed and critical guide to poststructuralism. Poststructuralism and After clearly lays out its precedents, its processes of formation and its relevance as an intervention into key theoretical debates, including those hinging around structure and agency, power and interests, identity and subjectivity. This exposition is instructively combined with a distinctive and challenging take on the centrality of affect and fantasy the empirical study of how social realities are reproduced and transformed. - Hugh Willmott, Research Professor in Organisational Studies, Cardiff University, UK How can you explain a social order if the object is never complete or well stabilized? How can you intervene ethically and politically if no mode of agency or the subject is self-grounded? Using these and other problems as points of departure David Howarth explores brilliantly three historical interations of post-structuralism. He then draws upon elements in them to explore the contemporary politics of the subject, democracy, discourse, and social science itself. This book is less a defense of post-structuralism than a demonstration of how it penetrates traditions of analysis that purport to reject it, including the social sciences. Howarth draws upon the former traditions to illuminate a key set of contemporary issues, and he explores how to carry them into new territory today. This is a timely and indispensable book. - William E. Connolly, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University, US

Author Information

David R. Howarth is Reader in Social and Political Theory at the University of Essex, UK. His publications include Discourse, Logics of Critical Explanation in Social and Political Theory (with Jason Glynos), and The Politics of Airport Expansion in the UK (with Steven Griggs).

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