Contemporary feminist debates over the meanings of gender lead time and again to a certain sense of trouble, as if the indeterminacy of gender might eventually culminate in the failure of feminism. Perhaps trouble need not carry such a..

This introduction to contemporary social and political theory examines the impact of new ideas such as feminist theory, poststructuralism, hermeneutics and critical theory. The innovations brought by these intellectual traditions of Europe and America are outlined and discussed. Rather than focus on individual thinkers, the authors take a "conceptual" approach by examining contemporary theories through themes such as "critique", "rationality", "power", "the subject", "the body", and "culture". Each chapter considers the evolution of a concept and examines the major debates and (...) transformations that have taken place in that area. (shrink)