_Lyotard and the Political_ is the first book to consider the full range of the political thought of the French philosopher François Lyotard and its broader implications for an understanding of the political. James Williams clearly and carefully traces the development of Lyotard's thought from his early Marxist essays on the Algerian struggle for independence to his break with the thought of Marx and Freud. This is compared with Lyotard's later, highly influental writings on the politics of desire and his (...) attempts to base a postmodern political discourse on the sublime. An indispensable work for all who are interested in modern continental philosophy, _Lyotard and the Political_ offers the first systematic analysis of the political dimension of the work of one of the most controversial and influential philosophers of the twentieth century. Also available in this series: _Lacan and the Political_ Pb: 0-415-17187-3: £12.99 _Heidegger and the Political_ Pb:0-415-13064-6: £12.99 _Derrida and the Political_ Pb: 0-415-10967-1: £13.99 _Nietzche and the Political_ Pb: 0-41510069-0: £12.99 _Foucault and the Political_ Pb: 0-415-10066-6: £12.99. (shrink)

This article examines the complex relationship between power and the physical and social practices of tattooing in contemporary United States. Briefly tracing the history of tattooing from ancient Greece to contemporary America, I highlight the temporal and geographical changes in the practices and perceptions of tattooing. In addition to creating a historical narrative, I situate the sociocultural practice of tattooing the body for the tattooist and the `tattooee'. This investigation into body inscription serves as a means to elucidate the contemporary (...) practice of tattooing as one that is simultaneously physical and social, with multiple levels of constructed meaning. Finally, I will explore how tattooing, as a form of body modification, can be analyzed as a form of resistance to or a symptom of a culture that has commodified the body. (shrink)

A radically subversive critique brings to the fore the masculine ideology implicit in psychoanalytic theory and in Western discourse in general: woman is defined as a disadvantaged man, a male construct with no status of her own.

Suggests an open system of psychological exploration to cut through accepted norms of morality, language, and politics.

Discusses how cultural and economic changes around the world have caused a shift in the concepts that shape modern politics and defined the new global order.

In The Fold Deleuze proposes a new and radical way of understanding philosophy and art.

Dorothea Olkowski's exploration of the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze clarifies the gifted French thinker's writings for specialists and nonspecialists alike. Deleuze, she says, accomplished the "ruin of representation," the complete overthrow of hierarchic, organic thought in philosophy, politics, aesthetics, and ethics, as well as in society at large. In Deleuze's philosophy of difference, she discovers the source of a new ontology of change, which in turn opens up the creation of new modes of life and thought, not only in philosophy (...) and feminism but wherever creation is at stake. The work of contemporary artist Mary Kelly has been central to Olkowski's thinking. In Kelly she finds an artist at work whose creative acts are in themselves the ruin of representation as a whole, and the text is illustrated with Kelly's art. This original and provocative account of Deleuze contributes significantly to a critical feminist politics and philosophy, as well as to an understanding of feminist art. (shrink)

A critical examination of the figure of Oedipus in psychoanalysis and Western culture as it relates to the history of society and capitalism.

"... thought-provoking and meditative, Lingis’s work is above all touching, and offers a refreshingly idiosyncratic antidote to the idle talk that so often passes for philosophical writing." —Radical Philosophy "... striking for the ...