Modernity's Pretenses

Karlis Racevskis is Professor of French at The Ohio State University. He is also the author of Postmodernism and the Search for Enlightenment.

"This book has been the occasion for one of the most enlightening intellectual experiences I have had in years. I am quite familiar with the subject matter of the first four chapters, but the author synthesizes and illuminates this material in ways I had never imagined and led me to see my own work in new light. The last three chapters introduced me to fascinating bodies of literature that I had never before been exposed to and left me thirsty for more. I read the entire book twice and some sections a third time. I read it the first time in one day." — Michael Mahon, Boston University"The book will serve as a very useful introduction to certain poststructural and postmodern thinkers for college students in literature and cultural studies." — Diane Fourny, University of Kansas

• PrefaceIntroduction1. Voltaire and the Limits of Reason2. The Postmodern Outlook for Hermeneutics3. Michèle Le Doeuff's Philosophy of Disinvolvement4. The Dialectic of Reason5. Foucault's Critique of the Enlightenment6. Reason in the Age of Atrocity7. Ethnic Identity in a Post-Stalinist AgeEpilogueNotesIndex