French thinkers such as Lacan and Derrida are often labelled as representatives of ''poststructuralism'' in the Anglophone world. However in France, where their work originated, such a category has never gained currency; this group of theorists were never perceived as a coherent intellectual group or movement.

Outlining the institutional contexts, affinities, and rivalries of, among others, Althusser, Lacan, Barthes, Foucault, Derrida and Kristeva, Why There is No Poststructuralism in France insightfully traces the evolution of the French intellectual field after the war and Poststructuralism as a phenomenon. By critically embracing Bourdieu''s concept of intellectual field, Angermuller places French Theory both in the specific material conditions of its production and the social and historical contexts of its reception, accounting for a particularly creative moment in French intellectual life which continues to inform the theoretical imaginary of our time.