Alec McHoul - Böcker

In "Semiotic Investigations", Alec McHoul develops a theory of meaning that he calls 'effective semiotics' - a theory that investigates 'the ways in which signs have meaning by virtue of their actual uses'. As McHoul notes, 'these uses take place in a number of 'media,' the most important of which is the medium of history - so important, in fact, that it catches up all the other possible media of semiosis, including everyday life and language, fiction, film, talk, art, mathematics, and photography'.McHoul expounds his theory of effective semiotics - of 'meaning-as-use' - in a series of provocative chapters on diverse topics. He begins by examining the relations between semiotics and history and between semiotics and specific communities. He elaborates on the nature of these relations by demonstrating the 'effective semiotics' of a particular photograph from the 1880s, episodes from the film Singin' in the Rain and the Batman comics, literary works, children's primers, popular accounts of science, and many other objects, artifacts, and experiences."Semiotic Investigations" advances its own comprehensive theory of signs while ably examining works by such distinguished philosophers and theorists as Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Derrida, Foucault, Habermas, Lyotard, Kuhn, and others. Yet the book is also down-to-earth and clearly written, with an eye towards a startling range of 'ordinary' and 'uncommon' experiences. It will be required reading for linguists, philosophers, semioticians, anthropologists, literary theorists, and students of cultural studies. Alec McHoul is an associate professor and chair of communication studies at Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia. He is the author of "Telling How Texts Talk: Essays on Reading and Ethnomethodology" and coauthor, with David Wills, of "Writing Pynchon: Strategies in Fictional Analysis".

In such seminal works as Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, the late philosopher Michel Foucault explored what our politics, our sexuality, our societal conventions, and our changing notions of truth told us about ourselves. In the process, Foucault garnered a reputation as one of the pre-eminent philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century and has served as a primary influence on successive generations of philosophers and cultural critics. With A Foucault Primer, Alec McHoul and Wendy Grace bring Foucault's work into focus for the uninitiated. Written in crisp and concise prose, A Foucault Primer explicates three central concepts of Foucauldian theory-discourse, power, and the subject-and suggests that Foucault's work has much yet to contribute to contemporary debate.

In such seminal works as Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish, and The History of Sexuality, the late philosopher Michel Foucault explored what our politics, our sexuality, our societal conventions, and our changing notions of truth told us about ourselves. In the process, Foucault garnered a reputation as one of the pre-eminent philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century and has served as a primary influence on successive generations of philosophers and cultural critics. With A Foucault Primer, Alec McHoul and Wendy Grace bring Foucault's work into focus for the uninitiated. Written in crisp and concise prose, A Foucault Primer explicates three central concepts of Foucauldian theory-discourse, power, and the subject-and suggests that Foucault's work has much yet to contribute to contemporary debate.

Who are we today? That deceptively simple question continued to be asked by the French historian and philosopher, Michel Foucault, who for the last three decades has had a profound influence on English-speaking scholars in the humanities and social sciences.; This text is designed for undergraduates and others who feel in need of some assistance when coming to grips with Foucault's voluminous and complex writings. Instead of dealing with them chronologically, however, this book concentrates on some of their central concepts, primarily Foucault's rethinking of the categories of "discourse", "power", and " the subject".; Foucault's writings contribute collectively to what he himself calls "an ontology of the present". His historical research was always geared towards showing how things could have been and still could be otherwise. This is especially the case with respect to the production of human subjects.