Jeffrey R. Di Leo - Böcker

Forged at the intersection of intense interest in the pertinence and uses of biopolitics and biopower, this volume analyzes theoretical and practical paradigms for understanding and challenging the socioeconomic determinations of life and death in contemporary capitalism. Its contributors offer a series of trenchant interdisciplinary critiques, each one taking on both the specific dimensions of biopolitics and the deeper genealogies of cultural logic and structure that crucially inform its impress. New ways to think about biopolitics as an explanatory model are offered, and the subject of bios (life, ways of life) itself is taken into innovative theoretical possibilities. On the one hand, biopolitics is addressed in terms of its contributions to forms and divisions of knowledge; on the other, its capacity for reformulation is assessed before the most pressing concerns of contemporary living. It is a must read for anyone concerned with the study of bios in its theoretical profusions.

Fiction writers and critics engage the aesthetic, political, philosophical, and cultural dimensions of contemporary fiction.Combining creative and critical responses from some of today's most progressive and innovative novelists, critics, and theorists, Fiction's Present adventurously engages the aesthetic, political, philosophical, and cultural dimensions of contemporary fiction. By juxtaposing scholarly articles with essays by practicing novelists, the book takes up not only the current state of literature and its criticism but also connections between contemporary philosophy and contemporary fiction. In doing so, the contributors aim to provoke further discussion of the present inflection of fiction-a present that can be seen as Janus-faced, looking both forward to the novel's radically changed, political, economic, and technological circumstances, and back to its history of achievements and problems.Editors R. M. Berry and Jeffrey R. Di Leo contend that examinations of fiction's present are most informative not when they defend philosophical distinctions or develop literary classifications, but when they grapple with elusive topics such as the meaning of a narrative present or the relation of fiction's medium to its representations of context. As the essays reveal, this process, when pursued diligently, breaks down traditional divisions of academic and intellectual labor, compelling the fiction writer to become more philosophical and the theorist to become more imaginative. The value of this book is not in the exhaustiveness of its treatment, but rather in the seriousness of the criticism it incites. The present materializes in quarrel, and it is toward such a beginning that the writings in Fiction's Present work.

Fiction writers and critics engage the aesthetic, political, philosophical, and cultural dimensions of contemporary fiction.Combining creative and critical responses from some of today's most progressive and innovative novelists, critics, and theorists, Fiction's Present adventurously engages the aesthetic, political, philosophical, and cultural dimensions of contemporary fiction. By juxtaposing scholarly articles with essays by practicing novelists, the book takes up not only the current state of literature and its criticism but also connections between contemporary philosophy and contemporary fiction. In doing so, the contributors aim to provoke further discussion of the present inflection of fiction-a present that can be seen as Janus-faced, looking both forward to the novel's radically changed, political, economic, and technological circumstances, and back to its history of achievements and problems.Editors R. M. Berry and Jeffrey R. Di Leo contend that examinations of fiction's present are most informative not when they defend philosophical distinctions or develop literary classifications, but when they grapple with elusive topics such as the meaning of a narrative present or the relation of fiction's medium to its representations of context. As the essays reveal, this process, when pursued diligently, breaks down traditional divisions of academic and intellectual labor, compelling the fiction writer to become more philosophical and the theorist to become more imaginative. The value of this book is not in the exhaustiveness of its treatment, but rather in the seriousness of the criticism it incites. The present materializes in quarrel, and it is toward such a beginning that the writings in Fiction's Present work.

Over the course of the past twenty-five years, anthologies have shifted from playing a relatively minor role in academic culture to a position of dominance. The essays in this collection explore the significant intellectual, economic, political, pedagogical, and creative resonance of anthologies through all levels of academic life. They show that anthologies have consequences and are grounded in commitments. Striving to articulate these consequences and commitments is a priority in higher education today. Most of the contributors to this volume are editors of anthologies, and they draw on personal experiences to provide a rare glimpse into the economics and logic of anthology publication. Their essays illustrate the ways in which editing an anthology involves negotiation and compromise between intellectual ideal and realistic practice.On Anthologies includes discussion of a wide range of anthologies used and produced by teachers and scholars. Though the emphasis is on literature and theory anthologies, the insights in this volume speak to professionals in all areas of academic life. Collectively, these essays establish the foundation for continuing critical analysis of anthology production and consumption in all disciplines.

This book introduces the reader to the ways in which happiness has been explored in philosophy and literature for thousands of years, in order to understand the newest theoretical approaches to happiness. Jeffrey R. Di Leo draws on its long and rich history as a window into our present obsession with happiness. Each of the four chapters of this book provides a substantially different literary-theoretical account of how and why literature matters with respect to considerations of happiness. From the neoliberal happiness industry and the psychoanalytic rejection of happiness to aesthetic hedonism and revolutionary happiness, literature viewed from the perspective of happiness becomes a story about what is and is not the goal of life. The multidisciplinary approach of this book will appeal to a variety of readers from literary studies, critical theory, philosophy and psychology and anyone with an interest in happiness and theories of emotion.

This book introduces the reader to the ways in which happiness has been explored in philosophy and literature for thousands of years, in order to understand the newest theoretical approaches to happiness. Jeffrey R. Di Leo draws on its long and rich history as a window into our present obsession with happiness. Each of the four chapters of this book provides a substantially different literary-theoretical account of how and why literature matters with respect to considerations of happiness. From the neoliberal happiness industry and the psychoanalytic rejection of happiness to aesthetic hedonism and revolutionary happiness, literature viewed from the perspective of happiness becomes a story about what is and is not the goal of life. The multidisciplinary approach of this book will appeal to a variety of readers from literary studies, critical theory, philosophy and psychology and anyone with an interest in happiness and theories of emotion.

Forged at the intersection of intense interest in the pertinence and uses of biopolitics and biopower, this volume analyzes theoretical and practical paradigms for understanding and challenging the socioeconomic determinations of life and death in contemporary capitalism. Its contributors offer a series of trenchant interdisciplinary critiques, each one taking on both the specific dimensions of biopolitics and the deeper genealogies of cultural logic and structure that crucially inform its impress. New ways to think about biopolitics as an explanatory model are offered, and the subject of bios (life, ways of life) itself is taken into innovative theoretical possibilities. On the one hand, biopolitics is addressed in terms of its contributions to forms and divisions of knowledge; on the other, its capacity for reformulation is assessed before the most pressing concerns of contemporary living. It is a must read for anyone concerned with the study of bios in its theoretical profusions.

Theory Conspiracy provides a state-of-the-art collection that takes stage on the meeting and/or battlegrounds between conspiracy theory and theory-asconspiracy. By deliberately scrambling the syntax—conspiracy theory cum theory conspiracy—it seeks to open a set of reflections on the articulation between theory and conspiracy that addresses how conspiracy might rattle the sense of theory as such. In this sense, the volume also inevitably stumbles on the recent debates on postcritique. The suspicion that our ways of reading in the humanities have been far too suspicious, if not paranoid, has gained considerable attention in a humanities continuously questioned as superfluous at best and leftist and dangerous at worst. The chapters in this volume all approach this problematic from different angles. It features clear engaging writing by a set of contributors who have published extensively on questions of paranoia, conspiracy theory, and/or the state of theory today. This collection will appeal to readers interested in conspiracy theories, critical theory, and the future of humanities.

Theory Conspiracy provides a state-of-the-art collection that takes stage on the meeting and/or battlegrounds between conspiracy theory and theory-asconspiracy. By deliberately scrambling the syntax—conspiracy theory cum theory conspiracy—it seeks to open a set of reflections on the articulation between theory and conspiracy that addresses how conspiracy might rattle the sense of theory as such. In this sense, the volume also inevitably stumbles on the recent debates on postcritique. The suspicion that our ways of reading in the humanities have been far too suspicious, if not paranoid, has gained considerable attention in a humanities continuously questioned as superfluous at best and leftist and dangerous at worst. The chapters in this volume all approach this problematic from different angles. It features clear engaging writing by a set of contributors who have published extensively on questions of paranoia, conspiracy theory, and/or the state of theory today. This collection will appeal to readers interested in conspiracy theories, critical theory, and the future of humanities.

The alt-right movement in the United States has actively been endorsing the use of left theory to achieve its ends—and with varying degrees of success. Tracing occasions where figures on the alt-right reference left theory, this volume asks if the alt-right’s reference of left theory is just bad reading, or are there troubling ways that certain types of left theory encourage such interpretations? What if the connections between left theory and the alt-right lie in the shared disdain for certain types of institutions, structures of power, and the status quo? Are there lessons to be learned in what can often appear as an overlapping desire to deconstruct concepts like truth, justice, freedom, and democracy? Drawing on the longer history of right-wing readings of left theory, this volume seeks to unpack these recent developments and consider their impact on the future of theory.

The alt-right movement in the United States has actively been endorsing the use of left theory to achieve its ends—and with varying degrees of success. Tracing occasions where figures on the alt-right reference left theory, this volume asks if the alt-right’s reference of left theory is just bad reading, or are there troubling ways that certain types of left theory encourage such interpretations? What if the connections between left theory and the alt-right lie in the shared disdain for certain types of institutions, structures of power, and the status quo? Are there lessons to be learned in what can often appear as an overlapping desire to deconstruct concepts like truth, justice, freedom, and democracy? Drawing on the longer history of right-wing readings of left theory, this volume seeks to unpack these recent developments and consider their impact on the future of theory.

This volume explores the later life and thought of Charles S. Peirce, a 15-year period that spans from 1900 until his death in 1914. It is the first volume devoted to this period of Peirce’s philosophical work.Peirce moved to the house he named Arisbe in Milford, Pennsylvania, in 1888. Here, he lived in relative isolation and continued to work on his scientific and semiotic philosophy. Peirce developed a modern logic that was influenced by changes he saw in the interdisciplinary study of science and technology, transforming his Pragmatism into his Pragmaticism. This action regarding Pragmaticism was a reaction against the downfall of deductive logic, and led Peirce to believe in the vagueness (“would-be”) of logical realism in deduction and later abduction. In Peirce’s later phase, he situated the “new” mathematics as a labyrinth of semiotic signs through which the quasi-mind of the logician could find a specialized sense to intuit the evolutionary semiosis of reality. The chapters in this volume examine all major dimensions of his thought during this period.Late Peirce will appeal to scholars and graduate students interested in Peirce, American philosophy, pragmatism, logic, and semiotics.

How do humanists speak for and from the humanities in an academy which values them less and less and market-driven approaches more and more? Jeffrey R. Di Leo provides a thorough critique of the higher education crisis and a set of practical and reasonable remedies for shaping the study and practice of the humanities in the academy of the future.

Presenting different ways to imagine criticism without critique, this collection provides a survey of both the difficult times facing ideological critique and the ways in which literary criticism and aesthetics have been affected by changing attitudes toward critique.

What are the theoretical parameters that produce the category public intellectual? The essays in this collection provide a number of different ways to imagine the fate of public intellectuals and offers a thorough exploration of the commonplace ideologies and politics associated with them.

How do humanists speak for and from the humanities in an academy which values them less and less and market-driven approaches more and more? Jeffrey R. Di Leo provides a thorough critique of the higher education crisis and a set of practical and reasonable remedies for shaping the study and practice of the humanities in the academy of the future.

Presenting different ways to imagine criticism without critique, this collection provides a survey of both the difficult times facing ideological critique and the ways in which literary criticism and aesthetics have been affected by changing attitudes toward critique.

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory is the most comprehensive available survey of the state of theory in the 21st century. With chapters written by the world’s leading scholars in their field, this book explores the latest thinking in traditional schools such as feminist, Marxist, historicist, psychoanalytic, and postcolonial criticism and new areas of research in ecocriticism, biopolitics, affect studies, posthumanism, materialism, and many other fields.In addition, the book includes a substantial A-to-Z compendium of key words and important thinkers in contemporary theory, making this an essential resource for scholars of literary and cultural theory at all levels.

What is the legacy of Theory after the deaths of so many of its leading lights, from Jacques Derrida to Roland Barthes? Bringing together reflections by leading contemporary scholars, Dead Theory explores the afterlives of the work of the great theorists and the current state of Theory today. Considering the work of thinkers such as Derrida, Deleuze, and Levinas, the book explores the ways in which Theory has long been haunted by death and how it might endure for the future.

Antitheory has long been a venerable brand of theory and – although seemingly opposite – the two impulses have long been intertwined. Antitheory is the first book to explore this vexed relationship from the 20th century to the present day, examining antitheory both in its historical context and its current state. The book brings together leading scholars from a wide range of Humanities disciplines to ask such questions as:· What is antitheory? · What does it mean to be against theory in the new millennium? · What is the current state of post-theory, the alleged deaths of theory, and the critique of critique?

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory is the most comprehensive available survey of the state of the art t/Theory in the 21st-century. With chapters written by the world’s leading scholars in their field, the book explores the latest thinking in traditional schools such as feminist, Marxist, historicist, psychoanalytic and postcolonial criticism and new areas of research in ecocriticism, biopolitics, affect studies, posthumanism, materialism and many other fields.In addition, the book includes a substantial A to Z of key words and important thinkers in contemporary theory, making this an essential resource for scholars of literary and cultural theory at all levels.

Antitheory has long been a venerable brand of theory and – although seemingly opposite – the two impulses have long been intertwined. Antitheory is the first book to explore this vexed relationship from the 20th century to the present day, examining antitheory both in its historical context and its current state. The book brings together leading scholars from a wide range of Humanities disciplines to ask such questions as:· What is antitheory? · What does it mean to be against theory in the new millennium? · What is the current state of post-theory, the alleged deaths of theory, and the critique of critique?

The most exhaustive mapping of contemporary literary theory to date, this book offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of the field of contemporary literary theory. Examining 75 key topics across 15 chapters, it provides an approachable and encyclopedic introduction to the most important areas of contemporary theory today.Proceeding broadly chronologically from early theory all the way through to postcritique, Di Leo masterfully unpacks established topics such as psychoanalysis, structuralism and Marxism, as well as newer topics such as trans* theory, animal studies, disability studies, blue humanities, speculative realism and many more.Featuring accessible discussion of the work of foundational theorists such as Lacan, Derrida and Freud as well as contemporary theorists such as Haraway, Braidotti and Hayles, it offers a magisterial examination of an enormously rich and varied body of work.

Surveying the extraordinary scope of contemporary theory, Jeffrey R. Di Leo brings together contributors from around the world to speak to the ways in which theoretical concerns from a variety of disciplines operate within their respective fields of concern. Contemporary theory is a multi- and inter-disciplinary endeavour that operates within and among the humanities, the social sciences, and many of the professions. In addition to its now somewhat more standard-fare work in these areas, it has also made substantial inroads into the natural sciences and the formal sciences. To be sure, more disciplines from across the academy have integrated theory into their practice than at any other time in history. Di Leo and his fellow contributors survey the workings of contemporary theory within and among the humanities, sciences, and professions, including contributions on literary studies, film studies, gender studies, visual art, law, biology and geology. They bring together distinguished theorists whose work spans the academy to speak to the ways in which theoretical concerns from a variety of disciplines work within their respective fields of concern.

The first collection to provide an overview of the well-known psychoanalytic theory of the death drive in literary and cultural theory, this book features contributions from a range of prominent scholars working in the area of literature, philosophy, and psychanalysis.After Freud’s initial theorization, the death-drive has been re-interpreted by various psychoanalytic thinkers (including Melanie Klein, Jacques Lacan, and Slavoj Žižek), philosophers (Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean Baudrillard), political theorists (Judith Butler), queer theorists (Laurent Berlant, Lee Edelman), and posthumanists (Rosi Braidotti).This volume brings together some of the leading thinkers and theorists of the death-drive as a psychological, aesthetic, and theoretical principle in literary and cultural theory, examining texts by writers such as Plato, Henry James, and Ezra Pound.

The most exhaustive mapping of contemporary literary theory to date, this book offers a comprehensive overview of the current state of the field of contemporary literary theory. Examining 75 key topics across 15 chapters, it provides an approachable and encyclopedic introduction to the most important areas of contemporary theory today.Proceeding broadly chronologically from early theory all the way through to postcritique, Di Leo masterfully unpacks established topics such as psychoanalysis, structuralism and Marxism, as well as newer topics such as trans* theory, animal studies, disability studies, blue humanities, speculative realism and many more.Featuring accessible discussion of the work of foundational theorists such as Lacan, Derrida and Freud as well as contemporary theorists such as Haraway, Braidotti and Hayles, it offers a magisterial examination of an enormously rich and varied body of work.

A comprehensive examination of one of the twentieth century's most innovative writers and critics.This collection of essays offers an authoritative examination and appraisal of the French-American novelist Raymond Federman's many contributions to humanities scholarship, including Holocaust studies, Beckett studies, translation studies, experimental fiction, postmodernism, and autobiography. Although known primarily as a novelist, Federman (1928–2009) is also the author of numerous books of poetry, essays, translations, and criticism. After emigrating to the United States in 1942 and receiving a Ph.D. in comparative literature at UCLA in 1957, he held professorships in the University at Buffalo's departments of French and English from 1964 to 1999. Together with Steve Katz and Ronald Sukenick, he was one of the original founders of the Fiction Collective, a nonprofit publishing house dedicated to avant garde, experimental prose. Far too many accounts treat Federman as merely a member of a small group of writers who pioneered "metafictional" or "postmodern" American literature. Federman's Fiction will introduce (or, for some, reintroduce) to the broader scholarly community a creative and daring thinker whose work is significant not just to considerations of the development of innovative fiction, but to a number of other distinct disciplines and emerging critical discourses.

A comprehensive examination of one of the twentieth century's most innovative writers and critics.This collection of essays offers an authoritative examination and appraisal of the French-American novelist Raymond Federman's many contributions to humanities scholarship, including Holocaust studies, Beckett studies, translation studies, experimental fiction, postmodernism, and autobiography. Although known primarily as a novelist, Federman (1928–2009) is also the author of numerous books of poetry, essays, translations, and criticism. After emigrating to the United States in 1942 and receiving a Ph.D. in comparative literature at UCLA in 1957, he held professorships in the University at Buffalo's departments of French and English from 1964 to 1999. Together with Steve Katz and Ronald Sukenick, he was one of the original founders of the Fiction Collective, a nonprofit publishing house dedicated to avant garde, experimental prose. Far too many accounts treat Federman as merely a member of a small group of writers who pioneered "metafictional" or "postmodern" American literature. Federman's Fiction will introduce (or, for some, reintroduce) to the broader scholarly community a creative and daring thinker whose work is significant not just to considerations of the development of innovative fiction, but to a number of other distinct disciplines and emerging critical discourses.

What is the legacy of Theory after the deaths of so many of its leading lights, from Jacques Derrida to Roland Barthes? Bringing together reflections by leading contemporary scholars, Dead Theory explores the afterlives of the work of the great theorists and the current state of Theory today. Considering the work of thinkers such as Derrida, Deleuze, and Levinas, the book explores the ways in which Theory has long been haunted by death and how it might endure for the future.