Jon Simons – författare

This introductory textbook provides students and other readers with an accessible basic guide to key figures in 'The Tradition of Critique' - critical post-Enlightenment European thinking. The intellectual tradition covered by the book is broadly the Continental philosophy and theory which has had a significant impact on many theoretical innovations in the humanities and social sciences. Yet many students and non-philosophers have little understanding of the tradition on which such thinking draws. The book therefore covers those thinkers whose work serves as the background for many contemporary thinkers such as Derrida, Foucault and Habermas.There are individual chapters on: Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Lukacs, Adorno and Horkheimer, Husserl, Heidegger, Gadamer, Wittgenstein, Arendt and Levi-Strauss. Each chapter offers some contextualisation, presents and explains key concepts, explains the thinker's relevance to an ongoing tradition and offers suggestions for further reading.The volume provides readers with sufficient background knowledge to study more contemporary theorists whose work draws on, or assumes knowledge of, these earlier or more foundational thinkers. Thus the book is aimed specifically at students and scholars who do not have a philosophical training and who study literary, cultural, social or political theorists who engage with this European intellectual tradition.Features* Introduces 15 key figures in modern Western philosophy* Enables students to study individual thinkers from one handy reference resource* Explains the relevance of philosophical tradition to contemporary thought* Accessible to beginners and non-philosophers* Explains the main ideas and concepts which contemporary thinkers address* Oriented to the philosophical, social and political aspects of the critical tradition

This authoritative guide introduces the key figures in contemporary critical theory for the beginning student. The critical theory covered in the volume includes: semiotics and discourse analysis; structuralism and post-structuralism; ideology critique; deconstruction; feminism; queer theory; psychoanalysis; postcolonialism; postmodernism; and the descendents of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. There are individual chapters on: Lacan; Althusser; Barthes; Derrida; Levinas; Kristeva; Irigaray; Cixous; Foucault; Lyotard; Deleuze; Baudrillard; and Guattari; Bourdieu; Habermas; Jameson; and Said. Each chapter provides biographical information and details about the thinker's intellectual context, an explanation of key concepts, an outline of the major angles of the theorist's work, an indication of ways in which their theory has been applied and suggestions for further reading. This text is designed as a companion to From Kant to Levi-Strauss: The Background to Contemporary Critical Theory, which is also edited by Jon Simons and published by Edinburgh University Press.

This authoritative guide introduces the key figures in contemporary critical theory for the beginning student. The critical theory covered in the volume includes: semiotics and discourse analysis; structuralism and post-structuralism; ideology critique; deconstruction; feminism; queer theory; psychoanalysis; postcolonialism; postmodernism; and the descendents of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. There are individual chapters on: Lacan; Althusser; Barthes; Derrida; Levinas; Kristeva; Irigaray; Cixous; Foucault; Lyotard; Deleuze; Baudrillard; and Guattari; Bourdieu; Habermas; Jameson; and Said. Each chapter provides biographical information and details about the thinker's intellectual context, an explanation of key concepts, an outline of the major angles of the theorist's work, an indication of ways in which their theory has been applied and suggestions for further reading. This text is designed as a companion to "From Kant to Levi-Strauss: The Background to Contemporary Critical Theory", which is also edited by Jon Simons and published by Edinburgh University Press.

In these 15 taster essays you will discover the key concepts and critical approaches of the theorists who have had the most significant impact on the humanities since 1990. On completing each chapter, you will find suggestions for further reading so that you can find out more and start applying the ideas in question. In addition to chapters on individuals such as Badiou, Rancière and Spivak, there are chapters on Laclau and Mouffe, and a chapter on Green critical theorists. Key Features*Written by experienced lecturers including John Armitage (Northumbria University), Paul Hegarty (University College Cork), David Huddart (Chinese University of Hong Kong), Simon Tormey (The University of Sydney), Samuel A. Chambers (Johns Hopkins University) *Sets each theorist in their biographical and intellectual context *The only book to offer chapter-length introductions to such a range of contemporary theorists making it the first place to look for an informed overview and evaluation*Jon Simons has edited two other popular guides to critical theory: From Kant to Lévi-Strauss: The Background to Contemporary Critical Theory and Contemporary Critical Theorists: From Lacan to Said.

In/Visible War addresses a paradox of twenty-first century American warfare. The contemporary visual American experience of war is ubiquitous, and yet war is simultaneously invisible or absent; we lack a lived sense that “America” is at war. This paradox of in/visibility concerns the gap between the experiences of war zones and the visual, mediated experience of war in public, popular culture, which absents and renders invisible the former. Large portions of the domestic public experience war only at a distance. For these citizens, war seems abstract, or may even seem to have disappeared altogether due to a relative absence of visual images of casualties. Perhaps even more significantly, wars can be fought without sacrifice by the vast majority of Americans.  Yet, the normalization of twenty-first century war also renders it highly visible. War is made visible through popular, commercial, mediated culture. The spectacle of war occupies the contemporary public sphere in the forms of celebrations at athletic events and in films, video games, and other media, coming together as MIME, the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network.

In/Visible War addresses a paradox of twenty-first century American warfare. The contemporary visual American experience of war is ubiquitous, and yet war is simultaneously invisible or absent; we lack a lived sense that “America” is at war. This paradox of in/visibility concerns the gap between the experiences of war zones and the visual, mediated experience of war in public, popular culture, which absents and renders invisible the former. Large portions of the domestic public experience war only at a distance. For these citizens, war seems abstract, or may even seem to have disappeared altogether due to a relative absence of visual images of casualties. Perhaps even more significantly, wars can be fought without sacrifice by the vast majority of Americans.  Yet, the normalization of twenty-first century war also renders it highly visible. War is made visible through popular, commercial, mediated culture. The spectacle of war occupies the contemporary public sphere in the forms of celebrations at athletic events and in films, video games, and other media, coming together as MIME, the Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network.

Images: A Reader provides a key resource for students, academics, practitioners and other readers engaged in the critical, theoretical and practical study of images. The Reader is concerned with the notion of the 'image' in all its theoretical, critical and practical contexts, uses and history. The Reader provides a map of the differences and similarities between the various disciplinary approaches to images, breaking the ground for a new interdisciplinary study of images, in the arts and humanities and beyond.

 

Images: A Reader is divided into three parts:

 

• Historical and Philosophical Precedents sets the background for contemporary debates about images.

• Theories of Images provides key texts of the major approaches through which images are conceptualised.

• Image Culture introduces some of the more recent debates about images and today's visual environment.

 

The selection of over 80 key readings, across the domains of philosophy, art, literature, science, critical theory and cultural studies tells the story of images through intellectual history from the Bible to the present. By including both well-established writings and more recent, innovative research, the Reader outlines crucial developments in contemporary discourses about images.