Name: Postmodern Theory
Rating: 3.75 (2 reviews)

Steven Best

Douglas Kellner

The authors systematically interrogate postmodern theory to evaluate its relevance for critical social theory and radical politics today. The book contains an introduction and critique to the work of Foucault, Delueze and Guattari and an introduction to postmodern feminist theory.

Critical Interrogations

Postmodern Theory

In this timely volume, the authors systematically analyze postmodern theory to evaluate its relevance for critical social theory and radical politics today. Best and Kellner provide: * An introduction and critique of the work of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, Baudrillard, Lyotard, Laclau and Mouffe, and Jameson, which assess the varying contributions and limitations of postmodern theory * A discussion of postmodern feminist theory and the politics of identity * A systematic study of the origin of the discourse of the postmodern in historical, sociological, cultural, and philosophical studies. The authors claim that while postmodern theory provides insights into contemporary developments, it lacks adequate methodological and political perspectives to provide a critical social theory and radical politics for the present age.

Several sections, including the Baudrillard chapter, are particularly scathing of the limits of postmodern theory. The intellectual history is quite good here as well. I question, however, the authors rather uncritical approach of Habermas’ criticisms of postmodern theory, as they are half-baked at best. 

Carson

0xADADA

A great overview, but diminishes the contribution of "extreme postmodernists" like Lyotard and Baudrillard in their understanding of media and the desires of technology itself. These ideas have become more prescient today than when the book was published in 1991.

Postmodern Theory Critical Interrogations

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