'Jean-Jacques Lecercle's remarkable Philosophy of Nonsense offers a sustained and important account of an area that is usually hastily dismissed. Using the resources of contemporary philosophy - notably Deleuze and Lyotard - he manages to bring out the importance of nonsense' - Andrew Benjamin, University of Warwick Why are we, and in particular why are philosophers and linguists, so fascinated with nonsense? Why do Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear appear in so many otherwise dull and dry academic books? This amusing, yet rigorous new book by Jean-Jacques Lecercle shows how the genre of nonsense was constructed and why it has proved so enduring and enlightening for linguistics and philosophy.
V. N. Volosinov's important work, first published in Russian in 1929, had to wait a generation for recognition. This first paperback edition of the English translation will be capital for literary theorists, philosophers, linguists, psychologists, and many others. Volosinov is out to undo the old disciplinary boundaries between linguistics, rhetoric, and poetics in order to construct a new kind of field: semiotics or textual theory. Ladislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik have provided a new preface to discuss Volosinov in relation to the great resurgence of interest in all the writing of the circle of Mikhail Bakhtin.
This translation of "Marxism and Problems of Linguistics" is a reprint of the English-language text published in Moscow in 1954. This edition also includes notes from the 1971 Chinese edition.
At first sight, Karl Marx and Ludwig Wittgenstein may well seem to be as different from each other as it is possible for the ideas of two major intellectuals to be. Despite this standard conception, however, a small number of scholars have long suggested that there are deeper philosophical commonalities between Marx and Wittgenstein. They have argued that, once grasped, these commonalities can radically change and enrich understanding both of Marxism and of Wittgensteinian philosophy. This book develops and extends this unorthodox view, emphasising the mutual enrichment that comes from bringing Marx's and Wittgenstein's ideas into dialogue with one another. Essential reading for all scholars and philosophers interested in the Marxist philosophy and the philosophy of Wittgenstein, this book will also be of vital interest to those studying and researching in the fields of social philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of social science and political economy.
In Rethinking Marxist Theories of Transition, Onur Acaroglu traces the concept of transition across the tracts of Classical and Western Marxism. Rarely directly invoked, transition appears as an imminent social reality, and a useful conceptual tool for critical social theory.
This volume offers a comprehensive treatment of the historical developments underpinning our present understandings of the relationship between language and the social by integrating the study of language with key strands of sociological theory.// The book posits that theory conditions how objects are constructed and in turn the meanings allocated to them and explores the implications for the relationship between language and the social. The volume traces this relationship from its foundations in the work of Enlightenment philosophers, in which sociology and linguistics emerged as coherent disciplines. Taking this work as a point of departure, the book examines the unfolding of the interplay between language and the social across developments in sociological theory in subsequent eras, encompassing such strands as Marxism, functionalism, interactionism, anti-foundationalism, poststructuralism, critical theory, and critical realism. A final chapter turns its eye toward contemporary sociolinguistics and its treatment of different sociological perspectives and future directions for its continued development. // Reflecting on trajectories in sociological theory toward informing our understanding of the relationship between language and the social today, this book will be key reading for students and scholars in sociolinguistics, philosophy of language, and those working in sociology and geography with an interest in language issues.
Ernesto Laclau has blazed a unique trail in political theory and philosophy since the early 1970s. In so doing, he has articulated a range of philosophical and theoretical currents into a coherent alternative to mainstream models and practices of conducting social and political science. The editors have focused on work in three key areas: Post-Marxist Political Theory: Discourse, Hegemony, Signification Laclau has developed an original conception of post-Marxist political theory that is grounded on a materialist theory of discourse. The latter is constructed from a range of theoretical and philosophical sources, including poststructuralism, psychoanalysis, linguistic theory and post-analytical philosophy. The centerpiece of this approach is the category of hegemony, which develops Antonio Gramsci’s seminal contribution to Marxist theory, and is in turn connected to a web of related concepts, including articulation, dislocation, the logics of equivalence and difference, political identification, myth and social imaginary. These ideas have informed a number of empirical and theoretical studies associated with the Essex School of Discourse Theory. Analyzing Populism A central concern of Laclau’s writings has been the question of populism, both in Latin America where hebegan his interrogation of the phenomenon (especially the experience of Peronism), and then in his engagement with the "new social movements" and socialist strategy more generally. The concept of populism becomes a general way of exploring the "primacy of politics" in society. Critical Engagements Laclau is first and foremost an engaged intellectual who has consistently sought to theorize contemporary events and reality, and to debate with the leading intellectual figures of the day, with respect to questions of political principle and strategy. His recent debates with Judith Butler and Slavoj Žižek in Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left, published in 2011 (London: Verso), exemplify this critical ethos. He continues to elaborate his approach by challenging and articulating related approaches, and by situating his work in connection to the democratic Left.
