Globalizing Critical Theory

This accessible text provides a comprehensive overview of globalization and its consequences from the perspective of social and political critical theory. Thematic chapters provoke student inquiry and the book shows how the views of critical theorists are crucial to understanding the global processes shaping the world today.

Across a spectrum of academic disciplines, the topic of globalization is at the forefront of contemporary efforts to understand a dynamically changing world society. How might critical social theory respond creatively to the challenge of thinking and theorizing globalization in its full complexity? Globalizing Critical Theory collects essays by scholars at the forefront of Critical Theory as they confront this timely topic. This book offers readers a chance to see contemporary Critical Theory in its full range—from political analyses of a global public sphere, critical race theory, and the politics of memory, to aesthetics and media studies. It includes crucial new essays by JYrgen on the transformations of the global order in the wake of the American invasion of Iraq, and major interventions by Nancy Fraser, Peter Hohendahl, Andreas Huyssen, James Bohman, and others. Globalizing Critical Theory provides a fascinating exploration of how Critical Theory is confronting the question of globalization—and how globalization is transforming Critical Theory.

This accessible text provides a comprehensive overview of globalization and its consequences from the perspective of social and political critical theory. Thematic chapters provoke student inquiry and the book shows how the views of critical theorists are crucial to understanding the global processes shaping the world today.

The anthology begins with discussions of globalization and hegemony by the two giants J rgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida. Other contributors, whose fields or institutions are not mentioned, then consider the global public sphere; race, memory, and forgetting; and globalizing visions of science, technology, and aesthetics. Annotation 2004 Book News

In recent years, under the impression and the burden of globalization and neoliberalism, debates about the relationship between the theory and practice of progress - including the theory and practice of social critique - have gone through an unexpected and momentous revival, renewal and rejuvenation.

There is at present much disenchantment with the rules governing international investment. Conceived as a set of disciplines establishing thresholds of tolerable state behaviour, dissatisfaction has precipitated acts of resistance in various parts of the world. Resisting Economic Globalization explores the magnitude of the legal constraints imposed by these rules and institutions associated with the worldwide spread of neoliberalism. Much contemporary theorizing has given up on national states as a locus for countering the harmful effects of economic globalization. Though states provide critical supports to the construction and ongoing maintenance of transnational legal constraints, David Schneiderman argues that states remain crucial sites for resisting, even rolling back, investment law disciplines. Structured as a series of encounters with selected critical theorists, the book contrasts theoretical diagnoses with recent episodes of resistance impeding investment law edicts. This novel approach tests contemporary hypotheses offered by leading political and legal theorists about the nature of power and the role of states and social movements in facilitating and undoing neoliberalism's legal edifices. As a consequence, the foundations of transnational legality become more apparent and the mechanisms for change more transparent.

Despite attempts to redress the balance, international relations (IR) as a discipline is still dominated by Western theories. The contributors in this book explore the challenges of constructing an alternative, with a dialogue between global and local approaches. Drawing on scholars with backgrounds in the United States, Europe, Asia and South America, this volume attempts to critically engage with and reflect upon existing traditions of IR theory to produce a deeply pluralist approach. Traditions, cultures, histories and practices from around the world influence their respective theoretical understanding and in turn explain why the Western tradition of IR is insufficient. This book provides great insight for scholars of IR from around the world, looking for more diversity in IR theory.

Theorizing Globalization offers a reassessment of mainstream perspectives on globalization, a topic that has become enormously popular in social sciences and cultural studies. Instead of recycling common arguments, Ampuja critically examines the works of key globalization theorists such as Manuel Castells and Arjun Appadurai to demonstrate their excessive fascination with recent changes in media and communications technology. The author argues that these and many other theorists’ media-centric and unhistorical treatment of globalization stands in the way of a critical understanding of how the global media and modern capitalist societies have evolved. Ampuja concludes with a provocative account of how the hegemony of neoliberalism has affected the positions of globalization theorists and, by extension, the development of social theory in general.