Jean Fran Ois Lyotard

In this book it explores science and technology, makes connections between these epistemic, cultural, and political trends, and develops profound insights into the nature of our postmodernity.

Om postmodernismen og en videreudvikling af forfatterens teorier med eksempler fra filosofi og malerkunst

Best known in the English-speaking world for his book The Postmodern Condition, Jean-François Lyotard was one of the most important and complex French thinkers of the twentieth century. In this new critical biography, Kiff Bamford traces the multi-faceted, sometimes surprising, journey of Lyotard’s life and work. Bamford’s book is the first to consider Lyotard’s work and ideas in the wider context of his life and times. He unravels the thrust of Lyotard’s main philosophical arguments, his struggle with thinking, and his confrontation with the task of writing and thinking differently about philosophy. Bamford takes care to situate each of these in their particular context: the Algerian war; the experimental university at Vincennes; and within Lyotard’s sustained engagement with the visual arts. The philosopher’s own suspicion of easy narratives and rejection of self-determination help to frame the book. It is only by following these prescribed cautions that Bamford is able to present a compelling portrait of a challenging subject.

In The Differend, Lyotard subjects to scrutiny- from the particular perspective of his notion of 'differend' (difference in the sense of dispute)- the turn of all Western philosophies toward language; the decline of metaphysics; the present intellectual retreat of Marxism; the hopes raised and mostly dashed, by theory; and the growing political despair. Taking his point of departure in an analysis of what Auschwitz meant philosophically, Lyotard attempts to sketch out modes of thought for our present.

Jean-Francois Lyotard is still considered to be the father of postmodernism. An international range of contributors in the field of cultural and philosophical studies, including Barry Smart, John O' Neill and Victor J. Seidler consider Lyotard's writings on justice and politics of difference, feminism, youth and Judaism.

This latest offering from one of the founding figures of postmodernism is a collection of fifteen "fables" that ask, in the words of Jean-Francois Lyotard, "how to live, and why?" Here, Lyotard provides a mixture of anarchistic irreverence and sober philosophical reflection on a wide range of topics with attention to issues of justice and ethics, aesthetics, and judgment. In sections titled "Verbiages, " "System Fantasies, " "Concealments, " and "Crypts, " Lyotard unravels and reconfigures idealist notions subjects as various and fascinating as the French Revolution, the Holocaust, the reception of French theory in the Anglo-American world, the events of May 1968, the Gulf War, academic travelers as intellectual tourists, the collapse of communism, and his own work in the context of others'.

What does Lyotard's thought offer contemporary theory? By focusing on key concepts and themes from his later texts, such as affect, aesthetics, Andre Malraux, St Paul, nihilism, infancy, space and writing, Rereading Jean-François Lyotard: Essays on His Later Works explores the impact and relevance of Lyotard's largely undiscussed late philosophical works for contemporary theoretical debates. In his works produced from 1990 until his death in 1998, Lyotard addresses a number of themes that both revisit and move beyond those from his earlier work. These include: art and aesthetics; affect; ethics and politics; modernity and the subject. Despite designating these texts as part of a 'late period', the chapters do not exclude a wider engagement with Lyotard's thought and often seek to engage in connections, resonances and developments across his many texts. Each chapter within this book places Lyotard as a figure with much to offer current theoretical debates, reasserts Lyotard as an important thinker for developments in social thought, and draws out the many links between his philosophical work and broader social questions. This is the first work in English to focus on Lyotard's later writings and will therefore be a key text to all scholars of his ideas.