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Critical Theory Basic Topics
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to critical theory: Critical theory – the examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism. This has led to the very literal use of 'critical theory' as an umbrella term to describe any theory founded upon critique. The term "Critical Theory" was first coined by Max Horkheimer in his 1937 essay "Traditional and Critical Theory". Essence of critical theory * Cultural studies – * Critical theorists – * Works in critical theory – * Truth theory – Concepts * Aesthetics * Agency (sociology) * Authorship * History * Human rights * Ideology * Law * Money * Objectivity and subjectivity * Sex–gender distinction Branches of critical theory * Social theory – * Literary theo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are: medium of exchange, a unit of account, a store of value and sometimes, a standard of deferred payment. Money was historically an emergent market phenomenon that possessed intrinsic value as a commodity; nearly all contemporary money systems are based on unbacked fiat money without use value. Its value is consequently derived by social convention, having been declared by a government or regulatory entity to be legal tender; that is, it must be accepted as a form of payment within the boundaries of the country, for "all debts, public and private", in the case of the United States dollar. The money supply of a country comprises all currency in circulation (banknotes and coins currently issued) and, depending on the particular definiti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frantz Fanon
Frantz Omar Fanon (, ; ; 20 July 1925 – 6 December 1961) was a French West Indian psychiatrist, political philosopher, and Marxist from the French colony of Martinique (today a French department). His works have become influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory, and Marxism. As well as being an intellectual, Fanon was a political radical, Pan-Africanist, and Marxist humanist concerned with the psychopathology of colonization and the human, social, and cultural consequences of decolonization. In the course of his work as a physician and psychiatrist, Fanon supported the Algerian War of independence from France and was a member of the Algerian National Liberation Front. Fanon has been described as "the most influential anticolonial thinker of his time". For more than five decades, the life and works of Fanon have inspired national liberation movements and other freedom and political movements in Palestine, Sri Lanka, South Africa, and the Unite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Louis Gates Jr
Henry Louis Gates Jr. (born September 16, 1950), popularly known by his childhood nickname "Skip", is an American literary critic, professor, historian, and filmmaker who serves as the Alphonse Fletcher University Professor and the director of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University. He is a trustee of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. He rediscovered the earliest known African-American novels and has published extensively on the recognition of African-American literature as part of the Western canon. In addition to producing and hosting previous series on the history and genealogy of prominent American figures, since 2012, Gates has been host of the television series ''Finding Your Roots'' on PBS. The series combines the work of expert researchers in genealogy, history, and historical research in genetics to tell guests about the lives and histories of their ancestors. Early life and education Gates was born on Septe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackboxing
In science studies, the social process of blackboxing is based on the abstract notion of a black box. To cite Bruno Latour, blackboxing is "the way scientific and technical work is made invisible by its own success. When a machine runs efficiently, when a matter of fact is settled, one need focus only on its inputs and outputs and not on its internal complexity. Thus, paradoxically, the more science and technology succeed, the more opaque and obscure they become." Overview Social constructivist approaches to science and technology studies, such as social construction of technology (SCOT) often revolve around "opening the black box", or attempting to understand the internal workings of a given system. This allows the investigator to find what empirical models of technical change that explain the specific events forming the technology. The social constructivist conception of black boxing doesn't delineate the physical components hidden inside an apparent whole; rather, what is blac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Assemblage (philosophy)
Assemblage (from everyday , - arrangement, layout, "a collection of things which have been gathered together or assembled") is a philosophical concept developed by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari and subsequently taken up by other theorists, such as Bruno Latour and Michel Callon who developed Actor-network theory, Manuel DeLanda in his work on assemblage theory, and Jane Bennett who combines Latour with Deleuze and Guattari forming her own assemblage theory. Bennett’s assemblage thinking has influenced: Environmental philosophy (e.g., Timothy Morton’s '' Hyperobjects''), Political theory (e.g., William Connolly’s work on complexity and politics), and New materialism (e.g., Rosi Braidotti, Karen Barad). Assemblage is a philosophical approach for studying the ontological diversity of agency, which means redistributing the capacity to act from an individual to a socio-material network of people, things, and narratives. Also known as a''ssemblage theory'' or ''ass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Articulation (sociology)
In sociology, articulation labels the process by which particular classes appropriate cultural forms and practices for their own use. The term appears to have originated from the work of Antonio Gramsci, specifically from his conception of superstructure. Chantal Mouffe, Stuart Hall, and others have adopted or used it.Middleton, Richard 990(2002). ''Studying Popular Music''. Philadelphia: Open University Press. . p. 8-9 Articulation (expression) theorizes the relationship between components of social formation or relationship between cultural and political economy. In this theory, cultural forms and practices (Antonio Gramsci's ''superstructure'' and Richard Middleton's ''instance'' or ''level of practice'') have relative autonomy; socio-economic structures of power do not determine them, but rather they relate to them. "The theory of articulation recognizes the complexity of cultural fields. It preserves a relative autonomy for cultural and ideological elements ... but als ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hermeneutics
Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. As necessary, hermeneutics may include the art of understanding and communication. Modern hermeneutics includes both verbal and non-verbal communication,''The Routledge Companion to Philosophy in Organization Studies'', Routledge, 2015p. 113Joann McNamara, ''From Dance to Text and Back to Dance: A Hermeneutics of Dance Interpretive Discourse'', PhD thesis, Texas Woman's University, 1994. as well as semiotics, presuppositions, and pre-understandings. Hermeneutics has been broadly applied in the humanities, especially in law, history and theology. Hermeneutics was initially applied to the interpretation, or exegesis, of scripture, and has been later broadened to questions of general interpretation. p. 2 The terms ''hermeneutics'' and ''exegesis'' are sometimes used interchangeably. Hermeneutics is a wider discipline wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Critical Legal Studies
Critical legal (CLS) is a school of critical theory that developed in the United States during the 1970s.Alan Hunt, "The Theory of Critical Legal Studies," Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1986): 1-45, esp. 1, 5. Se DOI, 10.1093/ojls/6.1.1. CLS adherents claim that laws are devised to maintain the status quo of society and thereby codify its biases against marginalized groups. Despite wide variation in the opinions of critical legal scholars around the world, there is general consensus regarding the key goals of critical legal studies: * to demonstrate the ambiguity and possible preferential outcomes of supposedly impartial and rigid legal doctrines; * to publicize historical, social, economic and psychological results of legal decisions; * to demystify legal analysis and legal culture in order to impose transparency on legal processes so that they earn the general support of socially responsible citizens. The abbreviations "CLS" and "Crit" are sometimes used ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Feenberg
Andrew Feenberg (born 1943) is an American philosopher. He holds the Canada Research Chair in the Philosophy of Technology in the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver. His main interests are philosophy of technology, continental philosophy, critique of technology and science and technology studies. Education Feenberg studied philosophy under Herbert Marcuse at the University of California, San Diego and was awarded his PhD in 1972. During this time Feenberg was active in the New Left, founding a journal entitled ''Alternatives'' and participating in the May '68 events in Paris. Feenberg's philosophy of technology Compared to his predecessors in philosophy of technology, such as Martin Heidegger and Jacques Ellul who have a dystopian view of technology, Feenberg's view is positive even though critical. For Heidegger and Ellul technology affects people's life but is for the most part beyond their control. For Feenberg technology and society influenc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thing Theory
Thing theory is a branch of critical theory that focuses on human–object interactions in literature and culture. It borrows from Heidegger's distinction between objects and things, which posits that an object becomes a thing when it can no longer serve its common function. The Thing in Thing Theory is conceptually like Jacques Lacan's Real; Felluga states that it is influenced by Actor-network theory and the work of Bruno Latour. For University of Chicago Professor Bill Brown, objects are items for which subjects have a known and clear sense of place, use and role. Things, on the other hand, manifest themselves once they interact with our bodies unexpectedly, break down, malfunction, shed their encoded social values, or elude our understanding. When one encounters an object which breaks outside of its expected, recognizable use, it causes a moment of judgement, which in turn causes a historical or narrative reconfiguration between the subject and the object which Brown refers ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Theory
Literary theory is the systematic study of the nature of literature and of the methods for literary analysis. Culler 1997, p.1 Since the 19th century, literary scholarship includes literary theory and considerations of intellectual history, moral philosophy, social philosophy, and interdisciplinary themes relevant to how people interpret meaning. In the humanities in modern academia, the latter style of literary scholarship is an offshoot of post-structuralism. Searle, John. (1990)"The Storm Over the University" ''The New York Review of Books'', December 6, 1990. Consequently, the word ''theory'' became an umbrella term for scholarly approaches to reading texts, some of which are informed by strands of semiotics, cultural studies, philosophy of language, and continental philosophy, often witnessed within Western canon along with some postmodernist theory. History The practice of literary theory became a profession in the 20th century, but it has historical roots that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
