Terry Eagleton: After Theory (2003)

As heralded everywhere from NPR to the pages of the New York Times Magazine, a new era is underway in our colleges and universities: after a lengthy tenure, the dominance of postmodern theory has come to an end. In this timely and topical book, the legendary Terry Eagleton (“one of [our] best-known public intellectuals.”-Boston Globe) traces the rise and fall of these ideas from the 1960s through the 1990s, candidly assessing the resultant gains and losses. What’s needed now, After Theory argues, is a return to the big questions and grand narratives. Today’s global politics demand we pay attention to a range of topics that have gone ignored by the academy and public alike, from fundamentalism to objectivity, religion to ethics. Fresh, provocative, and consistently engaging, Eagleton’s latest salvo will challenge everyone looking to better grasp the state of the world.

Publisher Basic Books, 2003
ISBN 0465017738, 9780465017737
231 pages

publisher
google books

PDF (updated on 2012-7-31)

Alexandra Juhasz (ed.): Women of Vision: Histories in Feminist Film and Video (2001)

“Legends and rising stars of feminist film and video tell their stories.

Alexandra Juhasz asked twenty-one women to tell their stories-women whose names make up a who is (and who will be) who of independent and experimental film and video. What emerged in the resulting conversations is a compelling (and previously underdocumented) history of feminism and feminist film and video, from its origins in the fifties and sixties to its apex in the seventies, to today.

Women of Vision is a companion piece to Juhasz’s 1998 documentary of the same name. The book presents the complete interviews, allowing readers to hear directly the voices of these articulate, passionate women in an interactive remembering of feminist media history. Juhasz’s introduction provides a historical, theoretical, and aesthetic context for the interviews.

These subjects have all shaped late twentieth-century film and video in fundamental ways, either as artists, producers, distributors, critics, or scholars, and they all believe that media are the most powerful tools for effecting change. Yet they are a very diverse group, with widely varying personal and professional backgrounds. By presenting their interviews together, Juhasz shows the differences among those involved in feminist media, but also the connections among them, and the way in which the field has been enriched by their sharing of knowledge and power. In the end, Juhasz not only records these women’s careers, she broadens our understanding of feminism and shows how feminist history and documentary are made.”

Interviewees: Pearl Bowser, Margaret Caples, Michelle Citron, Megan Cunningham, Cheryl Dunye, Vanalyne Green, Barbara Hammer, Kate Horsfield, Carol Leigh, Susan Mogul, Juanita Mohammed, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Eve Oishi, Constance Penley, Wendy Quinn, Julia Reichert, Carolee Schneemann, Valerie Soe, Victoria Vesna, and Yvonne Welbon.

Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2001
Visible Evidence series, 9
ISBN 081663372X, 9780816633722
343 pages

Author
Publisher

PDF (updated on 2012-7-14)
Film: Women of Vision: 18 Histories in Feminist Film and Video (1998, 83 min)

Chantal Mouffe: The Return of the Political (1993–) [English, Spanish]

“A powerful new understanding of citizenship, democracy and pluralism.

In this work, Mouffe argues that liberal democracy misunderstands the problems of ethnic, religious and nationalist conflicts because of its inadequate conception of politics. He suggests that the democratic revolution may be jeopardized by a lack of understanding of citizenship, community and pluralism. Mouffe examines the work of Schmidt and Rawls and explores feminist theory, in an attempt to place the project of radical and plural democracy on a more adequate foundation than is provided by liberal theory.”

Publisher Verso, London, 1993
ISBN 0860914860, 9780860914860
156 pages

Review: Judith Squires (Radical Philosophy, 1995).

Publisher

The Return of the Political (English, 1993, updated on 2012-7-31)
El retorno de lo político (Spanish, trans. Marco Aurelio Galmarini, 1999, 6 MB, updated on 2020-10-23)
The Return of the Political (English, 2005, EPUB, added on 2020-10-26)