A Companion to Critical and Cultural Theory

This Companion addresses the contemporary transformation of critical and cultural theory, with special emphasis on the way debates in the field have changed in recent decades.

• Features original essays from an international team of cultural theorists which offer fresh and compelling perspectives and sketch out exciting new areas of theoretical inquiry Thoughtfully organized into two sections – lineages and problematics – that facilitate its use both by students new to the field and
  advanced scholars and researchers
• Explains key schools and movements clearly and succinctly, situating them in relation to broader developments in culture, society, and politics
• Tackles issues that have shaped and energized the field since the Second World War, with discussion of familiar and under-theorized topics related to living and laboring, being and knowing, and agency and belonging

Imre Szeman is a Canada Research Chair of Cultural Studies and Professor of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta, and adjunct professor of Visual and Critical Studies at the Ontario College of Art and Design University. He is the founder of the Canadian Association of Cultural Studies and a founding member of the US Cultural Studies Association. He is the author or editor of many books, including most recently, Contemporary Marxist Theory: An Anthology (2014), Popular Culture: A User's Guide (3^rd revised edition, 2013), After Globalization (Wiley Blackwell, 2011), and Cultural Theory: An Anthology (Wiley Blackwell, 2010).

Sarah Blacker is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, Germany. Located at the intersection of science and technology studies, critical theory, and cultural studies, her research explores the politics of genomic medicine and health disparities' relation to racial inequalities in North America. She is co-editor of the journal Reviews in Cultural Theory.

Justin Sully teaches literary and cultural studies at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. His research tracks the cultural history of statistics and the political aesthetics of enumeration in film, television, and digital media. He is co-editor of the journal Reviews in Cultural Theory.

Contributors ix

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction xvii
Imre Szeman, Sarah Blacker, and Justin Sully

Part I Lineages 1

1 Frankfurt – New York – San Diego 1924–1968; or, Critical Theory 3
Andrew Pendakis

2 Vienna 1899 – Paris 1981; or, Psychoanalysis 25
James Penney

3 Paris 1955–1968; or, Structuralism 41
Sean Homer

4 Birmingham – Urbana‐Champaign 1964–1990; or, Cultural Studies 59
Paul Smith

5 Baltimore – New Haven 1966–1983; or, Deconstruction 73
Michael O’Driscoll

6 Paris – Boston – Berkeley – the Mexico/Texas Borderlands 1949–1990; or, Gender and Sexuality 91
Sarah Brophy

7 Delhi/Ahmednagar Fort – Washington, DC/Birmingham Jail – Pretoria/Robben Island 1947–1994; or, Race, Colonialism, Postcolonialism 115
Neil ten Kortenaar

8 Petrograd/Leningrad – Havana – Beijing 1917–1991; or, Marxist Theory and Socialist Practice 129
Peter Hitchcock

9 Chile – Seattle – Cairo 1973–2017?; or, Globalization and Neoliberalism 147
Myka Tucker‐Abramson

Part II Problematics 167

Section A: Living and Laboring 167

10 Subjectivity 173
William Callison

11 Diaspora and Migration 191
Ghassan Hage

12 Community, Collectivity, Affinities 205
Miranda Joseph

13 Feminism 223
Rosemary Hennessy

14 Gender and Queer Theory 243
Amber Jamilla Musser

15 Social Divisions and Hierarchies 255
Randy Martin

16 Work and Precarity 269
Jason Read

Section B: Being and Knowing 283

17 Religion and Secularism 287
Jerilyn Sambrooke

18 Affect 301
Marija Cetinić and Jeff Diamanti

19 Indigenous Epistemes 313
Rauna Kuokkanen

20 The Everyday, Taste, Class 327
Ben Highmore

21 Disability Studies 339
Anna Mollow

22 Unsound 357
Veit Erlmann

23 Screen Life 371
Toby Miller

24 Digital and New Media 387
Wendy Hui Kyong Chun

25 Science and Technology 403
Priscilla Wald

Section C: Structures of Agency and Belonging 419

26 Circulation 423
Will Straw

27 Cultural Production 435
Sarah Brouillette

28 Decolonization 449
Jennifer Wenzel

29 Race and Ethnicity 465
Min Hyoung Song

30 Humanism 477
Nina Power

31 Nature 489
Stephanie LeMenager

32 Scale 503
Justin Sully

33 Narrative 517
Marie‐Laure Ryan

Index 531

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