The field of crime and delinquency attracts a great deal of heated and partial opinion, prejudice and other forms of mal-thinking. When there is a scientific approach there tends to be a psychological explanation. This book, first published in 1971, is a corrective to both trends. It is a discussion of criminal behaviour in relation to a wide range of behaviours which could be called deviance and regards the whole field from the sociological point of view. The whole discussion is ...

First published in 1988, this book attempts to tackle the problem of how to write about art, culture, and the issues of postmodernism in a style appropriate to what is being claimed. The letters are written on art’s behalf to a range of institutions and individuals, and have as their recurring concern the relation between art, culture and representation — both art as representation and how art is represented to, and for, the surrounding culture. They explore the context and viability of ar...

This is a work of social theory and philosophy which seeks to make the constitution of social theory a ‘social’ activity. It is essentially a collaborative text, by five authors, committed to a re-awakening of some of the forgotten dimensions of social theorizing. The collaborative work was originally occasioned by an attempt to analyse the notion of social stratification and its treatment in the sociological tradition. The authors’ main concern here is with the nature of social theorizing...

First published in 1985, this book draws together the author’s artistic with analytical practices which had been developed over many years of sociological enquiry. It interprets a ‘work of art’ as a site on which a viewer or critic is invited to share in questioning celebration of the painting itself. The author reassesses modern painting’s relation to its own origins and to tradition in light of the emergence of ‘postmodern’ practice — exploring its engagement of fundamental questions abo...

Attempting to bridge the gap between specialised scholarship in the humanistic disciplines and an interdisciplinary project of cultural analysis, Mieke Bal has written an intellectual travel guide that charts the course 'beyond' cultural studies. As with any guide, it can be used in a number of ways and the reader can follow or willfully ignore any of the paths it maps or signposts.Bal's focus for this book is the idea that interdisciplinarity in the humanities - necessary, excitin...

The Literary Theory Toolkit offers readers a rich compendium of key terms, concepts, and arguments necessary for the study of literature in a critical-theoretical context.Includes varied examples drawn from readily available literary texts spanning all periods and genresFeatures a chapter on performance, something not usually covered in similar textsCovers differing theories of the public sphere, ideology, power, and the social relations necessary...

Slavoj Zizek is no ordinary philosopher. Approaching critical theory and psychoanalysis in a recklessly entertaining fashion, Zizek's critical eye alights upon a bewildering and exhilarating range of subjects, from the political apathy of contemporary life, to a joke about the man who thinks he's a chicken, from the ethicial heroism of Keanu Reeves in Speed, to what toilet designs reveal about the national psyche. Tony Myers provides a clear and engaging guide to Zizek's key ideas...

Transgression is truly a key idea for our time. Society is created by constraint and boundaries, but as our culture is increasingly subject to uncertainty and flux we find it more and more difficult to determine where those boundaries lie. In this fast moving study, Chris Jenks ranges widely over the history of ideas, the major theorists, and the significant moments in the formation of the idea of transgression. He looks at the definition of the social and its boundaries by Durkheim, Dougl...

Simon Critchley's Very Short Introduction shows that Continental philosophy encompasses a distinct set of philosophical traditions and practices, with a compelling range of problems all too often ignored by the analytic tradition. He discusses the ideas and approaches of philosophers such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Habermas, Foucault, and Derrida, and introduces key concepts such as existentialism, nihilism, and phenomenology by explaining their place in the Con...

The last few decades have witnessed an explosion in ideas and theories on art. Art itself has never been so topical, but much recent thinking remains inaccessible and difficult to use. This book assesses the work of those thinkers (including artists) who have had a major impact on making, criticizing and interpreting art since the 1960s. With entries by leading international experts, this book presents a concise, critical appraisal of thinkers and their ideas about art and its place in the...

We have all wondered about the meaning of life. But is there an answer? And do we even really know what we're asking? Terry Eagleton takes a stimulating and quirky look at this most compelling of questions: at the answers explored in philosophy and literature; at the crisis of meaning in modern times; and suggests his own solution to how we might rediscover meaning in our lives.

German philosophy remains the core of modern philosophy. Without Kant, Frege, Wittgenstein, and Husserl there would be no Anglo-American 'analytical' style of philosophy. Moreover, without Kant, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, the 'Continental Philosophy' of Derrida, Foucault, Deleuze, Badiou, and Zizek, which has had major effects on humanities subjects in recent years, is incomprehensible. Knowledge of German philosophy is, then, an indispensable prerequisite of theoretically info...