Whether accompanying a march, a sit-in, or a confrontation with police, songs and protest are inextricably linked. As a tool for political activism, the protest song spells out the issues at the heart of each cause. Over a surprisingly long history, it has been used to spread ideas, inspire political imagination, and motivate political action.The protest song is - and has always been - a form of political oratory as vital to political representation as it is to performance. Investi...

William E. Connolly’s political theory forms a distinct and influential contribution to contemporary debates about the nature and prospects of democratic life in the twenty-first century. His original conceptualisations of pluralism, naturalism, the politics of the body, religion, secularism and his daring incorporation of contemporary neurobiology into political theory and analysis, have opened new paths for intellectual enquiry. Connolly has brought an American tradition of pragmatist po...

Rethinking questions of identity, social agency and national affiliation, Bhabha provides a working, if controversial, theory of cultural hybridity - one that goes far beyond previous attempts by others. In The Location of Culture, he uses concepts such as mimicry, interstice, hybridity, and liminality to argue that cultural production is always most productive where it is most ambivalent. Speaking in a voice that combines intellectual ease with the belief that theory itself can c...

This book gives a clear and readable overview of the philosophical work of Jürgen Habermas, the most influential German philosopher alive today, who has commented widely on subjects such as Marxism, the importance and effectiveness of communication, the reunification of Germany, and the European Union. Gordon Finlayson provides readers with a clear and readable overview of Habermas's forbiddingly complex philosophy using concrete examples and accessible language. He then goes on to analyse...

Leading anthropologist Thomas Hylland Eriksen shows how anthropology is a revolutionary way of thinking about the human world. Perfect for students, but also for those who have never encountered anthropology before, this book explores the key issues in an exciting and innovative way.Lucid and accessible, What is Anthropology? draws examples from current affairs as well as previous anthropological studies. He looks at the history of anthropology, its unique research methods and some...

An independently minded champion of ‘the project of modernity’ in a supposedly post-modern age, Jurgen Habermas (1929- ) is one of the most widely influential thinkers of our times.An easy-to-use A-Z guide to a body of work that spans philosophy, sociology, politics, law and cultural theory, Habermas: The Key Concepts explores Habermas’ writings on:capitalismgeneticslawneo-conservatismuniversal pragmatics.

Rosi Braidotti's nomadic theory outlines a sustainable modern subjectivity as one in flux, never opposed to a dominant hierarchy yet intrinsically other, always in the process of becoming, and perpetually engaged in dynamic power relations both creative and restrictive. Nomadic theory offers an original and powerful alternative for scholars working in cultural and social criticism and has, over the past decade, crept into continental philosophy, queer theory, and feminist, postcolonial, te...

This short critical introduction to the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu is a model of clarity and insight. Where Bourdieu's original writings are often densely argued and ambiguous, Richard Jenkins is direct, concise and to the point. He emphasises Bourdieu's contirbutions to the theory and methodology while also dealing in detail with his substantive studies of education, social stratification and culture. His book provides the best short English-language introduction to Bourdieu's work.

First published in 2004. A collection of the pioneering work from The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies.

Stuart Hall's work has been central to the formation and development of cultural studies as an international discipline. Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies is an invaluable collection of writings by and about Stuart Hall. The book provides a representative selection of Hall's enormously influential writings on cultural studies and its concerns: the relationship with Marxism; postmodernism and 'New Times' in cultural and political thought; the development of cultu...

Francis Fukuyama claims that liberal democracy is the end of history. This book provides a theoretical re-examination of this claim through postmodernist ideas.The book argues that postmodern ideas provide a valuable critique to Fukuyama’s thesis, and poses the questions: can we talk about a universal and teleological history; a universal human nature; or an autonomous individual? It addresses whether postmodern theories - concerning the movement of time, what it means to be human,...

The Politics of Care in Habermas and Derrida provides a penetrating analysis of the tensions and possibilities that animate the dialogue between two of the most significant frameworks of moral philosophy in the contemporary Continental tradition. The dispute between Habermasian discourse ethics and Derridean deconstruction is the backdrop for the book's excursus on the problem of care for the "otherness of the other"-a question with profound implications at the level of both ethic...