{"product_id":"the-years-of-theory-isbn-9781804295892","title":"The Years of Theory","description":"\u003cb\u003eMagisterial lectures on the major figures of French theory from 'America’s leading Marxist critic'\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFredric Jameson introduces here the major themes of French theory: existentialism, structuralism, poststructuralism, semiotics, feminism, psychoanalysis, and Marxism. In a series of accessible lectures, Jameson places this effervescent period of thought in the context of its most significant political conjunctures, including the Liberation of Paris, the Algerian War, the uprisings of May ’68, and the creation of the EU.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe philosophical debates of the period come to life through anecdotes and extended readings of work by the likes of Sartre, Beauvoir, Fanon, Barthes, Foucault, Althusser, Derrida, Deleuze, groups like Tel Quel and \u003ci\u003eCahiers du Cinéma\u003c\/i\u003e, and contemporary thinkers such as Rancière and Badiou. Eclectic, insightful, and inspired, Jameson’s seminars provide an essential account of an intellectual moment comparable in significance to the Golden Age of Athens, historically fascinating and of persistent relevance.\u003ci\u003eEditor’s Preface\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Introduction: The Seminar as a Collective Book\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 1 \u003ci\u003eLes Cinquante Glorieuses\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e 2 The Uses of the Verb to Be\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eSartre\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 3 Reification or Otherness\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eSartre\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 4 After Sartre\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eSartre, Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir, Fanon\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 5 After the Liberation\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eSartre, Merleau-Ponty, Beauvoir, Fanon\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 6 Glory to the Binary Opposition!\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eSaussure, Levi-Strauss\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 7 Saussure in Brazil\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eLevi-Strauss\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 8 Victory of the Paradigmatic\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eLevi-Strauss, Barthes\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 9 Utopia: But Where Does Power Come From?\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eBaudrillard, Clastres\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 10 Enter Lacan\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eLacan\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 11 Genealogy of the Look\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eLacan\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 12 Class Struggle in Theory\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eAlthusser\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 13 The Lonely Hour of the Last Instance\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eAlthusser\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 14 How to Avoid Meaning\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eDerrida\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 15 Linguistic Politics of the Third Way\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eDerrida\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 16 Feminism as Transgression\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eBeauvoir, Wittig, Irigaray\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 17 Mothers and Moving Images\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eKristeva, Comolli, Baudry\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 18 “Moi, Michel Foucault...”\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eFoucault\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 19 The Prison-House of Subjectification\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eFoucault\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 20 Nominalism of the Photograph\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eBarthes\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 21 Philosophy’s Postmodern Theater\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eDeleuze\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 22 Joyousness of Gilles Deleuze\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eDeleuze\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 23 Return of le Politique\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eRancière, Balibar, Nancy\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e 24 Simulating the End of History\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eDebord, Baudrillard\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Envoi: Theory after Demarxification\u003cbr\u003e {\u003ci\u003eLatour, Meillassoux, Stiegler, Laruelle\u003c\/i\u003e}\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIndex\u003c\/i\u003e\"An intellectually rigorous overview of post–World War II French thought ... Tracing webs of influence, and rebellion, among them, Jameson conveys the intellectual vitality of a vastly changing world.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jameson is one of the world’s most eminent cultural theorists, but he is also a peerless literary critic in the classical sense of the term.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Terry Eagleton\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Probably the most important cultural critic writing in English today. It can be truly said that nothing cultural is alien to him.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Colin McCabe\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The most significant Marxist thinker in American culture.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Cornel West\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jameson’s contributions to the critical theory, to the analysis of the forms and content of the world we live in, and to the empowering of the imagination to envision alternatives to the present are immeasurable. But more importantly, perhaps, his thinking has served to inspire others — artists, activists, critics, theorists, and students of all kinds — to extend his efforts.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Robert T. Tally Jr., \u003ci\u003eJacobin\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An intellectual titan and one of the torchbearers of Marxist thought through the tenebrous night of neoliberalism\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Kate Wagner, \u003ci\u003eThe Nation\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Jameson was arguably the most prominent Marxist literary critic in the English-speaking world… Criticism, as he understood it, could never be [easy], because of the complexity of its objects and its need to perpetually revise, refine and question its own procedures. To my mind, nobody did this as doggedly — or should I say as dialectically, with such a clearly articulated sense of the intellectual stakes — as Jameson.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—A.O. Scott, \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The greatest intellectual titan of the past half-century…No one reads anything (not literature, not film, not even the uncannily lit corridors of a casino) quite like Jameson did, but to read him well, when you could, was to be dazzled by the gargantuan generosity of his mind.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Jacob Brogan, \u003ci\u003eThe Washington Post\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"The legendary literary critic Fredric Jameson...perceptively and lucidly discusses theory from the immediate postwar period to today. With one foot in the present and the other in the past, Jameson illustrates the unique political possibilities French philosophers opened over the course of five decades.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Gregory Jones-Katz, \u003ci\u003eForeign Policy\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"[The Years of Theory] offers a masterful introduction to its topic, beginning with Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, and then moving on to Claude Lévi-Strauss, Frantz Fanon, Jacques Lacan, Julia Kristeva, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Gilles Deleuze, among others. And it allows readers to sit in, like virtual auditors, while Jameson guides us through their ideas. After Jameson’s death in September at the age of 90, the volume carries forward his work as a teacher.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Caleb Smith, \u003ci\u003eThe Chronicle of Higher Education\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Straight-talking, yet never pedestrian, \u003ci\u003eThe Years of Theory\u003c\/i\u003e ... offers a history not of ideas, but of ‘problems’ ... Ever the Marxist, Jameson has dismantled the camera obscura to develop a more historically focused snapshot of that amorphous thing called ‘French theory’.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Tommy Gilhooly, \u003ci\u003eLondon Magazine, \u003ci\u003eBooks of 2024\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"An autodidact’s dream. Under the generous direction of Fredric Jameson’s long life of critical thinking, why not just go to bed with a carton of Gauloises Blondes and a box of books. And come back when Trump is over.\"\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e—Fiona O'Connor, \u003ci\u003eMorning Star\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cb\u003eFredric Jameson\u003c\/b\u003e is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature at Duke University. Over the last several decades, he has developed an influential and richly nuanced understanding of the relationship between culture and political economy. He is a recipient of the Holberg International Memorial Prize and the Modern Language Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award. He is the author of many books, including \u003ci\u003eThe Political Unconscious\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePostmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eValences of the Dialectic\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302753423589,"sku":"NP9781804295892","price":29.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781804295892.jpg?v=1767742358","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-years-of-theory-isbn-9781804295892","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}