| Fictive Theories: Towards a Deconstructive and Utopian Political Imagination 2005 Edition Contributor(s): McManus, S. (Author) |
|
 |
ISBN: 1403966680 ISBN-13: 9781403966681 Publisher: Palgrave MacMillan OUR PRICE: $52.24 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: June 2005 Annotation: Tracing the fictions that lie at the core of political theory's attempts to ground itself in nature, truth or knowledge of the real opens the space for a new mode of political theorizing. This new mode of (self-consciously) fictive theorizing has, McManus argues, both epistemological and ethical advantages. Methodologically reflexive, part epistemological critique, and part political manifesto, this book unfolds a creative epistemology of the possible, a utopian and deconstructive mode of political theory which moves beyond a politics based on legislative drives. This means moving from a political-theoretical mode concerned with models of governance, to a critically utopian mode, concerned with emancipatory knowledges and resistance. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Political Science | History & Theory - General - Philosophy | Political - Philosophy | Social |
| Dewey: 321.07 |
| LCCN: 2004043198 |
| Series: Studies in European Culture and History |
| Physical Information: 0.71" H x 6.38" W x 9.52" (1.21 lbs) 227 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Fictive Theories is a significant and innovative intervention in key debates in political theory concerning the ways theory should be philosophically grounded, and the task that political theory should set itself. Susan McManus argues that political theory has been grounded in controlling fictions (from fictions of human nature, to morals laws) that function to close possibility. Starting by interrogating the often hidden work of fictions in political theories, she argues that all theorizing is a form of world-creating. Rather than hiding the fictions at work in political theory, McManus argues that theory should become self-consciously fictive, and that there are political and ethical advantages to so doing. She then develops a uniquely deconstructive and utopian understanding of the project of political theory grounded in the 'fictive': a creative and future-oriented imagination. Rather than seeking to provide blueprints of how a polity should be organized, fictive theories seek to fabricate futures through the anticipatory articulation of possibility. Drawing on a rich range of thinkers from the traditions of political theory (Hobbes, Rousseau, Kant), deconstructive theory (Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida) and utopian studies (Ernst Bloch), this book will be of interest to researchers, teachers and students in the fields of political theory, utopian studies, literary theory and cultural studies. |