French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States

French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States
by Francois Cusset

French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States
List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $16.21
You Save: $8.74 (35%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


(Click here)
Buy this book at online book store in your country
Canada | UK | Germany | France

Book Summary Information

Author: Francois Cusset
Translator: Jeff Fort
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2008-04-01
ISBN: 081664733X
Number of pages: 408
Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press

Book Reviews of French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States

Book Review: for academics...
Summary: 4 Stars

The previous reviewer is probably correct about the audience for this book. That said, if you've come through the American academic system, at least in the humanities or social sciences, in the last 30 years or so, this is a fascinating account of the way particularly American concerns and politics led to a "structural misunderstanding," a selective appropriation and transformation of French thinkers and their ideas.

And if you think Sokal has had the last word, I'd recommend Latour's Reassembling the Social, where he draws upon the Science Wars to upset fundamental approaches in the social sciences. The Science Wars were vital for social theory, just not in the way Sokal would like.

Summary of French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States

"A great story, full of twists and turns. . . . Careers made and ruined, departments torn apart, writing programs turned into sensitivity seminars, political witch hunts, public opprobrium, ignorant media attacks, the whole ball of wax. Read it and laugh or read it and weep. I can hardly wait for the movie." -Stanley Fish, Think Again, New York Times "In such a difficult genre, full of traps and obstacles, French Theory is a success and a remarkable book in every respect: it is fair, balanced, and informed. I am sure this book will become the reference on both sides of the Atlantic." -Jacques Derrida

"The Atlantic Ocean has two sides, and so does French Theory. Reinvented in America and betrayed in its own country, it has become the most radical intellectual movement in the West with global reach, rewriting Marx in light of late capitalism. Breathtakingly moving back and forth between the two cultures, Francois Cusset takes us through a dazzling intellectual adventure that illuminates the past thirty years, and many more decades to come." -Sylvere Lotringer ?

During the last three decades of the twentieth century, a disparate group of radical French thinkers achieved an improbable level of influence and fame in the United States. Compared by at least one journalist to the British rock 'n' roll invasion, the arrival of works by Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-Fran?ois Lyotard, Jean Baudrillard, Gilles Deleuze, and F?lix Guattari on American shores in the late 1970s and 1980s caused a sensation.

?

Outside the academy, "French theory" had a profound impact on the era's emerging identity politics while also becoming, in the 1980s, the target of right-wing propagandists. At the same time in academic departments across the country, their poststructuralist form of radical suspicion transformed disciplines from literature to anthropology to architecture. By the 1990s, French theory was woven deeply into America's cultural and intellectual fabric.

?

French Theory is the first comprehensive account of the American fortunes of these unlikely philosophical celebrities. Fran?ois Cusset looks at why America proved to be such fertile ground for French theory, how such demanding writings could become so widely influential, and the peculiarly American readings of these works. Reveling in the gossipy history, Cusset also provides a lively exploration of the many provocative critical practices inspired by French theory. Ultimately, he dares to shine a bright light on the exultation of these thinkers to assess the relevance of critical theory to social and political activism today-showing, finally, how French theory has become inextricably bound with American life.

?

Fran?ois Cusset, a writer and intellectual historian, teaches contemporary French thought in Paris at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques and at Columbia University's Reid Hall. His books include Queer Critics and La D?cennie.

?

Jeff Fort is assistant professor of French at the University of California, Davis. He has translated works by Maurice Blanchot, Jean Genet, and Jean-Luc Nancy.

General Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in General Books
Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics) ImageJane Eyre (Penguin Classics)
by Charlotte Bront?
Penguin Classics; Published: 2006-08-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.49
Price in other shops: $8.00
How to Read a Book (A Touchstone Book) ImageHow to Read a Book (A Touchstone Book)
by Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren
Touchstone; Published: 1972-08-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.79
Price in other shops: $16.00
The History of Love: A Novel ImageThe History of Love: A Novel
by Nicole Krauss
W. W. Norton; Published: 2006-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.79
Price in other shops: $13.95
Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes ImageMythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes
by Edith Hamilton
Grand Central Publishing; Published: 1999-08-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.83
Price in other shops: $7.99
The Catcher in the Rye ImageThe Catcher in the Rye
by J.D. Salinger
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 1991-05-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.99
Price in other shops: $6.99
Fight Club: A Novel ImageFight Club: A Novel
by Chuck Palahniuk
W. W. Norton; Published: 2005-10-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.38
Price in other shops: $13.95
The Garden of Last Days: A Novel ImageThe Garden of Last Days: A Novel
by Andre Dubus III
W. W. Norton; Published: 2008-06-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.39
Price in other shops: $24.95
Our Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth, 73rd Edition ImageOur Dumb World: The Onion's Atlas of the Planet Earth, 73rd Edition
by The Onion
Little, Brown and Company; Published: 2007-10-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $15.00
Price in other shops: $27.99
How Fiction Works ImageHow Fiction Works
by James Wood
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2008-07-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.65
Price in other shops: $24.00
How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines ImageHow to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines
by Thomas C. Foster
Harper Paperbacks; Published: 2003-03-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.35
Price in other shops: $13.95
Similar Books and other products
A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century ImageA History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century
by John Burrow
Knopf; Published: 2008-04-08; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $21.00
Price in other shops: $35.00
Zizek's Ontology: A Transcendental Materialist Theory of Subjectivity (SPEP) ImageZizek's Ontology: A Transcendental Materialist Theory of Subjectivity (SPEP)
by Adrian Johnston
Northwestern University Press; Published: 2008-03-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $26.94
Price in other shops: $29.95
Psyche: Inventions of the Other, Volume II (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics) ImagePsyche: Inventions of the Other, Volume II (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)
by Jacques Derrida
Stanford University Press; Published: 2008-02-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.93
Price in other shops: $24.95
Modernism: The Lure of Heresy ImageModernism: The Lure of Heresy
by Peter Gay
W. W. Norton; Published: 2007-11-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $20.09
Price in other shops: $35.00
Subjectivity and Otherness: A Philosophical Reading of Lacan (Short Circuits) ImageSubjectivity and Otherness: A Philosophical Reading of Lacan (Short Circuits)
by Lorenzo Chiesa
The MIT Press; Published: 2007-09-30; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.23
Price in other shops: $19.95
After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency ImageAfter Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency
by Quentin Meillassoux
Continuum International Publishing Group; Published: 2008-06-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $12.07
Price in other shops: $19.95
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century ImageThe Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century
by Alex Ross
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2007-10-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $19.43
Price in other shops: $30.00
The Animal That Therefore I Am (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy) ImageThe Animal That Therefore I Am (Perspectives in Continental Philosophy)
by Jacques Derrida
Fordham University Press; Published: 2008-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.87
Price in other shops: $20.00
A Secular Age ImageA Secular Age
by Charles Taylor
Belknap Press; Published: 2007-09-20; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $25.05
Price in other shops: $39.95
In Defense of Lost Causes ImageIn Defense of Lost Causes
by Slavoj Zizek
Verso; Published: 2008-04-28; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $20.92
Price in other shops: $34.95
Book store. Illustrated catalog of books on different categories