New Directions in Critical Theory: Imaginal Politics: Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary

New Directions in Critical Theory: Imaginal Politics: Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary
Chiara Bottici
RRP:
NZ$ 74.00
Our Price:
NZ$ 61.05
Paperback
h229 x 152mm - 272pg
30 Apr 2019 US
International import eta 10-30 days
9780231157797
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
Between the radical, creative capacity of our imagination and the social imaginary we are immersed in is an intermediate space philosophers have termed the imaginal, populated by images or (re)presentations that are presences in themselves. Offering a new, systematic understanding of the imaginal and its nexus with the political, Chiara Bottici brings fresh insight into the formation of political and power relationships and the paradox of a world rich in imagery yet seemingly devoid of imagination. Bottici begins by defining the difference between the imaginal and the imaginary, locating the imaginal's root meaning in the image and its ability to both characterize a public and establish a set of activities within that public. She identifies the imaginal's critical role in powering representative democracies and its amplification through globalization. She then addresses the troublesome increase in images now mediating politics and the transformation of politics into empty spectacle.The spectacularization of politics has led to its virtualization, Bottici observes, transforming images into processes with an uncertain relationship to reality, and, while new media has democratized the image in a global society of the spectacle, the cloned image no longer mediates politics but does the act for us. Bottici concludes with politics' current search for legitimacy through an invented ideal of tradition, a turn to religion, and the incorporation of human rights language.

A Political Economy of the Senses: Neoliberalism, Reification, Critique
Capitalism on Edge: How Fighting Precarity Can Achieve Radical Change Without Crisis or Utopia
Crisis Under Critique: How People Assess, Transform, and Respond to Critical Situations
Critical Theory in Critical Times: Transforming the Global Political and Economic Order
Critique on the Couch: Why Critical Theory Needs Psychoanalysis
Death and Mastery: Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and the Subject of Late Capitalism
Democracy in What State?
Fascist Mythologies: The History and Politics of Unreason in Borges, Freud, and Schmitt
Foucault/Derrida Fifty Years Later: The Futures of Genealogy, Deconstruction, and Politics
Hermeneutics as Critique: Science, Politics, Race, and Culture
Media of Reason: A Theory of Rationality
New Directions in Critical Theory #67: Transitional Subjects: Critical Theory and Object Relations
New Directions in Critical Theory: A Time for Critique
New Directions in Critical Theory: Alienation
New Directions in Critical Theory: Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left
New Directions in Critical Theory: Death and Mastery: Psychoanalytic Drive Theory and the Subject of Late Capitalism
New Directions in Critical Theory: End of Progress, The: Decolonizing the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory
New Directions in Critical Theory: Fear of Breakdown: Politics and Psychoanalysis
New Directions in Critical Theory: Imaginal Politics: Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary
New Directions in Critical Theory: Left-Wing Melancholia: Marxism, History, and Memory
New Directions in Critical Theory: Political Responsibility: Responding to Predicaments of Power
New Directions in Critical Theory: Politics of Our Selves, The: Power, Autonomy, and Gender in Contemporary Critical The
New Directions in Critical Theory: Power of Tolerance, The: A Debate
New Directions in Critical Theory: Return of Work in Critical Theory, The: Self, Society, Politics
New Directions in Critical Theory: Right to Justification, The: Elements of a Constructivist Theory of Justice
New Directions in Critical Theory: Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity
Political Uses of Utopia: New Marxist, Anarchist, and Radical Democratic Perspectives
Politics of Culture and the Spirit of Critique: Dialogues
Practice of Political Theory, The: Rorty and Continental Thought
Practice of Political Theory, The: Rorty and Continental Thought
Praxis and Revolution: A Theory of Social Transformation
Recognition and Ambivalence
Recognition or Disagreement: A Critical Encounter on the Politics of Freedom, Equality, and Identity
Scandal of Reason, The: A Critical Theory of Political Judgment
Selected Writings on Media, Propaganda, and Political Communication
What is a People?
Wrath of Capital, The: Neoliberalism and Climate Change Politics

This is an excellent book, very original and elegantly written. Chiara Bottici's contribution to the field of politics is an original one, since, even though there exist other theories about the social imaginary, Bottici's is pivotal in allowing us to understand contemporary politics and its paradoxes. It is a great addition to the field of academic discussions about politics, religion, imagination, and conceptual history. -- Mar a P a Lara, Universidad Aut noma Metropolitana Chiara Bottici's Imaginal Politics is an original, suggestive, and solid contribution to political philosophy broadly understood. The strength of Bottici's work lies in its scope and potential for unifying several strands of inquiry into one integrated theory of the imaginal and working out the consequences of this notion for a variety of disciplines. The whole field of 'politics and the imagination' is rapidly expanding, and I would not be surprised if this book were to turn into one of the key references in the field. -- Alessandro Ferrara, University of Rome Tor Vergata, and former president of the Italian Association of Political Philosophy In her new book, Chiara Bottici continues her pathbreaking work in imaginal cultural analysis. Neither properly imaginary nor precisely imaginative, the imaginal is the image broken free of the restraints of both indexicality and referentiality, becoming in the process free-floating agencies in modernity's advertising, spectacular, sports, military, and political games. -- Hayden White, University Professor, Emeritus, University of California, Santa Cruz Insightful, wide-ranging, and exciting. -- Laura Hengehold Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
Chiara Bottici is assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research and the author of A Philosophy of Political Myth, Men, and States, and, with Beno t Challand, The Myth of the Clash of Civilizations and Imagining Europe: Myth, Memory, and Identity.

In stock - for items in stock we aim to dispatch the next business day. For delivery in NZ allow 2-5 business days, with rural taking a wee bit longer.

Locally sourced in NZ - stock comes from a NZ supplier with an approximate delivery of 7-15 business days.

International Imports - stock is imported into NZ, depending on air or sea shipping option from the international supplier stock can take 10-30 working days to arrive into NZ. 

Pre-order Titles - delivery will vary depending on where the title is published, if local stock is available in NZ then 5-7 business days, for international imports it can be 10-30 business days. In all cases we will access the quickest supply option.

Delivery Packaging - we ship all items in cardboard sleeves or by box with either packing paper or corn starch chips. (We avoid using plastics bubble bags)

Tracking - Orders are delivered by track and trace courier and are fully insured, tracking information will be sent by email once dispatched.

View our full Order & Delivery information