Description
Book SynopsisBrings together seven of Wendy Brown's essays in political and cultural theory that range from explorations of politics post-9/11 to critical reflections on the academic norms governing feminist studies and political theory. This work is also concerned with the intellectual and political value of critique itself. Each essay probes a problem.
Trade Review"Attentive to the paradoxes and fragilities of contemporary democratic life, Wendy Brown's
Edgework traverses democratic and feminist theory to deepen our appreciation of love in a time of hostility, equality in a time of difference, and action in a time of felt paralysis. Timely yet not simply 'relevant,'
Edgework manifests throughout that quality that Hannah Arendt admired and named 'care for the world.'"
—Bonnie Honig, Professor of Political Science, Northwestern University; Senior Research Fellow, American Bar Foundation; author of Democracy and the Foreigner"There is no one who occupies the place Brown occupies, who thinks as she thinks, or who writes with the same startling combination of bravery and moderation. There is no one who has such an acute eye for the structural perversities of American politics. There is no one who can so easily break the surface of political controversies and local scholarly debates, and dive into the profound questions below and behind them."
—Anne Norton, University of Pennsylvania, author of Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empireand 95 Theses on Politics, Culture, and MethodTable of ContentsPreface vii Chapter One: Untimeliness and Punctuality: Critical Theory in Dark Times 1 Chapter Two: Political Idealization and Its Discontents 17 Chapter Three: Neoliberalism and the End of Liberal Democracy 37 Chapter Four: At the Edge: The Future of Political Theory 60 Chapter Five: Freedom's Silences 83 Chapter Six: Feminism Unbound: Revolution, Mourning, Politics 98 Chapter Seven: The Impossibility of Women's Studies 116 Notes 137 Index 155
