Description
Book SynopsisMerleau-Pontys focus on embodied experience allows us to approach political life in a manner that is both critical and engaged. This work demonstrates that political questions were always central to Merleau-Pontys philosophical project. It also shows how existential phenomenology illuminates and enlivens our understanding of politics.
Trade ReviewThis book constitutes a timely and highly original intervention in contemporary political theory. In the first full-length study of Merleau-Ponty's political thought to be published since the rise of poststructuralist theory, Diana Coole brilliantly demonstrates Merleau-Ponty's continuing significance as a resource for political theory today. Merleau-Ponty and Modern Politics After Anti-Humanism fruitfully moves us beyond the now-stale debates about humanism and anti-humanism, modernity and postmodernity. -- Sonia Kruks, Robert S. Danforth Professor of Politics, Oberlin College; author of Retrieving Experience
Coole's study of the contributions of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to philosophy and political theory reflects a remarkably deep and thoughtful engagement with his ideas. Coole demonstrates in a very readable way that he was a profoundly political thinker. Her approach to situating and reading Merleau-Ponty as a political thinker is no less than masterful....Highly recommended. -- . * CHOICE, April 2008, Vol 45, No. 08 *
[Coole] shows how Merleau-Ponty's later work, which was to some extent imbued with anti-humanism, provides us with the basis for a renewed humanism and — consequently — a more progressive, transformative politics. Without doubt this is a highly impressive book....timely and ground breaking. * Political Studies Review, Volume 8, Number 1, January 2010 *
In this lucid and accessible book, Diana Coole allows us to appreciate Merleau-Ponty anew. Some readers indebted to Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler or Michel Foucault may find things to challenge in her readings of them. But by placing Merleau-Ponty into sustained discussion with these thinkers, by excavating neglected affinities between the early and late Merleau-Ponty, and, especially, by exploring his engagement with 'the flesh of the political', Diana Coole makes a fresh and indispensable contribution to contemporary political thought. -- William E. Connolly, Johns Hopkins University, author of The Fragility of Things: Self Organizing Processes, Neoliberal Fantasies, and Democratic Activism
Table of ContentsChapter 1 Situating and Reading Merleau-Ponty as a Political Thinker Part 2 The Critique of Rationalism Chapter 3 A Crisis of Modernity? Chapter 4 The Critiques of Ideology, Liberalism, and Capitalism Chapter 5 Adventures and Misadventures of the Dialectic Part 6 In Pursuit of the Interworld Chapter 7 Phenomenology as Critical Theory Chapter 8 Living History, Practising Politics Chapter 9 Negativity, Agency, and the Return to Ontology Part 10 The Politics of the Body, the Flesh of the Political Chapter 11 The Phenomenology of the Sexed/Gendered Body and the Metaphorics of the Flesh Chapter 12 The Flesh of the Political After Anti-Humanism
