Description
Book SynopsisWritten by members of the Social Imaginaries Editorial Collective, these programmatic essays showcase new critical interventions in understandings of social imaginaries and the human condition. They include a new comparative approach to theorizing Castoriadis, Lefort, Ricoeur, and Taylor; the rethinking of the creative imagination in relation to common sense; analyses of political imaginaries in neo-liberal and constitutional contexts from perspectives drawing on Gauchet and Lefort; and the taking up questions of historical continuity and discontinuity in civilizational worlds. In addressing pressing questions concerning social imaginaries, the book advances the field as a whole. The book includes a Foreword by George H. Taylor and an Afterword by Craig Calhoun. This book is a must-read for all scholars interested in social and political imaginaries, and will appeal to researchers and graduate students working across a wide variety of disciplines in the human sciences.
Trade ReviewThis is a masterful work that shows the contemporary turn to social imaginary studies in its best light. This original intervention into the field brings theoretical rigour and deep insight to the vital empirical and normative research undertaken. The productivity and power of the imagination, and its constitutive role in the imaginaries of politics, law, economics, gender, and democracy, are compellingly dissected. An inspiring read! -- Moira Gatens, Challis Professor of Philosophy, University of Sydney
This book moves the concept of “social imaginaries” into the centre of critical inquiry in the humanities and the social sciences. The contributors trace the multiple origins of the notion in philosophy, political theory, history, and sociology, and they connect the strands to demonstrate the emergence of a powerful paradigm for comparing civilizations across history as well as for understanding our current socio-political constellation. -- Peter Wagner, ICREA Research Professor in Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Barcelona
This collection provides an illuminating account of the multiple origins of the contemporary term “social imaginary”, as well as some very interesting examples of the many uses to which it is now being put. It helps clear up some confusions and opens new avenues of reflection on contemporary society. -- Charles Taylor, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, McGill University
How we imagine the world shapes the world. The study of social imaginaries is accordingly vital to social science and the humanities. Social Imaginaries: Critical Interventions helps both to articulate the history on which current work is developed and to press scholarship forward. -- Craig Calhoun, Professor of Social Sciences, Arizona State University, USA
Table of ContentsForeword, George H. Taylor / The Social Imaginaries Field: Editors' Introduction, Suzi Adams and Jeremy C.A. Smith / 1. Social Imaginary Worlds and Counter-Worlds: Castoriadis, Lefort, Ricoeur and Taylor in Dialogue, Suzi Adams / 2. Rethinking the History of the Productive Imagination, John W.M. Krummel / 3. Political, Legal, and Constitutional Imaginaries, Paul Blokker / 4. The Political Imaginary of European Hypermodernity: Marcel Gauchet and Contemporary Neo-liberal Democracy, Natalie J. Doyle / 5. History, Civilizations, Imaginaries, Jeremy C.A. Smith / Afterword, Craig Calhoun / Index
