Untimely Politics

by Samuel A. Chambers

Overview

The standard, linear view of history is founded on the belief that political outcomes are predetermined by what has gone before. This book challenges this view, arguing for what Samuel A. Chambers calls an untimely politics which renders the past problematic and the future unpredictable. This pathbreaking argument is advanced through a close reading of key texts in political theory and by entering into debates involving metaphysics, philosophy of language, and psychoanalysis versus discursive analysis.
Chambers focuses on the theme of the relevance of language analysis to political debate, answering those critics who insist discourse approaches to politics are irrelevant. Heidegger, Nietzsche, Foucault and Derrida are used to challenge the political burden which is placed on language analysis to prove its value in the real world. Drawing from political theory and cultural studies Chambers takes on the same-sex marriage debate, showing how the use and misuse of language has contributed to an impasse that is not likely to be broken.
Wide ranging and insightful, Untimely Politics makes a timely plea for a more politically relevant and culturally engaged form of intellectual engagement.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814716410
Publisher:	New York University Press
Publication date:	12/01/2003
Series:	Taking on the Political Ser.
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Samuel A. Chambers teaches political theory and liberal studies at the University of Redlands

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements; Introduction: 'Time is Out of Joint'; Chapter 1: Language and the 'Burden' of Politics; Chapter 2: Experience Language, Broaching Untimeliness; Chapter 3: Spectral History, Untimely Theory; Chapter 4: Untimely Reading: Foucault's Evasive Maneuvers; Chapter 5: Untimely Agency: Having the Historical Sense to 'Bypass' Psychoanalytic Theory; Chapter 6: The Untimely Politics of DOMA; Bibliography.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Packs a powerful intellectual punch that should at a minimum produce a thoughtful pause in an important debate about the status of contemporary theory and its relevance to political life."

-Sanford Schram,Bryn Mawr College

"[T]he richness of his analysis, [...] his poststrucuralist emphasis on genealogy, historicity, temporality, and discourse can supplement the sometimes arid terms of the agency/structure debate. [...] An invitation to readers who might not normally turn to Continental theory for methodological inspiration, to learn from Chamber's splendid, and, yesy, timely volume."

-Diana Coole,Queen Mary University of London, from a book review in the June 04 Perspectives

Editorial Reviews

"[T]he richness of his analysis, [...] his poststrucuralist emphasis on genealogy, historicity, temporality, and discourse can supplement the sometimes arid terms of the agency/structure debate. [...] An invitation to readers who might not normally turn to Continental theory for methodological inspiration, to learn from Chamber's splendid, and, yesy, timely volume."

from a book review in the June 04 Perspectives - Diana Coole

"Packs a powerful intellectual punch that should at a minimum produce a thoughtful pause in an important debate about the status of contemporary theory and its relevance to political life."

Sanford Schram

"[T]he richness of his analysis, [...] his poststrucuralist emphasis on genealogy, historicity, temporality, and discourse can supplement the sometimes arid terms of the agency/structure debate. [...] An invitation to readers who might not normally turn to Continental theory for methodological inspiration, to learn from Chamber's splendid, and, yesy, timely volume."

-Diana Coole,Queen Mary University of London, from a book review in the June 04 Perspectives

"Packs a powerful intellectual punch that should at a minimum produce a thoughtful pause in an important debate about the status of contemporary theory and its relevance to political life."

-Sanford Schram,Bryn Mawr College

From the Publisher