Theoretical Times is done! The book, written from this original Theoretical Times blog, is being published by Emerald in November. The designer at Emerald has come up with a fantastic cover which everyone is raving about. The book is now going into production. The last job for me was creating blurb for the cover of the book. Here it is:
“This book explores Theoretical Times, Steve Redhead’s description of the post-crash economic, environmental, political and cultural condition we live in today. As the rise of the international right (Donald Trump, Brexit, Marine Le Pen) swarms the globe, leaving most of us wanting to stop the world and get off, a new global battle within the right is developing; the globalists and neo-liberals versus the economic nationalists and protectionists. What then are the prospects for a resurrected theoretical politics of the left? Theoretical Times considers the work of theorists such as Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek, supplemented by Jean Baudrillard and Paul Virilio, in this innovative reinvention of theory and the politics of theory. This book looks at theories of transcendental materialism in the work of Alain Badiou and Slavoj Zizek and the related theories of Steve Redhead’s work on claustropolitanism and claustropolitan sociology. It further considers how transcendental materialism connects with symbolic exchange in the work of Jean Baudrillard and the futurism of the moment in the work of Paul Virilio. After the global financial crash the world is being hollowed out and we find ourselves in what Slavoj Zizek calls a desperate state of hopelessness and the new dark ages. Accelerated culture sees us digitally entertaining ourselves to death but leaves us exhausted and frightened waiting for World War 3. This book offers new theoretical resources, and a new politics of theory, as a way out of the quicksand.”
From Blog to Book to Blurb!
