Research Catalog

Title

Authoritarianism : three inquiries in critical theory / Wendy Brown, Peter E. Gordon, Max Pensky.

Author

Brown, Wendy, 1955-

Publication

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2018.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Gordon, Peter Eli
• Pensky, Max, 1961-

Description

124 pages; 23 cm.

Summary

Across the Euro-Atlantic world, political leaders have been mobilizing their bases with nativism, racism, xenophobia, and paeans to "traditional values," in brazen bids for electoral support. How are we to understand this move to the mainstream of political policies and platforms that lurked only on the far fringes through most of the postwar era? Does it herald a new wave of authoritarianism? Is liberal democracy itself in crisis? In this volume, three distinguished scholars draw on critical theory to address our current predicament. Wendy Brown, Peter E. Gordon, and Max Pensky share a conviction that critical theory retains the power to illuminate the forces producing the current political constellation as well as possible paths away from it. Brown explains how "freedom" has become a rallying cry for manifestly un-emancipatory movements; Gordon dismantles the idea that fascism is rooted in the susceptible psychology of individual citizens and reflects instead on the broader cultural and historical circumstances that lend it force; and Pensky brings together the unlikely pair of Tocqueville and Adorno to explore how democracies can buckle under internal pressure. These incisive essays do not seek to smooth over the irrationality of the contemporary world, and they do not offer the false comforts of an easy return to liberal democratic values. Rather, the three authors draw on their deep engagements with nineteenth-and twentieth-century thought to investigate the historical and political contradictions that have brought about this moment, offering fiery and urgent responses to the demands of the day. -- ‡c From publisher's description.

Series Statement

Trios

Uniform Title

Trios (Chicago, Ill.)

Subjects

• Authoritarianism
• Democracy
• POLITICAL SCIENCE / General
• Liberalism

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Contents

Introduction: critical theory in an authoritarian age / Wendy Brown, Peter E. Gordon, Max Pensky -- Neoliberalism's Frankenstein: authoritarian freedom in twenty-first century "democracies" / Wendy Brown -- The authoritarian personality revisited: reading Adorno in the age of Trump / Peter E. Gordon -- Radical critique and late epistemology: Tocqueville, Adorno, and authoritarianism / Max Pensky.

Call Number

JFD 19-1687

ISBN

• 9780226597133
• 022659713X
• 9780226597270
• 022659727X
• 9780226597300 (e-book) (canceled/invalid)

LCCN

• 2018023746
• 40028867980

OCLC

1028907198

Author

Brown, Wendy, 1955- author.

Title

Authoritarianism : three inquiries in critical theory / Wendy Brown, Peter E. Gordon, Max Pensky.

Publisher

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2018.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Series

Trios

Trios (Chicago, Ill.)

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references.

Added Author

Gordon, Peter Eli, author.

Pensky, Max, 1961- author.

Other Standard Identifier

40028867980

Research Call Number

JFD 19-1687