Poststructuralist Agency: The Subject in Twentieth-Century Theory - Softcover

Rae, Gavin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1474459366 ISBN 13: 9781474459365

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press, 2021

Synopsis

Gavin Rae offers us a new evaluation of poststructuralist thought. This involves a re-conception of the embodied subject as a continual process within and defined by ever-changing configurations of the social, the symbolic and the psychic.He shows that the question of the subject is central for poststructuralist thinkers, that they are aware of the problematic status of agency that arises from their decentring of the subject and that they offer heterogeneous solutions to resolve it. First, showing how this plays out in the thinking of Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault, Rae subsequently demonstrates that it is with those poststructuralists associated with and influenced by Lacanian psychoanalysis that this issue most clearly comes to the fore. He goes on to reveal that the conceptual schema of Cornelius Castoriadis best explains how the founded subject is capable of agency.

About this title

About the Author

Gavin Rae is Associate Professor (accredited to Professor) in the Department of Logic and Theoretical Philosophy at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. His research interests lie in nineteenth and twentieth century European philosophy, where he works at the intersection of socio-political philosophy, psychoanalytic theory, ontology, and ethics. Besides over sixty published articles and book chapters, he is the author of eight monographs, the most recent of which are The Politics of Reason: A Postfoundational Approach (Edinburgh University Press, 2026), Questioning Sexuality: From Psychoanalysis to Gender Theory and Beyond (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), and Poststructuralist Agency: The Subject in Twentieth Century Theory (Edinburgh University Press, 2020). He has also co-edited six volumes, the most recent of which are Subjective Agency and Poststructuralism (Routledge, 2025―with Cillian Ó Fathaigh), Philosophy across Borders (Routledge, 2025―with Emma Ingala), and Historical Traces and Future Pathways of Poststructuralism: Aesthetics, Ethics, Politics (Routledge, 2021―with Emma Ingala).

From the Back Cover

'Poststructuralist Agency discusses how poststructuralist subject is not merely a void, offering no subjectivity, no agency and thus no politics but rather offers all of this in a decentered and contingent form. Many books skirt around poststructuralism's positive formulations but Gavin Rae's book does the hard work of showing just how this actually happens.' James R. Martel, San Francisco State University Does the poststructuralist decentring of the foundational subject permit a coherent account of agency? Gavin Rae offers us a new evaluation of poststructuralist thought. This involves a re-conception of the embodied subject as a continual process within and defined by ever-changing configurations of the social, the symbolic and the psychic. He shows that the question of the subject is central for poststructuralist thinkers, that they are aware of the problematic status of agency that arises from their decentring of the subject and that they offer heterogeneous solutions to resolve it. First, showing how this plays out in the thinking of Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault, Rae subsequently demonstrates that it is with those poststructuralists associated with and influenced by Lacanian psychoanalysis that this issue most clearly comes to the fore. He goes on to reveal that the conceptual schema of Cornelius Castoriadis best explains how the founded subject is capable of agency. Gavin Rae is Senior Visiting Research Professor at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. Cover image: Torso (Figure with Pink Face)', Kazimir Malevich 1928-1932 (c) Heritage Images / Fine Art Images / akg-images Cover design: [EUP logo] edinburghuniversitypress.com ISBN 978-1-4744-5935-8 Barcode

Edition details

• Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1474459366
• ISBN 13: 9781474459365
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288