The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought

About this book

With more than two hundred entries by leading intellectuals in the French- and English-speaking world this new volume presents the authoritative guide to twentieth-century French thought. Unrivaled in its scope and depth The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought covers and critiques the intellectual figures movements and publications that helped shape and define fields as diverse as history and historiography psychoanalysis film literary theory cognitive and life sciences literary criticism philosophy and economics. The contributors also discuss developments in French thought on such subjects as pacifism fashion gastronomy technology and urbanism. More than just a reference volume The Columbia History of Twentieth-Century French Thought offers original and imaginative explorations of a variety of topics. Contributors include prominent French thinkers many of whom have played an integral role in the development of French thought and American British and Canadian scholars who have been vital in the dissemination of French ideas. The book brings together such pairings as Etienne Balibar on Althusser; Jean Baudrillard on the futures of theory; Judith Butler on Hegel in France; Rgis Debray on mediology; Julia Kristeva on Proust; Michael Morange on the life sciences; Paul Ricoeur on ethics; Elisabeth Roudinesco on psychoanalysis; and Roger Shattuck on humanisms. The book is divided into four parts: Movements and Currents (including all the major schools of thought such as the Annales deconstruction Gaullism ngritude the New Right psychoanalysis and structuralism); Themes (ideas that helped define intellectual work in the twentieth century such as anti-Semitism the avant-garde everyday life film theory and nationalism); Intellectuals (including critical accounts of the lives and work of such figures as Aron Barthes de Beauvoir Deleuze Derrida Foucault Irigaray Kristeva Levinas and Proust); and Dissemination (covering influential journals television shows radio programs and newspapers).