The Culture of Violence: Essays on Tragedy and History

Literature & Fiction

Barker, Francis

History & Criticism

University of Chicago Press

'Culture' and 'violence' have always been regarded as antithetical terms. In The Culture of Violence, Francis Barker takes a different view. Central to his argument is the contention that, contrary to post-Enlightenment humanist, liberal and conservative thought, 'culture' does not necessarily stand in opposition to political inequality and social injustice, but may be complicit with the oppressive exercise of power. The book focuses on Shakespearean tragedy and on the historicism and culturalism of much present-day cultural theory. Barker's analysis moves dialectically backwards and forwards between these two moments in order to illuminate aspects of early modern culture, and to critique the ways in which the complicity between culture and violence has been occluded. Rejecting the tendency of both modernism and post-modernism to homogenise historical time, Barker argues for a genuinely new, 'diacritical' understanding of the violence of history.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Literature, Politics, and Theory

Hulme, Peter

Iversen, Margaret

Loxley, Diana

Routledge

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Literature, Politics and Theory (New Accent)

An ambitious study of literary, aesthetic, and philosophical authors on the modern subject versus the modern body

The tremulous private body: Essays on subjection

METHUEN

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Literature, Politics, and Theory: Papers from the Essex Conference 1976-84 (New Accents)

Politics & Social Sciences

Sociology

Routledge& Kegan Paul

Papers from the Essex Conference from 1976 to 1784.

Literature, Politics and Theory: Papers from the Essex Conference 1976-84 (New Accent Series)

The Tremulous Private Body: Essays on Subjection (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)

This ambitious and immensely readable study helped establish Francis Barker's reputation on both sides of the Atlantic,. Now available in paperback with a revised preface from the author, The Tremulous Private Body studies several seventeenth-century texts to document the birth of the modern, self-possessed subject and the consequent waning of the modern body. Francis Barker draws on the theoretical work of Foucault, Derrida, and Lacan and the Marxism of Louis Althusser to interpret the works of Pepys, Shakespeare, Milton, Descartes, Marvell, and Rembrandt. The Tremulous Private Body engages the central themes of postmodernism--discourse, sexuality, textuality, and power--but it is not a poststructuralist work, rejecting many of the positions characteristic of poststructuralism, particularly its tendency to depoliticize discourse. The book's intense and challenging style weaves together its contemporary theoretical preoccupations and its reflection on historical material into a single, penetrating analysis of the structure of modern culture. It suggests how discourse today is complicit in the wider forms of dominance that define our world.

The Tremulous Private Body: Essays on Subjection (The Body, In Theory: Histories Of Cultural Materialism)

University of Michigan Press

The culture of violence: Tragedy and history

Manchester University Press

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Books by Barker, Francis

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Barker, Francis. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Culture of Violence: Essays on Tragedy and History

The Culture of Violence: Essays on Tragedy and History

Literature, Politics, and Theory

Literature, Politics and Theory (New Accent)

The tremulous private body: Essays on subjection

Literature, Politics, and Theory: Papers from the Essex Conference 1976-84 (New Accents)

Literature, Politics and Theory: Papers from the Essex Conference 1976-84 (New Accent Series)

The Tremulous Private Body: Essays on Subjection (The Body, In Theory: Histories Of Cultural Materialism)

The Tremulous Private Body: Essays on Subjection (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism)

The culture of violence: Tragedy and history