Searching for the Light: Essays on Thought and Culture - Hardcover

Searching for the Light (Hardcover)

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Buchbeschreibung Hardcover. Zustand: new. Hardcover. Collected here for the first time are a number of important essays that Birnbaum has written over the last twenty years, ranging from such compelling topics as sociology to post-Marxism to education. Two questions inspire these essays. If thinkers are prisoners of their political contexts, how can thought apprehend historical movement? Can moral imagination alter social constraints? Birnbaum sees sociology as historical and philosophical commentary, shaped bypolitics. In close and subtle examinations of the Marxist legacy, he makes innovative analytical moves and turns Marxism upon itself. His investigation includes an essay on the Marxist theory ofreligion proving that it is a major contribution to the debate on society and spirituality. An inquiry into the antithesis of Marxism and psychoanalysis asks if any project of human self-transformation is still plausible. In an essay dated 1984, he anticipates the collapse of the Communist regimes and new conflicts in the West. In a stringent article written after the sixties, but which speaks to the nineties, he considers the technocratic servitude of the liberal university. Finally, hedescribes the contradictory advice offered to President Mitterand when he convened the world's intellectual vanguard in Paris in 1983. Birnbaum concludes, half in melancholy and half in hope, thatintellectual inquiry's critical tasks are unending. An influential social critic and a major social thinker, Norman Birnbaum has collected here, for the first time, a number of important essays. Written over the last twenty years, they range from the fate of sociology to the problematic end of Marxism. Two questions inspire these essays. If thinkers are prisoners of their political contexts, how can thought apprehend historical movement? Can moral imagination alter social constraints? Birnbaum sees sociology as historical and philosophical commentary, shaped by politics. In a close and subtle examination of the Marxist legacy, he makes an innovative analytical move and turns Marxism upon itself. His inquiry includes an essay on the Marxist theory of religion, an essay which is itself a contribution to the debate of society and spirituality. An inquiry into the antithesis of Marxism and psychoanalysis asks if any project of human self-transformation is still plausible. In an essay dated 1984, he anticipates the collapse of the Communist regimes and new conflicts in the West. In a stringent article written after the sixties, but which speaks to the nineties, Birnbaum considers the technocratic servitude of the liberal university. Finally, he describes the contradictory advice offered to President Mitterrand when he convened the world's intellectual vanguard in Paris in 1983. Birnbaum concludes, half in melancholy and half in hope, that the intellect's critical tasks are unending. Historians, political thinkers, sociologists, and theologians will find their central themes in this collection, as will students of modern culture. They are written, however not for the academy alone, but for a general public confronting continuous and profoundchange. This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 9780195068894

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