Rethinking Critical Theory

Emancipation in the Age of Global Social Movements

In Rethinking Critical Theory, Larry Ray effectively outlines the fundamental concepts of Habermas' Critical Theory. Developing an analysis of such ideas as the public sphere, communicative action, and the colonization of the lifeworld, he examines the insights that critical theory can offer global analysis--and its relation to global social change. Ray argues that, on the one hand, modernity is poised between the threat of authoritarian politics of identity, and on the other, it is between the promise of opening up new democratic communicative organizations. The analysis is illustrated by a detailed discussion of post-communist eastern Europe, Islamic revivalism in Iran, and the liberation struggle in South Africa. Exploring the potential for critical and emancipatory politics of social movements, Rethinking Critical Theory will be of interest to students and scholars in social theory, philosophy, sociology, and development studies. "Author Larry J. Ray makes important contributions to the rethinking of both critical theory and social movement theory." -Contemporary Sociology