This first comparative study of the philosophers and literary critics, Walter Benjamin and Mikhail Bakhtin, focuses on the two thinkers' conceptions of experience and form, investigating parallels between Bakhtin's theories of responsibility, dialogue, and the novel, and Benjamin's theories of translation, montage, allegory, and the aura.

In Part One, the author examines what is at stake in the complex relations between theory and practice in exchanges involving Paul de Man, Mikhail Bakhtin, Georg Lukács, Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin, Antonio Gramsci, and others. In Part Two, San Juan focuses on the materialist aesthetics of Louis Althusser and Pierre Macherey, examining their resonance in a Hemingway novel and in the poetry of Hugh MacDiarmid. In Part Three, the author conducts an appraisal of James Baldwin's worldview, the textualization of the Asian diaspora in the United States, and the interface between postmodern themes and "postcolonial" sensibilities. The ultimate project of the author is to envision the emergence of a new field called "world cultural studies" from a radical "Third World" perspective. The transition from Western "hegemony" to the transformative, oppositional inquiry of "Others" epitomizes the itinerary of San Juan's exploration of the discipline once called litterae humaniores but now reconceived as the praxis of critical transgressions.

This book takes the works of Mikhail Bakhtin as its inspiration in the contemplation of the potential of dialogic scholarship for philosophy of education. While Bakhtin’s work has been widely received in educational studies in recent years, the academic literature does not sufficiently convey the sophistication of his cultural-historical works. Selected works on the limits and perspectives of Mikhail Bakhtin are presented in the book. In doing so, the contributors seek to interpret the work of the Bakhtin Circle in a complex contemporary world. Layering and drawing from the many ideas explored by the Circle during their collective lifetimes and those that influenced their work, each chapter offers a different dimension of thought concerning issues facing societies remote (or perhaps not so remote) from the world of post-revolutionary Russia. In the post-2008 era, during which financial crises have morphed into global recession and which characterise growing social inequities, widespread political instabilities and further environmental decline and resource depletion, what is needed more than ever is a twenty-first century Bakhtin, one that is occupied with the distinct challenges our times present to all of us. The individual contributors to Bakhtin in the Fullness of Time aim to contribute to a revisioning and reassessment of Bakhtin, through a diverse series of engagements with both his legacy and future promise. In contemplating Bakhtin in the fullness of time, historical perspectives and contributions must be encountered in a contemporary understanding that will contribute to philosophy of education today. The chapters in this book were originally published in the journal Educational Philosophy and Theory.

The first book to examine in detail Benjamin's Theses on the Philosophy of History Benjamin's collection of fragments, Theses on the Philosophy of History, play a determining role in how Benjamin's thought is understood, as well as in the debate about the interplay between politics, history and time. Walter Benjamin and History is the first volume to give access to the themes and problems raised by the Theses, providing valuable exegetical and historical work on the text. The essays collected here are all the work of noted Benjamin scholars, and pursue the themes central to the Theses.

Challenges postmodernist theories of language and politics which detach language from human bodies and their material practices.

From the Diggers seizing St. George Hill in 1649 to Hacktivists staging virtual sit-ins in the 21st century, from the retributive fantasies of Robin Hoods to those of gangsta rappers, culture has long been used as a political weapon. This expansive and carefully crafted reader brings together many of the classic texts that help to define culture as a tool of resistance. With concise, illuminating introductions throughout, it presents a range of theoretical and historical writings that have influenced contemporary debate, and includes a number of new activist authors published here for the first time. Cultural Resistance Reader is both an invaluable scholarly resource and a tool for political activists. But most importantly it will inspire everyday readers to resist.

Contemporary critical thinking was founded by Karl Marx approximately a century and a half ago. Later, in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, various critical thinkers (some Marxist, others not) further developed this perspective in studying the most important issues of their day: for instance, the future death of art, the conditions and limitations of how we understand and perceive time, the essential questions of how popular culture functions and expresses itself, the role of popular protest and the "moral economy of the crowd", the limits and crises facing modern bourgeois reason and how to characterize today's capitalist world. This book is a careful, rigorous review of these fundamental lessons in critical theory and critical thought as developed by some of the most important social thinkers of our age: Karl Marx, Walter Benjamin, Fernand Braudel, Mikhail Bakhtin, E. P. Thompson, Carlo Ginzburg and Immanuel Wallerstein.