The Task of Cultural Critique

by Teresa L. Ebert

In this study, Teresa L. Ebert makes a spirited, pioneering case for a new cultural critique committed to the struggles for human freedom and global equality. Demonstrating the implosion of the linguistic turn that isolates culture from historical processes, The Task of Cultural Critique maps the contours of an emerging materialist critique that contributes toward a critical social and cultural consciousness. Through groundbreaking analyses of cultural texts, Ebert questions the contemporary Derridian dogma that asserts "the future belongs to ghosts." Events-to-come are not spectral, she contends, but the material outcome of global class struggles. Not "hauntology" but history produces cultural practices and their conflictive representations--from sexuality, war, and consumption to democracy, torture, globalization, and absolute otherness. With close readings of texts from Proust and Balzac to "Chick Lit," from Lukács, de Man, Deleuze, and Marx to Derrida, Žižek, Butler, Kollontai, and Agamben, the book opens up new directions for cultural critique today.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction

232 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2009

Reviews

[Karlo Mikhail · Rating 4 out of 5]

A powerful critique of cultural studies and post-theories from a firmly Marxist standpoint. Against the dominant dogma in contemporary cultural theory that explains all social phenomenon as merely cultural Ebert calls for a deeper historical materialist analysis that pierces through the veil of the the textual surfaces to reveal underlying social relations and the struggle between classes. A must-read.

[Quin Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

Teresa Ebert has done to again! An excellent follow up and update to her her classic 1996 “Ludic Feminism and After,” this book takes mainstream “critical” academic cultural theory to task for working to obfuscate and justify the unjust social relations of racist and patriarchal global capitalism.

If you are sick to the teeth of postmodern obscuritanism that passes for radical critique, this is an excellent book to read. However, I would highly suggest starting with Ebert’s earlier “Ludic Feminism,” as I believe she more clearly and systematically lays out her core ideas there and she builds upon that earlier framework here. This is a much needed Marxist feminist corrective to the excesses of postmodern cultural theory that has claimed a hegemony over Left academic discourse.

[Ivan Labayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

"People fear class because it makes them confront the actuality that social disparities are not individualistic but are built into the system of wage labor."

Masarap dahil solid ang critique kay Zizek, Foucault, de Man, Lacan, Nietzsche at maski kay Jameson nang unti. Solid annotations na rin kay Marx at Lenin, mga often misquoted people; people abused by turning their intellectual gems into slogans. masarap uli dahil matipuno rin ang tira kay de certeau na isang balak gamiting framework sa thesis.

Isa pa: "The call for readers to 'abandon their illusions' about their conditions, is, as Marx says, 'a call to abandon a condition which requires illusions.'"

[Kevin Q · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ebert fucks poststructualism up. Its like if Bruce Lee boxed Steven Hawking.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and informtive. Meaning as a social relation. Complex and demands concentration.

[Levi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thisistheshit