Issue 134, June 2016

Democracy and Recognition   This issue aims to bridge some of the theoretical gaps by discussing the interconnections between recognition and democracy. This is done by, firstly, highlighting the fact that the relationship of these two concepts is not without its problems – there certainly is potential for pathological developments and deviations – and, secondly,…

Issue 133, April 2016

Politics of Critique and the Critique of Politics Articles: Habermas on the European crisis: Attempting the impossible Volker M. Heins Abstract: Based on a critical reading of Jürgen Habermas’s journalistic writings on the European Union, the article argues that Europe’s current crisis is also a crisis of its narratives, and hence a crisis of meaning. The…

Issue 132, February 2016

Cultural Trauma, Morality and Nihilism Articles: Culture trauma, morality and solidarity: The social construction of ‘Holocaust’ and other mass murders Jeffrey C Alexander Abstract: Cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their memories forever and changing their…

Issue 131, December 2015

Critical Theory and Science Fiction We have attempted in this special edition to include voices that recognize the power of SF [science fiction] to threaten the established order of things and open up critical spaces for audiences to make new sense of everyday life and the ideological flows that operate there. But we also include…

Issue 130, October 2015

Noosphere Rising: Disordering Modernities   Articles: Noosphere rising: Internet-based collective intelligence, creative labour, and social production Michael A Peters and James Reveley Abstract: Our article relocates the debate about creative labour to the terrain of peer-to-peer interneting as the paradigmatic form of nonmarket – social – production. From Yann Moulier Boutang we take the point that…

Issue 129, August 2015

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: 70th anniversary of the bombings This special issue of Thesis Eleven has been published to mark the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The concern is to think about what the bombings mean today and how their challenge can be confronted across social and cultural thought and action. The…

Issue 128, June 2015

Ernest Gellner and Historical Sociology The principal aim of this special issue is to shed light on the broader scope of Gellner’s work with a view to demonstrating the contemporary relevance of his ideas. More specifically, the ambition is to engage with his key theories and concepts in philosophy of history and historical sociology and…

Issue 127, April 2015

Cultural systems, crisis, and entrepreneurship Articles: What is world-systems analysis? Distinguishing theory from perspective Salvatore Babones Abstract: World-systems analysis is a well-established but poorly-defined critical research tradition in the social sciences. Its undisputed progenitor, Immanuel Wallerstein, steadfastly maintains that world-systems analysis is not a theory, yet it is widely referred to as such by commentators,…

Issue 126, February 2015

György Márkus: Antinomies of Modernity Introduction: György Márkus at 80 David Roberts Articles: Philosophy in the times of late modernity: Reflections on György Márkus’s Culture, Science, Society János Kis Abstract: It is a central claim of György Márkus’s philosophy of (modern) culture that the Enlightenment project ended up in deep, apparently irresolvable antinomies. But, unlike…