“Contradiction” is a core concept in the humanities and the social sciences. Beside the classical ideas of logical or dialectical contradiction, instances of “lived” contradiction and strategies of coping with it are objects of this study. Contradiction Studies discuss the many ways in which explicit or implicit contradictions are negotiated in different political or cultural settings. This volume collects articles that tackle the concept of contradiction, practices of contradicting and lived contradictions from a number of relevant perspectives and assembles contributions from linguistics, literary studies, philosophy, political science, and media studies.

Based on extensive participant observation and ethnographic research, this book provides a comprehensive analysis of early conflict between Miskitu Indians and the Sandinista government, and their subsequent partial reconciliation.

First published in in 1976, Hermann Levin Goldschmidt's Contradiction Set Free, (Freiheit für den Widerspruch), reflects the push to explore new forms of critical thinking that gained momentum in the decade between Theodor Adorno's Negative Dialectics of 1966 and Paul Feyerabend's Against Method in 1975. The book articulates Goldschmidt's reclamation of an epistemologically critical position that acknowledges the deep underlying link between the modes of production of knowledge and the social and political life they produce. In signalling a breakout from the academic rut and its repressive hold, Goldschmidt pointed beyond the ossified methods of a philosophical discourse whose oppressive consequences could no longer be ignored.Contradiction Set Free makes available for the first time in English a pivotal work by one of the great critical thinkers of the 20th century.

Media power is a crucial, although often taken for granted, concept. We assume, for example, that the media are 'powerful'; if they were not, why would there be so many controversies over the regulation, control and impact of communicative institutions and processes? Further, we assume that this 'power' is somehow problematic; audiences are often treated as highly susceptible to media influence and too much 'power' in the hands of one organization or individual is seen as risky and potentially dangerous. These concerns have been at the heart of recent controversies involving the relationships between media moguls and political elites, the consequences of phone hacking in the UK, and the emerging influence of social media as vital gatekeepers. Yet it is still not clear what we mean by media power or how effective it is. This book evaluates contrasting definitions of media power and looks at the key sites in which power is negotiated, concentrated and resisted - politically, technologically and economically. Combining an evaluation of both previous literature and new research, the book seeks to establish an understanding of media power which does justice to the complexities and contradictions of the contemporary social world. It will be important reading for undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers and activists alike.

The premise of this book is that individuals and societies have an inexorable urge to morally develop by challenging the assumptions of the previous generation in terms of what is right and wrong. The focus is on the nature and functional value of conflicts and challenges to the dominant moral and social values framework. Through this analysis, individuals develop moral character through conflict with their local authority figures, including parents. The moral structure of societies evolves through intergenerational challenges to and contradictions with the dominant social order. The book is divided into three parts to help frame this discussion: *Part I directly takes up the issue of resistance as it occurs at a cultural level, and the implications of such resistance for moral education and socialization. *Part II explores the normative forms of adolescent resistance and contrarian behavior that vex parents and teachers alike. *Part III brings back the issue of societal structure and culture to illustrate how negative features of society--such as racial discrimination and economic disparity--can feed into the construction of negative moral identity in youth posing challenges to moral education. Taken together, this collection presents a rich counterpoint to the pictures of moral growth as the progressive sophistication of moral reasoning or the gradual accretion of moral virtues and cultural values. It will benefit those in developmental, social, and cognitive psychology, as well as sociology, political science, and education.

Hegel is making a comeback. After the decline of the Marxist Hegelianism that dominated the twentieth century, leading thinkers are rediscovering Hegel’s thought as a resource for contemporary politics. What does a notoriously difficult nineteenth-century German philosopher have to offer the present? How should we understand Hegel, and what does understanding Hegel teach us about confronting our most urgent challenges? In this book, Todd McGowan offers us a Hegel for the twenty-first century. Simultaneously an introduction to Hegel and a fundamental reimagining of Hegel’s project, Emancipation After Hegel presents a radical Hegel who speaks to a world overwhelmed by right-wing populism, authoritarianism, neoliberalism, and economic inequalities. McGowan argues that the revolutionary core of Hegel’s thought is contradiction. He reveals that contradiction is inexorable and that we must attempt to sustain it rather than overcoming it or dismissing it as a logical failure. McGowan contends that Hegel’s notion of contradiction, when applied to contemporary problems, challenges any assertion of unitary identity as every identity is in tension with itself and dependent on others. An accessible and compelling reinterpretation of an often-misunderstood thinker, this book shows us a way forward to a new politics of emancipation as we reconcile ourselves to the inevitability of contradiction and find solidarity in not belonging.

Has political resistance has lost its ability to confront political and economic power and achieve social change? Despite its best intentions, resistance has often become incorporated and neutered before it achieves its aims, as new forms of power absorb it and turn it towards their own ends. Since the Enlightenment, the opposing forces of power and resistance have framed our view of society and politics. Exploring that development, this book shows how resistance can, ironically, reinforce existing status quos and fundamentally strengthen capitalist and colonial desires for “sovereignty” and “domination”. It highlights, therefore, the urgent need for new critical perspectives that breaks free from this imprisoning modern history. In this spirit, this book seeks to theorize the radical potential for a post-resistance existence and politics. One that exchanges a permanent revolution against authority with the discovery of novel forms of agency, social relations and the self that are currently lacking. That aims to construct economic and social systems based not on the possibility of freedom but enlarging the freedom of possibility. In the 21st century can we move beyond power and resistance to a politics at the radical limits that eternally expands what is socially possible?

This book explores and expounds upon questions of paradox and contradiction in theology with an emphasis on recent contributions from analytic philosophical theology. It addresses questions such as: What is the place of paradox in theology? Where might different systems of logic (e.g. paraconsistent ones) find a place in theological discourse (e.g. Christology)? What are proper responses to the presence of contradiction(s) in one’s theological theories? Are appeals to analogical language enough to make sense of paradox? Bringing together an impressive line-up of theologians and philosophers, the volume offers a range of fresh perspectives on a central topic. It is valuable reading for scholars of theology and philosophy of religion.

The central claim of this comparative study of Kant and Kierkegaard is that the aesthetic experience of the sublime is both autonomous and formative for extra-aesthetic ends. Aesthetic autonomy is thus inseparable from aesthetic heteronomy. In Part I, through an examination of Kant’s Critique of Judgement and his essays on the French Revolution, the Kantian sublime is shown to conflict with our existing cognitive, moral and political frames of meaning, at the same time that the engagement of the aesthetic judge (Chapter 1) or the enthusiastic spectator (Chapter 2) with this conflict furthers our pursuit of cognitive, moral and political ends. The Kantian sublime is built on the autonomy of aesthetic judgement, which nevertheless has non-aesthetic value. Part II argues that certain aesthetic and ethical-religious figures in Kierkegaard’s work can be shown to be transfigurations of the Kantian sublime, despite the absence of the term. Antigone and the silhouettes from Either/Or embody what I coin the tragic sublime and sublime grief. The God-man in Practice in Christianity is interpreted as a sublime image of contradiction. The figures are submitted to aesthetic representation, while their contradictory interior lives are unrepresentable. The Kierkegaardian sublime is built on a radical critique of aesthetic autonomy, whose failure serves the end of ethico-religious self-formation.