Habermas and Literature

Rezensionen / Stimmen

An original, ambitious, and expansive attempt to redefine the importance of literature via German critical theory. Highly recommended not only for scholars of Habermas or Adorno, but anyone interested in the relations between critique and disclosure, negation and transformation. * Rita Felski, John Stewart Bryan Professor of English, University of Virginia, USA, and author of Hooked: Art and Attachment (2020) * Habermas and Literature brings Habermas's ideas into contact with aesthetic and cultural theories within and beyond the Frankfurt School. It does so through close engagement with debates around aesthetic rationality, world disclosure, social imaginaries, post-secular society and the utopian demand for happiness articulated by artworks. In the process, Habermas's ideas are critically reconstructed when necessary, with reference to psychoanalytic and literary theories, and tested in relation to demanding fiction and popular works of art. * David Ingram, Professor of Philosophy, Loyola University, Chicago, USA * Geoff Boucher has been working on themes such as critical theory, Habermas's communication theory, literature, and the literary imagination for many years. In this important study he focuses on how literature, as an experimental laboratory for modern subjectivity, stands in a reciprocal relationship with new visions of the social imaginary. Boucher's impressive ability to interpret themes such as critique and disclosure in literature studies, deserves a wide readership in the humanities and social sciences. * Pieter Duvenage, Dean of Humanities, Akademia, Centurion, South Africa * Building on a masterly presentation of the history of the Frankfurt School, Habermas and Literature demonstrates the value of a communicative approach in literary studies. With peerless erudition, Boucher highlights the aesthetic dimensions of Habermas' project, and how literary works can foster critical publics and open up new social imaginaries. Habermas and Literature is an indisputable tour de force. * Jean-Philippe Deranty, Professor of Philosophy, Macquarie University, Australia *