Reading knowledge : an introduction to Barthes, Foucault, and Althusser / Michael Payne.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Payne, Michael, 1941-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Barthes, Roland.

Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984.

Foucault, Michel.

Althusser, Louis, 1918-1990.

Althusser, Louis.

Criticism.

Knowledge, Theory of.

Physical Description:

ix, 121 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, MA : Blackwell, 1997.

Summary:

Michael Payne introduces the principal writings of Roland Barthes, Michael Foucault, and Louis Althusser by focusing on their common interest in the forms and conditions of knowledge. His careful reading reveals their profound commitment to a critical understanding of how truth, meaning, and value are constituted in language and in non-verbal texts.

Reading Knowledge examines in condiderable detail brief texts by Barthes, Foucault, and Althusser that seem to be their own strategically designed introductions to their projects. It examines the mosty important books by each of these writers: Foucault's The Order of Things, Barthes's S/Z, and Althusser's Reading Capital. It then examines a specific text by each author writing on one of the visual arts, in an effort to investigate the assumption that knowledge -- whether as theory, enlightenment, vision, illumination, or insight -- is in some sense visual. It concludes by briefly examining the work of Gilles Deleuze.

Payne writes here with the same lucidity and acuity to be found in his highly successful companion to this volume, Reading Theory: An Introduction to Lacan, Derrida, and Kristeva (1993).

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0631195661

063119567X

OCLC:

35792314