Why There Is No Poststructuralism in France

Johannes Angermuller is Professor of Discourse and directs the DISCONEX research group at the university of Warwick, UK and at School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, France.

• Preface 1 Introduction: the intellectual field in France1.1 ‘Poststructuralism’—an international misunderstanding? 1.2 Structuralism and post-structuralism in intellectual sociology of intellectuals2 Structuralism versus post-structuralism. The birth of an intellectual generation 2.1 The transformations of Theory. From structuralism to ‘poststructuralism’ 2.2 Why there is no poststructuralism in France. Foucault, Derrida & Co. in the French intellectual field 2.2.1 Theoretical lines of conflict. Structuralists and ex-, non- and anti-structuralists 2.2.2 The arena of political conflict: the Communist Party and ‘682.2.3 Schools, clans, networks 2.2.4 Disciplinary cleavages between the human sciences and philosophy2.2.5 Alternative education routes: elite academics versus colorful résumés 2.2.6 Peripheral institutions against the academic center3 Rise and decline of the structuralist generation3.1 From modernity to postmodernity: the intellectual field since the Enlightenment3.2 The boom of the human sciences in the 1960s and 1970s 3.3 The formation of the structuralist generation3.4 The neoliberal turn of the 1980s 4 From Theory in France to French Theory: the making of ‘poststructuralism’ in the post-national university 5 The Moment of Theory: the Social After Society NotesReferences Index

Angermuller is deft in cross-cutting between developments in French intellectual life and their often very partial, biased or distorted reception-history outside France. His shrewdly selective deployment of concepts from Bourdieu offers a number of striking insights into the formative conditions of (so-called) ‘French Theory’ and its uptake among critics and commentators in other national/cultural traditions. It is certainly the most comprehensive and thoroughly researched study of its kind to date and unlikely to be superseded as a standard work on the subject.