Another Universalism: Seyla Benhabib and the Future of Critical Theory (New Directions in Critical Theory)

Seyla Benhabib’s ongoing work has expanded the range and scope of critical theory beyond its origins to address questions of gender, migration, and difference. This book brings together an ensemble of leading theorists and younger voices to explore new dimensions of Benhabib’s thought across critical theory, feminism, and democratic theory, foregrounding the intricate relationship between critique and universality. Another Universalism provides both a wide-ranging and comprehensive engagement with Benhabib’s path-breaking interventions and a panoramic tour of the cutting edge of critical theory today. Contributors take part in key debates about the field’s past and future, tackling subjects such as the relationship between democracy and cosmopolitanism, the role of law in emancipatory struggles, human domination of nature, the deprovincialization of critical theory concerning questions of race and empire, as well as Hannah Arendt’s continuing significance. Covering a wide range of debates and themes, Another Universalism is united by a core question: How can universal norms of human freedom, equality, and dignity be reconciled with particular contexts, especially ones of exclusion, difference, and adversity? Searching for universalisms that emerge from the concrete struggles of emancipatory movements, this book points toward an expansive, inclusive, and radical democratic vision. Table of Contents Preface Introduction: In Search of Another Universalism, by Anna Jurkevics Part I: Critique, Norm, and Utopia 1. Benhabib and Habermas on Discourse and Development, by Thomas McCarthy 2. Normativity and Reality: Toward a Critical and Realistic Theory of Politics, by Rainer Forst 3. Loss of World, Not Certainty: “Amor Mundi” and the Moral Psychology of Seyla Benhabib, by Carmen Lea Dege 4. Nature as a Concrete Other: An Alternative Voice in Kant’s Conception of Beauty and Dignity, by Umur Basdas 5. “To Burst Open the Possibilities of the Present”: Seyla Benhabib and Utopia, by Bernard E. Harcourt Part II: Thinking With and Against Arendt 6. “Thinking With and Against” as Feminist Political Theory, by Patchen Markell 7. Arendt and Truth, by Gaye İlhan Demiryol 8. Understanding Eichmann and Anwar: Reenactment and the Psychic Lives of Perpetrators, by Sonali Chakravarti Part III: Democratic Iterations and Cosmopolitanism 9. Democracy Without Shortcuts: An Institutional Approach to Democratic Legitimacy, by Cristina Lafont 10. Another Republicanism: Dissent, Institutions, and Renewal, by Christian Volk 11. Three Models of Communicative Cosmopolitanism, by Peter J. Verovšek 12. At the Borders of the Self: Democratic Iterations as a Theory of Postnational Sovereignty, by Paul Linden-Retek Part IV: Jurisgenerativity 13. Back to the Future? Critical Theory and the Law, by William E. Scheuerman 14. The Unfinished Revolution: The Right to Have Rights and Birthright Citizenship, by Eduardo Mendieta 15. Genocide and Jurisgenesis, by Max Pensky 16. Jurisgenerativity in the Age of Big Data, by Matthew Longo Part V: Deprovincializing Critical Theory 17. Pachamama’s Rights, Climate Crisis, and the Decolonial Cosmos, by Angélica María Bernal 18. What Is the Other in Seyla Benhabib’s Another Cosmopolitanism?, by Drucilla Cornell 19. Border Deaths as Forced Disappearances: Frantz Fanon and the Outlines of a Critical Phenomenology, by Ayten Gündoğdu 20. Gender Trouble: Manhood, Inclusion, and Justice in the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr., by Shatema Threadcraft and Brandon M. Terry Part VI: Philosophy and Friendship 21. Fragments of an Intellectual Autobiography, by Seyla Benhabib 22. Swimming, by Carolin Emcke Contributors Index This book brings together an ensemble of leading theorists and younger voices to explore new dimensions of Seyla Benhabib's thought across critical theory, feminism, and democratic theory, foregrounding the intricate relationship between critique and universality.