Bodies of Meaning: Studies on Language, Labor, and Liberation (S U N Y Series in Radical Social and Political Theory)

"Bodies of Meaning presents a vigorous challenge to postmodernist theories of language and politics which detach language from human bodies and their material practices. Beginning with the 'historical bodies' theorized by Marx, Darwin, and Freud, McNally develops an alternative account of language which draws on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Walter Benjamin and recent contributions to materialist feminism. In bringing the body back into language, this book makes a major contribution to current debates in social and political theory."--BOOK JACKET. Challenges postmodernist theories of language and politics which detach language from human bodies and their material practices.Bodies of Meaning presents a vigorous challenge to postmodernist theories of language and politics which detach language from human bodies and their material practices. Beginning with the ‘historical bodies'theorized by Marx, Darwin, and Freud, McNally develops an alternative account of language which draws on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Walter Benjamin and recent contributions to materialist feminism. In bringing the body back into language, this book makes a major contribution to current debates in social and political theory.David McNally is Associate Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto, and the author of Political Economy and the Rise of Capitalism: A Reinterpretation and Against the Market: Political Economy, Market Socialism and the Marxist Critique.