What has happened to critical theory? : Problems, interests at stake, and clues

Résumé

he article constitutes a comprehensive summary of the book Où est passée la critique sociale? Penser le global au croisement des savoirs (What has happened to social criticism? Thinking the global at the intersection of knowledge),published by the author in 2012, and takes into account the multiple comments made after its publication. The author selects and develops only three major topics from the dense analyzes that make up the cited work: the new style of committed theory, the relationship between the critique of domination (Bourdieu) and the philosophy of emancipation (Rancière), and the presuppositions implicit in the social theories and their modes of procedure. As regards the first topic, a precarious and provisionally globalizing style of theorizing is proposed, but not rigidly systematic, in cross-border dialogue with other "language games" (Wittgenstein) or cultural registers, such as philosophy, ordinary cultures and militant knowledge.