Michel de Certeau
Interpretation and Its Other
Key Contemporary Thinkers
1. Auflage Oktober 1995
240 Seiten, Softcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Since his death in 1986, Michel de Certeau's reputation as a
thinker has steadily grown both in France and throughout the
English-speaking world. His work is extraordinarily innovative and
wide-ranging, cutting across issues in historiography, literary and
cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, theology, philosophy and
psychoanalysis.
This book represents the first full-length study of Certeau's
thought. It is organized around the central theme of interpretation
and alterity, which Ahearne uses to illuminate Certeau's work as a
whole. The author also examines Certeau's theory and practice of
historiography; his reflection on the relations between changing
historical forms of writing, reading and orality; and his
distinction between the "strategic" programmes of the politically
powerful and the "tactics" of the relatively powerless.
Ahearne places Certeau's work in its general intellectual
context, relating it to the views of important contemporary
thinkers, such as Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, and
demonstrating the decisive importance to Certeau's thought of the
writings of the early modern mystics and travellers.
This book constitutes an excellent critical introduction to
Certeau's work, while also providing a comprehensive and nuanced
reading for those already familiar with his thought.
Introduction.
Part I: Implications:.
1. The Historiographical Operation.
2. Interpretation and its Archaeology.
Part II: Fables:.
3. Voices in the Text.
4. Mystics.
Part III: Strategies and Tactics:.
5. Strategic Operations.
6. Turns and Diversions.
Conclusion.
Notes.
Bibliography.
Index.
and enduring thinkers of our time." Professor Tom Conley,
Harvard University
"Polity is to be congratulated for its vision ... an important
victory for the still fledgling field of de Certeau studies."
Social Semiotics
"A coherent and faithful account of Certeau's thought on the
methodology of properly conducted enquiries into social
organization ... it grapples conscientiously with the intricacy of
thought and language to which modern French thinkers have often
felt it necessary to have recourse ... contains often lucid and
penetrating insights." The Heythrop Journal
"The first full length study [with] an overview of recurring
themes that will be of interest to those new to this complex
thinker and to those already versed in some aspects. We are taken
through a detailed questioning of the very possibilities of
knowledge and of communication with others." Times Higher
Education Supplement
"[An] excellent ... first full-length study." Year's Work in
Critical and Cultural Theory
"This generous, beautifully argued work of synthesis and
interpretation should lead us to Certeau's own writings."
American Historical Review
"Ahearne has succeeded in presenting us with a clearly written
and well argued text, without ever reducing De Certeau to the
rhetorical figure of a 'key thinker'... Ahearne brings De Certeau,
as it were, back to life." The Sociological Review
