The interviews gathered in A Critical Sense bring together many of the leading figures of contemporary radical theory in a single volume. Moving freely between philosophy, politics and cultural studies, they offer a fascinating overview of today's intellectual Left. All the interviews follow the same underlying structure: starting from questions about the interviewee's influences and formative years, they move on, via critical exchanges about key concepts and ideas, to reflections on political issues and recent events. Peter Osborne's introduction situates the interviews within the broader history of the relations between philosophers, academics and public intellectuals. A Critical Sense offers a welcome introduction to the work of some of today's most important thinkers. The interview format makes their thought accessible without ever sacrificing the intellectual rigour or political implications of their theories. For those already acquainted with the writings of the theorists interviewed here, the broad contextualization, dialogical structure and comparitivist perspective of this collection will throw new - and often surprising - light on familiar ground.

Introduction: A Critical Sense Philosophers, Interviews, Intellectuals Peter Osborne 1. Institution and Autonomy Cornelius Castoriadis 2. Lacan in Slovenia Renata Salecl and Slavoj Zizek Postscript Slavoj Zizek 3. The Legacy of Marx Istvan Meszaros 4. Orientalism and After Edward Said 5. Critical Theory in Germany Today Axel Honneth 6. Gender as Performance Judith Butler 7. American Radicalism Cornel West 8. Feminism, Deconstruction and the Law Drucilla Cornell 9. Setting to Work (Transnational Cultural Studies) Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak Index