AUTHOR APPROVED

The work of Gerald Moore offers a cutting-edge perspective on French thought of the second half of the 20th century and the so-called 'philosophers of difference', especially pertinent in light of the devastating crisis of consumer capitalism revealed since 2008.

Bernard Stiegler, author of Technics and Time and co-founder of Ars Industrialis.

Moore covers a truly astounding range of figures. This is an important contribution showing how various French theorists have for several decades been attempting to approach questions of politics from a perspective other than political economy.

Alan D. Schrift, F. Wendell Miller Professor of Philosophy, Grinnell College

Gerald Moore shows how the problematic of the gift drives and illuminates a period of thought in which philosophy reinvents itself around poststructuralist theory. By tracing the creation of the gift as a concept, from its origins in phenomenology and the social sciences, through psychoanalysis and deconstruction, Moore shows its decisive importance for a shift in our understanding of the relationship between philosophy, politics and political economy.

Gerald Moore lectures in French literature and philosophy at Wadham College and University College, University of Oxford. He has published on Michel Houellebecq, Jacques Lacan and Jacques Derrida, and translated work by writers including Henri Lefebvre and Michel Foucault.

Gerald Moore is Lecturer in French in the School of Modern Languages and Cultures, Durham University. He is the author of Politics of the Gift: Exchanges in Poststructuralism (Edinburgh, 2011), as well as articles on recent French thought (Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, Bernard Stiegler), psychoanalysis and literature (Michel Houellebecq). He is currently preparing a monograph, Bernard Stiegler: Philosophy in the Age of Technology, for Polity.

Acknowledgements; Abbreviations; Introduction: Spectres of Mauss; 1. Speech, Sacrifice and Shit: Three Orders of Giving in the Thought of Jacques Lacan; 2. The Eternal Return of the Gift: Deleuze (and Derrida) contra Lacan; 3. Repeating the Political: Heidegger and Nancy on Technics and the Event; 4. 'Pour en finir avec...': Democracy AND Sacrifice; 5. Conclusion: Variations on a Theme from Nietzsche; Bibliography; Index.