Specters of Liberation argues that dissent against the New World Order is possible through a marriage of critical theory and existential philosophy. It integrates those Western, Eastern European, and postcolonial approaches to democratic theory that provide the best alternatives to today's nationalist and racial conflicts and offer the best prospects for a free world. Rigorously argued and written in an impassioned voice, it examines multidimensional specters of liberation and resources for democratic change after 1989. Inspired by the persistence of the Marcusean Great Refusal, Matustik takes up a wide variety of issues, ranging from the encounter between critical social theory and existential philosophy found in the works of Herbert Marcuse to the contributions of Czech existential phenomenology to democratic theory, with attention to the works of Havel.

Martin J. Beck Matustik is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Purdue University. He is the author of Postnational Identity: Critical Theory and Existential Philosophy in Habermas, Kierkegaard, and Havel, and coeditor, with Merold Westphal, of Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity. Matustik left Prague for political reasons in 1977, and after eight months in an Austrian refugee camp immigrated to the United States. As a Fulbright Fellow in Germany, he studied with Jurgen Habermas during revolutionary events of 1989-1991.