Critical Legal Theory and the Challenge of Feminism provides both a thorough overview and a refinement of the ideas that underlie critical legal theory. Arguing with the rigor of analytic philosophy and the alertness to paradoxes characteristic of deconstructive philosophy, Matthew Kramer begins by exploring the tangled relations between metaphysics and politics. He then attempts to transform the discourses of the critical legal studies movement by laying out a framework of five general themes: contradictions, contingency, patterning, perspective, and ideology. Kramer calls for a more sophisticated awareness of their paradoxes, explaining why the paradoxes are by no means disabling or demobilizing. Finally, Kramer explores some of feminist theory's major controversies and problems, and argues that feminist theory can profit greatly by giving due attention to inescapable paradoxes. The book is an important contribution to political philosophy, jurisprudence, feminist philosophy and metaphysics, with powerful implications for epistemology and literary theory.

Part 1 Our Longest Lie: An Irreligious Introduction Chapter 2 Preliminary Remarks Chapter 3 Inquiries Separated Chapter 4 Qualifications and Additional Comments Chapter 5 Conclusion Part 6 Critical Legal Theory Chapter 7 Contradictions Chapter 8 Contingency Chapter 9 Patterning Chapter 10 Perspective Chapter 11 Ideology Part 12 The Challenge of Feminism Chapter 13 Troubled Representations Chapter 14 Subjectivity and Domination Chapter 15 "Men," "Women," and Other Categories Part 16 Appendix: A Reply to Greenberg and Hoekstra Chapter 17 Bibliography