Maria Pia Lara's Books

Moral Textures

Feminist Narratives in the Public Sphere

By: Maria Pia Lara

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Moral Textures

Feminist Narratives in the Public Sphere

By: Maria Pia Lara

In this original work, the Mexican political philosopher, Maria Pia Lara, develops a new approach to public sphere theory and a novel understanding of the history of the feminist struggle. When dominated groups create publicly-oriented social movements, she argues, they seek to frame their demands in compelling narrative forms. Through these new tales, they can become, for the first time, active subjects in their own stories. Developing this theoretical model, Lara offers new interpretations of Habermas and Arendt as well as of feminist debates about their work. Critically relating Wellmer's and Ricoeur's aesthetic ideas to public sphere theory, she also confronts the limitations of the Foucaultian tradition that informs so much post-structuralist feminism today. In making her argument, Lara examines a very wide range of women's narratives, from autobiographies of eighteenth-century salonnieres and of contemporary women activists to the novels of Jane Austen and the portrayal of women in television and film. Taking stock of contemporary feminist writings in social science, history, literature, jurisprudence and philosophy, she suggests that they can be viewed not only as empirical accounts of injustices but as cultural narratives that have transformed women's particular identities even as they have expanded universal moral claims in a revolutionary way.

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Page Count

240

Publisher

Polity

Published Date

ISBN 10

0745620434

ISBN 13

9780745620435

Narrating Evil

A Postmetaphysical Theory of Reflective Judgment

By: Maria Pia Lara

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Narrating Evil

A Postmetaphysical Theory of Reflective Judgment

By: Maria Pia Lara

Conceptions of evil have changed dramatically over time, and though humans continue to commit acts of cruelty against one another, today we possess a clearer, more moral way of analyzing them. In Narrating Evil, María Pía Lara explores what has changed in our understanding of evil, why the transformation matters, and how we can learn from this specific historical development. Drawing on Immanuel Kant's and Hannah Arendt's ideas about reflective judgment, Lara argues that narrative plays a key role in helping societies acknowledge their pasts. Particular stories haunt our consciousness and lead to a kind of examination and dialogue that shape notions of morality. A powerful description of a crime can act as a filter, helping us to draw conclusions about what constitutes a moral wrong, and public debates over these narratives allow us to construct a more accurate picture of historical truth, leading to a better understanding of why such actions are possible. In building her argument, Lara considers Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's depictions of evil, Joseph Conrad's literary metaphors, and movies that portray human cruelty. Turning to such philosophers and writers as Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben, and Ariel Dorfman, Lara defines a reflexive relationship between an event, the narrative of the event, and the public reception of the narrative, and she proves that the stories of perpetrators and sufferers are always intertwined. The process of disclosure, debate, and the public fashioning of collective judgment are vital methods through which we make sense not only of new forms of cruelty but of past crimes as well. Narrating Evil describes the steps of this process and why they are a crucial part of our attempt to build a different, more just world.

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245

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231511663

ISBN 13

9780231511667

The Disclosure of Politics

Struggles Over the Semantics of Secularization

By: Maria Pia Lara

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The Disclosure of Politics

Struggles Over the Semantics of Secularization

By: Maria Pia Lara

Postmodern political critiques speak of the death of ideology, the end of history, and the postsecular return of religious attitudes, yet radical conservative theorists such as Mark Lilla argue religion and politics are inextricably intertwined. Returning much-needed uncertainty to debates over the political while revitalizing the very terms in which they are defined, María Pía Lara explores the ambiguity of secularization and the theoretical potential of a structural break between politics and religion. For Lara, secularization means three things: the translation of religious semantics into politics; a transformation of religious notions into political ideas; and the reoccupation of a space left void by changing political actors that gives rise to new conceptions of political interaction. Conceptual innovation redefines politics as a horizontal relationship between governments and the governed and better enables societies (and individual political actors) to articulate meaning through action—that is, through the emergence of new concepts. These actions, Lara proves, radically transform our understanding of politics and the role of political agents and are further enhanced by challenging the structural dependence of politics on religious phenomena.

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257

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

023153504X

ISBN 13

9780231535045

Beyond the Public Sphere

Film and the Feminist Imaginary

By: Maria Pia Lara

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Beyond the Public Sphere

Film and the Feminist Imaginary

By: Maria Pia Lara

In Beyond the Public Sphere: Film and the Feminist Imaginary, the renowned philosopher and critical theorist María Pía Lara challenges the notion that the bourgeois public sphere is the most important informal institution between social and political actors and the state. Drawing on a wide range of films—including The Milk of Sorrow, Ixcanul, Wadja, The Stone of Patience, Marnie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Talk to Her—Lara dissects cinematic images of women’s struggles and their oppression. She builds on this analysis, developing a concept of the feminist social imaginary as a broader and more complex space that provides a way of thinking through the possibilities for emancipatory social transformation in response to forms of domination perpetuated by patriarchal capitalism.

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Page Count

374

Publisher

Northwestern University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0810142910

ISBN 13

9780810142916

The Disclosure of Politics

Struggles Over the Semantics of Secularization

By: Maria Pia Lara

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The Disclosure of Politics

Struggles Over the Semantics of Secularization

By: Maria Pia Lara

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

257

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

023153504X

ISBN 13

9780231535045

Narrating Evil

A Postmetaphysical Theory of Reflective Judgment

By: Maria Pia Lara

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Narrating Evil

A Postmetaphysical Theory of Reflective Judgment

By: Maria Pia Lara

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

245

Publisher

Columbia University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0231511663

ISBN 13

9780231511667

Book's by Maria Pia Lara

Moral Textures

Moral Textures

Narrating Evil

Narrating Evil

The Disclosure of Politics

The Disclosure of Politics

Beyond the Public Sphere

Beyond the Public Sphere

The Disclosure of Politics

The Disclosure of Politics

Narrating Evil

Narrating Evil

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