First published 2009
Patrick McGee confronts the sterile world of contemporary academia by examining nine thinkers who broke through established boundaries: Marx, Nietzsche, Wilde, Lawrence, Gramsci, Wittgenstein, Bourdieu, Derrida, and Badiou. McGee refuses conventional scholarly distance. He weaves together critical analysis, personal memoir, and direct argument to show how these figures ruptured both language and society. Drawing on Alain Badiou's Logiques des mondes, McGee exposes his own complicated relationship with theory and academic institutions, including his resentments and frustrations. He demonstrates how genuine thought becomes part of shared human experience through transformative events. These moments can reshape both individual lives and entire worlds. McGee writes primarily for students and teachers working in cultural studies, offering them a new way to engage with theoretical work that moves beyond detached scholarship into lived experience.
Genres: literary-criticism, philosophy, theory, non-fiction, academic, cultural-studies
Vibes: academic, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: academic, critical-analysis, personal-memoir
Period: 19th-Century, 20th-Century, 21st-Century
223 pages · Hardcover · Palgrave Macmillan