Lyotard and Critical Practice

“Rather than a unified picture that would prescribe a one-way relation between theory (philosophy, concepts) and practice (artistic, political), Lyotard and Critical Practice presents us with multiple ways of undoing the difference between them, sometimes close to Lyotard’s own writings, sometimes remote from his concerns. In this, it is however much in the spirit of Lyotard, who was always ready to retrace his steps and take off in unexpected directions.” ―College Art Association

“A deeply layered cake that combines the canonical academic approach with a few intriguing essays that reveal the relevance of Lyotard as a thinker of recent cultural problems … Lyotard and Critical Practice promises that a return to Lyotard is a publishing endeavour that is worth pursuing.” ―Philosophy in Review

“This text is the perfect explanation of what is involved in doing critical practice through Lyotard. Using an author’s conceptual tools against his own thinking is the only way for a philosopher to survive the epistemological limits of his time, and this is what we see in many of these texts. What makes a thinker contemporary is never his conclusions, but the tools he offers to future thinkers.” ―Cultural Politics

“In Lyotard and Critical Practice, Kiff Bamford and Margret Grebowicz have assembled an exciting time machine of philosophical cultural criticism. With its poly-vocal passage through hitherto little-heard and little-considered aspects of Lyotard’s work, the inventor of postmodernism is credited not only with a special presentness, but with an enormous ability for the future. Reading the book is an empathic invitation to think transversally and to sharpen an idea of critique that is deeply rooted in sensual experience, especially at a time when our existence is becoming increasingly technical.” ―Siegfried Zielinski, Michel-Foucault-Professor for Techno-Aesthetics and Media Archaeology, The European Graduate School / EGS, Switzerland