Nancy Fraser (born 20 May 1947) is a critical theorist, currently the Henry A. and Louise Loeb Professor of Political and Social Science at the New School in New York City.
Research
A noted feminist thinker concerned with conceptions of justice, she argues that justice is a complex concept which must be understood from the standpoint of three separate yet interrelated dimensions: distribution (of resources), recognition (of the varying contributions of different groups), and representation (linguistic). In keeping with her quest to avoid reductive conceptions of issues such as justice and democratic participation, she also argues that social theorists should synthesize elements of critical theory and post-structuralism, overcoming the "false antithesis" between the two, in order to gain a fuller understanding of the social and political issues with which both approaches are concerned. However, Fraser is not advocating a vague confusion of the two, but rather a pragmatic approach in which each school of thought is rigorously interrogated in order to separate its useful from its non-useful or detrimental elements for a democratic analysis of societal institutions and social movements. Thus Fraser is squarely in the tradition of liberal democratic values while modifying this tradition with the more recent insights of feminist theories, critical theory, and post-structuralism. In addition to her many publications and lectures, Fraser is a former Co-editor of Constellations, an international journal of critical and democratic theory, where she remains an active member of the Editorial Council.
Bibliography
- Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse, and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (1989)
- Revaluing French Feminism: Critical Essays on Difference, Agency, and Culture (co-edited with Sandra Bartky, 1992)
- Feminist Contentions: A Philosophical Exchange (with Seyla Benhabib, Judith Butler, and Drucilla Cornell, 1994)
- Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the "Postsocialist" Condition (1997)
- The Radical Imagination: Between Redistribution and Recognition (2003)
- Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange (co-authored with Axel Honneth, 2003)
External links
|
