About the lecture

In this lecture, we think about the contemporary relevance of Lyotard, Baudrillard and Lyotard’s approaches to postmodernity, focusing in particular on: (i) the ways in which Baudrillard’s work on the media can help us to understand the effects of social media; (ii) how Derrida’s deconstructive method can be used to challenge discourses around innate gender and racial differences and understand the rise of religious fundamentalism; (iii) how understandings of postmodernity can contribute to productive critiques of existing democratic societies and enhance democracy.

About the lecturer

Dr Ross Abbinnett is Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Theory at the University of Birmingham. His recent publications include The Neoliberal Imagination: Politics, Aesthetics, and Economics in the Evolution of Hyper-Industrial Capitalism (2021), The Thought of Bernard Stiegler: Capitalism, Technology and the Politics of Spirit (2018) and Marxism After Modernity: Politics, Technology and Social Transformation (2006).