Bodies of Meaning: Studies on Language, Labor, and Liberation

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State University of New York Press, Nov 2, 2000 - Political Science - 277 pages
Bodies of Meaning presents a vigorous challenge to postmodernist theories of language and politics which detach language from human bodies and their material practices. Beginning with the 'historical bodies' theorized by Marx, Darwin, and Freud, McNally develops an alternative account of language which draws on the work of Mikhail Bakhtin and Walter Benjamin and recent contributions to materialist feminism. In bringing the body back into language, this book makes a major contribution to current debates in social and political theory.
 

Contents

Nietzsche Darwin and the Postmodern Fetish of Language 15
15
Linguistic Economies from Saussure
45
Sex Tools Language and Human Culture
79
Language and Materialism
111
Language History and the Body
161
Conclusion
229
Index
271
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About the author (2000)

David McNally is Associate Professor of Political Science at York University, Toronto, and the author of Political Economy and the Rise of Capitalism: A Reinterpretation and Against the Market: Political Economy, Market Socialism and the Marxist Critique.

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