Perilous Enlightenment: Pre- And Post-Modern Discourses Sexual, Historical

Manchester Univ Pr, 1991. First Edition . Hardcover. Fine/Very Good+. The "enlightenment" is as much an accumulation of modern discourses as a real historical phenomenon, and needs to be revaluated in relation to the empirical academic disciplines in which modern practitioners work. This book suggests that the 20th-century transition from prestructuralism to poststructuralism, must be taken into account if we hope to understand how these enlightenment discourses have been constructed in our time. Rousseau's views are grounded in the socio-political confusions of his own time. His agenda undertakes to demonstrate that in the 20th century we have invented a European enlightenment according to our own complex relation to structuralism and modernism. The differences and overlaps of the two movements, the tension and ambivalences they inevitably evoke are adumbrated as the author traces his own relation to these currents of thought for over a quarter of a century. Together with its companion volume, "Enlightenment Crossings", this interdisciplinary work will be of interest to students of enlightenment whatever their discipline.