Michel de Certeau

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Michel de Certeau is written by Jeremy Ahearne and published by John Wiley & Sons. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 0745676715 (ISBN 10) and 9780745676715 (ISBN 13).

Since his death in 1986, Michel de Certeau's reputation as athinker has steadily grown both in France and throughout theEnglish-speaking world. His work is extraordinarily innovative andwide-ranging, cutting across issues in historiography, literary andcultural studies, anthropology, sociology, theology, philosophy andpsychoanalysis. This book represents the first full-length study of Certeau'sthought. It is organized around the central theme of interpretationand alterity, which Ahearne uses to illuminate Certeau's work as awhole. The author also examines Certeau's theory and practice ofhistoriography; his reflection on the relations between changinghistorical forms of writing, reading and orality; and hisdistinction between the "strategic" programmes of the politicallypowerful and the "tactics" of the relatively powerless. Ahearne places Certeau's work in its general intellectual context,relating it to the views of important contemporary thinkers, suchas Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, and demonstrating thedecisive importance to Certeau's thought of the writings of theearly modern mystics and travellers. This book constitutes an excellent critical introduction toCerteau's work, while also providing a comprehensive and nuancedreading for those already familiar with his thought.