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The aim of this article is to explore how, and to what extent, Italian thought – by its focalization on pre-modern theoretical issues and its distance from classical modern topics, such as the philosophy of conscience or the transcendence of language – can offer a different insight on contemporary social theory and critical theory, after the dissolution of the idea of totality as a foundational concept of modernity. In the last decades, a frame named 'Italian theory' has started to circulate in international theoretical debates, often with the aim of replacing the exhausted paradigms of poststructuralism, postmodernism and deconstructionism. Indeed, 'Italian thought' seems to offer new insights, thinking about the 'post-totality' era in a different way. In the article we present a synthetic cartography of Italian thought and we analyse the way in which it can contribute to design new horizons for social theory.

The focus of this volume is broad, both historically and topically.Berlin and Vienna, modernity and postmodernity, the twentieth centuryand two incisive Wenden of a tumultuous millennium offer anopportunity to examine central issues in the relationship amongEuropean culture, history, and politics. Cities provide a rich locationto examine expressions of creativity, growth, and change over thecourse of one hundred years. As a transit point of entry and exit, thecity becomes a site for exchange and cross-fertilization of peoples,ideas, and commodities. Cities are nodes in a network whose spokesextend beyond their metropolitan borders and bring intellectual andphysical nourishment to surrounding areas. This European centurywill be known for its great cities and the production of culturalobjects that spread around the globe. Less dramatically, neverthelesssignificant for the transfer of knowledge, academic figures will alsobe remembered for the dissemination of these intellectual traditionsto generations of students who were fortunate to cross their paths.Hinrich C. Seeba, professor of German at the University of California,Berkeley, from 1967 to the present, is one such person.

This was the theme of the Conference held in November 2010 in all-Russia State Library for Foreign Literature named after M.I. Rudomino. Its organizers were the Research center of religious literature and editions of the Russian diaspora (VGBIL), Center for the study of world religions (Russian University of Humanities) and the Center for problems of modernization and development (IMEMO). The past century showed the fallacy of the perception that the world of religious concepts and relations gradually comes to naught, that the revolutionary dynamics means an erosion of religious sphere and, at last, that the notions of revolution and religion are certainly antagonistic. It was noted during the discussion that religion and the revolution, "the old order" and the riot are interlinked in multiple forms. A rebirth of religious interests in the Russian society is connected with a desire to escape from state administrative-command "neo-archaism".

A critical examination of recent theories of "postmodernity" as a development in art. This concern emerges out of moods of skepticism, anxiety, & despair regarding art, & also out of more limited sociological inquiries into the conflict between elite & mass art. Major theories of postmodern art have been advanced by Peter Burger (Die Theorie der Avantgarde [The Theory of the Avant-Garde], Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974), Theodor W. Adorno, & various counter-cultural figures. Two fundamental needs relating to art -- the need for individual creativity & the need to distinguish between value & lack of value -- appear to collide in current art; nonetheless, the need for art remains as vital as ever, contrary to some theories of postmodernity. W. H. Stoddard.

According to influential theories of identity in postmodernity, as community bonds loosen, individuals have increasing discretion in the construction of their own identity. In this article we argue for seeing modernization as the progressive psychologization of subjectivity. That reveals the mechanisms of what we can call, following Foucault, 'constituent power': a power that turns the psychological subject's conflicts away from external objects and towards an inner world. It is that inner conflict that promotes the modern preoccupation with identity.

At the end of the Second World War, Arnold Toynbee sat down to complete the last volume of his magnus opus, A Study of History. What was his main conclusion? That the world had just entered the last phase of Western history—the 'post-modern' era, an age that would be marked by anxiety and despair. A Study of History has gone the way of all meta-historical studies. Toynbee himself is now less regarded than Oswald Spengler. But if he is remembered for nothing else, it might be for giving a name—post-modernity—to a concept with which we are still coming to terms.