I joined the University of Kent in 1998. Before that I was in the Department of Sociology at Lancaster University. In 1996, I was visiting scholar, Victoria University Wellington, New Zealand. At Kent I was Head of the Department of Sociology and then SSPSSR between 1999-2001, and Sub-Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences between 2009-11. I am currently Director of Research for SSPSSR.
In Rethinking Critical Theory, Larry Ray effectively outlines the fundamental concepts of Habermas' Critical Theory. Developing an analysis of such ideas as the public sphere, communicative action, and the colonization of the lifeworld, he examines the insights that critical theory can offer global analysis--and its relation to global social change. Ray argues that, on the one hand, modernity is poised between the threat of authoritarian politics of identity, and on the other, it is between the promise of opening up new democratic communicative organizations. The analysis is illustrated by a detailed discussion of post-communist eastern Europe, Islamic revivalism in Iran, and the liberation struggle in South Africa. Exploring the potential for critical and emancipatory politics of social movements, Rethinking Critical Theory will be of interest to students and scholars in social theory, philosophy, sociology, and development studies. "Author Larry J. Ray makes important contributions to the rethinking of both critical theory and social movement theory." -Contemporary Sociology
