Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) was one of the previous century's most provocative thinkers. Can his work help us address the crisis currently facing the humanities?

The dominant economic discourse sees the humanities as "low-value," an irritation at best. Lyotard helps us to think against this pervasive dismissal of creative activity, not by defending the honor of the humanities, but by inviting critical practices which aggravate this irritation. Critical practices trouble what counts as critique, embrace incertitude, and listen for silenced voices.

Twelve essays by artists and researchers take up Lyotard's invitation and begin to develop the idea of critical practice in the contemporary context. Three sections titled "What resists thinking;" "Long views and distances" and "Why art practice?" address contemporary concerns like affectivity, aesthetics, economic imperatives, militarism, pedagogy, posthumanism, and the closure of what in Lyotard's time was called "the West."

Four short pieces by Lyotard intervene in and buttress the discussion: "Apathy in Theory" and "Interview with Art Présent," here published in English for the first time, and "Affect-phrase" and "The Other's Rights" republished here to highlight his prescient concern for that which cannot be articulated.

Kiff Bamford is Reader in Contemporary Art in the School of Art, Architecture and Design, Leeds Beckett University, UK. He is author of Lyotard and the 'figural' in Performance, Art and Writing (Bloomsbury, 2012) and Jean-François Lyotard: The Interviews and Debates (Bloomsbury, 2020).
Margret Grebowicz is Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland. She is the author of Whale Song (Bloomsbury, 2017) and editor of Gender after Lyotard (2007).

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements

Introduction - Kiff Bamford (Leeds Beckett University, UK) and Margret Grebowicz (University of Silesia, Poland)

Part I: What Resists Thinking
1. Listening to the Mute Voices of Words: Errant Pedagogy in the Zone, Derek R. Ford (DePauw University, USA)
2. Animal Testimony: Cetaceans Between the Interspecies and the Inhuman, Margret Grebowicz (University of Silesia, Poland) and Marina Zurkow(New York University, USA)
3. Under Threat: Rights and the "Thing", Claire Nouvet (Emory University, USA)
4. A Matter of Time: Colour, Affect, and the Suffering of Thought, Georges Van Den Abbeele (University of California, USA)

Lyotard Supplement I
5. "The Affect-phrase" (from a Supplement to The Differend)-J.-F. Lyotard, translated by Keith Crome
6. "The Other's Rights," J.-F. Lyotard, translated by Chris Miller and Robert Smith
Part II: Long Views and Distances
7. Citing and Siting the Postmodern: Lyotard and the Black Atlantic, John E. Drabinski (Amherst College, USA)
8. Jean-Francois Lyotard's Marxism, in Socialisme ou Barbarie and the Algerian War, Claire Pagès (The University of Tours, France)
9. Lyotard and the Inhuman Mode of Production, Bartosz Kuzniarz (University of Bialystok, Poland)
10. Lyotard after Us, Yuk Hui (City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong)

Lyotard Supplement II
11. "What we cannot reach flying we must reach limping" Art Présent: Interview with J.-F. Lyotard by Alain Pomarède, translated by Kiff Bamford and Roger McKeon
12. "Apathy in Theory", J.-F. Lyotard, translated by Roger McKeon

Part III: Why Art Practice?
13. Mute Communication: Drawing the Military-Industrial Complex, Jill Gibbon (Leeds Beckett University, UK)
14. Critical Practice and Affirmative Aesthetics, Ashley Woodward (University of Dundee, UK)
15. "hang on tight and spit on me": Lyotard and Contemporary Art, Stephen Zepke (Independent Researcher, Austria)
16. Uncertain? For Sure. Limping? Certainly: Limp Thoughts on Performance Practice, Kiff Bamford (Leeds Beckett University, UK)

"Afterword": Lyotard's Prescience, Peter Gratton (Southeastern Louisiana University, USA)

Bibliography
Notes on Contributors