This remarkable book develops a wide-ranging analysis of key issues and debates in contemporary social theory. Drawing social theory, cultural studies, and psychoanalysis together in a bold configuration, Elliott challenges the widespread view that social theory seems to have lost its way as a result of the diversification of conceptual approaches. In outlining an approach that places imagination and creativity at the center of social theory, Elliott argues that theoretical pluralism--from post-structuralism to postmodernism, from psychoanalysis to deconstruction--represents not the demise, but the renewal of critical social theory.