At a time when the political Left have watched the apparent decline of socialism, and with it the cynical rejection of political hope, the question of how to rethink political transformation has become a pressing question. In "Transformations", Drucilla Cornell offers a conception of recollective imagination which allows us to preserve and re-articulate the tradition of critical social theory. Cornell argues that psychoanalysis must play a role in social theory because we need to understand the connection between our constitution, as gendered subjects, and social, political and legal transformation. Cornell argues that we cannot escape confronting the question of how the subject is constituted if we are to provide a new conception of transformative possibility and radical change. According to Cornell, feminism demands conception of the subject as crucial to any radical politics and even to legal reform. As a result, traditional conceptions of the public private divide must be challenged.
Cornell points out, for example, that we cannot even understand racism and the connection between race and gender, let alone politically fight against racism, unless we develop a view of the work of culture that allows us to grapple with such issues. This work combines the insights of recent feminist and critical theory with the concerns for social change.