Culture and Identity: Critical Theories`Ross Abbinnett brings a keen and subtle philosophical mind to bear on themes and debates that have become commonplace in sociology. This is a sinuously written book which casts new light on pressing contemporary issues. It is required reading for everyone who wants to think seriously and with an open mind about the terrain of the present′ - Keith Tester, Professor of Sociology, University of Portsmouth This incisive and timely book provides a concise and reliable guide to the debate on modernity and postmodernity. In particular the work of Lyotard, Beck, Bauman, Baudrillard, Giddens, Jameson and Derrida is critically reviewed. Culture and Identity provides: a thorough and accessible discussion of the main themes in the modernity-postmodernity debate; a shrewd and penetrating account of how these themes address everyday life; a novel account of how technology is altering our perceptions of the `human′; and a balanced account of the hope for radical politics and radical critique to correct the excesses of capitalism. What emerges most forcefully from the book is the error of dismissing postmodernism as a self-indulgent and ultimately, dangerous piece of ideology. Abbinnett provides a pertinent reminder of the continuing importance of the themes and challenges raised in the `postmodern moment′. |
From inside the book
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... Baudrillard , Derrida and Lyotard , then , will concentrate on their accounts of the excessiveness of capital : that is ... account of political responsibility from the level of moral culture established in bourgeois civil society ( Kant ...
... Baudrillard's account of simulation , for example , bears directly upon Beck's assumption of the representative powers of the media ( Baudrillard , 1996 , pp . 207–19 ) , and Bauman's account of the limits of reflexivity maintains that ...
... accounts of the emerg- ence and development of postmodernist thought : namely , the aesthetciz- ation of social and ... Baudrillard's account of simulation is a determined and consistent attempt to think through the consequences of ...
... Baudrillard's account of a ' transeconomic ' capitalism , in which exploita- tion and expenditure have exceeded all ethical limitations , will attempt to specify the end of the dialectic between alienated humanity and ' objective ...
Critical Theories Ross Abbinnett. Baudrillard offers are the Watergate affair and Disneyland . His account of Watergate contends that the scandal staged by the media was actually an attempt to keep the collapse of the political within a ...
Contents
15 | |
25 | |
35 | |
Postmodernism and the Aesthetic | 43 |
Deconstruction and Identity | 53 |
Technology Ideology and the Culture Industry | 73 |
Information Simulation and the Silent Majorities | 96 |
The Postmodern and the Sublime | 112 |
Culture Politics Différance | 125 |
Derrida Fukuyama and the New World Order | 137 |
Science Technology and Catastrophe | 159 |
Capitalism Globalization and Cosmopolitanism | 190 |
Bibliography | 217 |