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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... Jameson : Postmodernism and the Aesthetic 5 Derrida : Deconstruction and Identity vii 1 13 15 25 35 43 53 Part 2 Media , Culture and Identity 6 Technology , Ideology and the Culture Industry 7 Information , Simulation and the ' Silent ...
... Jameson have all presented compelling accounts of the impact of new image technologies on the reflective autonomy of the subject . Thus , if there is to be a political relationship between ' the masses ' and the powers which ' massify ...
... Jameson ) have sought to conceptual- ize the relationship between the technological reproduction of images , the fetishism of commodities and the exploitative potential of capital , that we can really appreciate what is at stake in ...
... Jameson , in his Postmodernism , for example , reproduces this logic when he claims that : The constitutive impurity of postmodernism theory ... confirms the insight of a periodization that must be insisted on over and over again , that ...
... Jameson's attempt to revive a Marxist critique of postmodern aesthetics in a Chapter 9 . The most consistent application of this periodizing logic appears in David Harvey's The Condition of Postmodernity . His claim is that strong 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 |