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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Critical Theories Ross Abbinnett. Culture and Identity Critical Theories Ross Abbinnett SAGE Publications • London Thousand Oaks⚫ New Delhi Ross Abbinnett 2003 First published 2003 Apart from any fair.
... manuscript into production . Thanks are also due to the School of Cultural Studies at Leeds Metropolitan University , whose funding of my recent sabbatical allowed me finally to complete this book . For my parents Acknowledgements.
... the day , and hiding , out among the accidents of this drifting Humility , never quite to be extinguished , a few small chances for mercy . Thomas Pynchon , Gravity's Rainbow Introduction Why are the ideas of culture and identity important.
... culture . In a sense , then , the whole of the discussion that will take place in the book concerns the relationship between the self , conceived as a reflexive agent , the other , who comes as a demand for care and responsibility , and ...
... culture is an acute sense of the contingency of belonging , and of the necessity of responding to the events of silencing and exclusion through which cultural identity is reproduced . My expositions of Baudrillard , Derrida and Lyotard ...
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 |