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
Results 1-5 of 68
... example , might not our increasingly vir- tualized , technological , informatic social relations , mean that communicative action , in Habermas ' sense , no longer has time to take place ? And further , if the possibility of such ...
... 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 postmodernism is not the determinant ...
... example , Habermas ' ' History and Evolution ' ( in Telos , Spring 1979 , 127–43 ) , and Jameson's ' Marxism and Postmodernism ' ( Jameson , 1998 , pp . 33-49 ) . 3. Harvey's objection to Jameson's attempt to evaluate the socio ...
... example , are simply the most visible effects of systemic processes of irradiation , poisoning and contamination . Beck's notion of risk therefore , marks a general intensification of ontological insecurity ; a general sense of ...
... example , should be understood in terms of their impact upon the life choices of autonomous , reflexive individuals ( ibid . , p . 221 ) . For it is only in so far as we are prepared to modify our personal activities , to change the ...
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 |