Hyperculture

Hyperculture
Author: Byung-Chul Han
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 81
Release: 2022-01-10
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1509546189

In the wake of globalization, cultural forms of expression have become increasingly detached from their places of origin, circulating in a hyper-domain of culture where there is no real difference anymore between indigenous and foreign, near and far, the familiar and the exotic. Heterogeneous cultural contents are brought together side by side, like the fusion food that makes free use of all that the hypercultural pool of spices, ingredients and ways of preparing food has to offer. Culture is becoming un-bound, un-restricted, un-ravelled: a hyperculture. It is a profoundly rhizomatic culture of intense hybridization, fusion and co-appropriation. Today we have all become hypercultural tourists, even in our ‘own’ culture, to which we do not even belong anymore. Hypercultural tourists travel in the hyperspace of events, a space of cultural sightseeing. They experience culture as cul-tour. Drawing on thinkers from Hegel and Heidegger to Bauman and Homi Bhabha to examine the characteristics of our contemporary hyperculture, Han poses the question: should we welcome the human of the future as the hypercultural tourist, smiling serenely, or should we aspire to a different way of being in the world?

The End of Illusions

The End of Illusions
Author: Andreas Reckwitz
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 167
Release: 2021-06-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1509545719

We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.

Hyperculture

Hyperculture
Author: Stephen Bertman
Publisher: Greenwood
Total Pages: 296
Release: 1998
Genre: Speed
ISBN: 9780275962050

Hyperculture dares to suggest that the cure for our condition lies not in an "information superhighway" or "third wave information revolution," but in the radical and painful process of decelerating our lives enough to reclaim them.

State of Crisis

State of Crisis
Author: Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 151
Release: 2014-07-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745685293

Today we hear much talk of crisis and comparisons are often made with the Great Depression of the 1930s, but there is a crucial difference that sets our current malaise apart from the 1930s: today we no longer trust in the capacity of the state to resolve the crisis and to chart a new way forward. In our increasingly globalized world, states have been stripped of much of their power to shape the course of events. Many of our problems are globally produced but the volume of power at the disposal of individual nation-states is simply not sufficient to cope with the problems they face. This divorce between power and politics produces a new kind of paralysis. It undermines the political agency that is needed to tackle the crisis and it saps citizens’ belief that governments can deliver on their promises. The impotence of governments goes hand in hand with the growing cynicism and distrust of citizens. Hence the current crisis is at once a crisis of agency, a crisis of representative democracy and a crisis of the sovereignty of the state. In this book the world-renowned sociologist Zygmunt Bauman and fellow traveller Carlo Bordoni explore the social and political dimensions of the current crisis. While this crisis has been greatly exacerbated by the turmoil following the financial crisis of 2007-8, Bauman and Bordoni argue that the crisis facing Western societies is rooted in a much more profound series of transformations that stretch back further in time and are producing long-lasting effects. This highly original analysis of our current predicament by two of the world’s leading social thinkers will be of interest to a wide readership.

Time and Social Theory

Time and Social Theory
Author: Barbara Adam
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2013-03-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745669395

Time is at the forefront of contemporary scholarly inquiry across the natural sciences and the humanities. Yet the social sciences have remained substantially isolated from time-related concerns. This book argues that time should be a key part of social theory and focuses concern upon issues which have emerged as central to an understanding of today's social world. Through her analysis of time Barbara Adam shows that our contemporary social theories are firmly embedded in Newtonian science and classical dualistic philosophy. She exposes these classical frameworks of thought as inadequate to the task of conceptualizing our contemporary world of standardized time, computers, nuclear power and global telecommunications.

Feminist Media Studies

Feminist Media Studies
Author: Alison Harvey
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 188
Release: 2019-11-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1509524509

Feminist Media Studies is a cutting-edge introduction to the core and emerging theories, methods, and approaches in a field that has blossomed over the past twenty-five years. Adopting an intersectional approach – a framework concerning the interconnected character of oppression based on gender, race, class, and other constructed identities – Alison Harvey takes a global view of gendered practices in and around the media. She provides an accessible overview of classical and contemporary issues in media culture by exploring the past, present, and future of feminist media studies, accounting for changes in the media landscape, from digital technologies and globalized media systems to emergent inequalities, discourses, and practices. By engaging with research from a diverse body of scholarship, this book situates feminist media studies as vital to researching and analysing a range of significant issues. The go-to textbook for a new generation of students, as well as an important resource for scholars, Feminist Media Studies is both an exciting invitation to the field and a passionate call to arms.

Changing Organizational Culture

Changing Organizational Culture
Author: Mats Alvesson
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2007-11-26
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1134073267

How do people react to significant organizational change? Do we see ourselves as helping change to come about, or allowing change to happen around us? How can we adapt more easily to change? Based around an illuminating extended case-study, this important text uncovers the reality of organizational change. From planning and inception to project management and engagement, this book explores the views and reactions of various stakeholders undergoing real-life change processes. Drawing on theories of organizational culture, it helps us to understand how organizations can promote change without alienating the people needed to implement it. Changing Organizational Culture represents an original and timely addition to the literature on organizational change. It is vital reading for all students, researchers and practitioners working in organizational theory and behaviour, change management and HRM.

Abortion Politics

Abortion Politics
Author: Ziad Munson
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 140
Release: 2018-05-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745688829

Abortion has remained one of the most volatile and polarizing issues in the United States for over four decades. Americans are more divided today than ever over abortion, and this debate colors the political, economic, and social dynamics of the country. This book provides a balanced, clear-eyed overview of the abortion debate, including the perspectives of both the pro-life and pro-choice movements. It covers the history of the debate from colonial times to the present, the mobilization of mass movements around the issue, the ways it is understood by ordinary Americans, the impact it has had on US political development, and the differences between the abortion conflict in the US and the rest of the world. Throughout these discussions, Ziad Munson demonstrates how the meaning of abortion has shifted to reflect the changing anxieties and cultural divides which it has come to represent. Abortion Politics is an invaluable companion for exploring the abortion issue and what it has to say about American society, as well as the dramatic changes in public understanding of women’s rights, medicine, religion, and partisanship.

Global Health and International Relations

Global Health and International Relations
Author: Colin McInnes
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2013-05-02
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0745663079

The long separation of health and International Relations, as distinct academic fields and policy arenas, has now dramatically changed. Health, concerned with the body, mind and spirit, has traditionally focused on disease and infirmity, whilst International Relations has been dominated by concerns of war, peace and security. Since the 1990s, however, the two fields have increasingly overlapped. How can we explain this shift and what are the implications for the future development of both fields? Colin McInnes and Kelley Lee examine four key intersections between health and International Relations today - foreign policy and health diplomacy, health and the global political economy, global health governance and global health security. The explosion of interest in these subjects has, in large part, been due to "real world" concerns - disease outbreaks, antibiotic resistance, counterfeit drugs and other risks to human health amid the spread of globalisation. Yet the authors contend that it is also important to understand how global health has been socially constructed, shaped in theory and practice by particular interests and normative frameworks. This groundbreaking book encourages readers to step back from problem-solving to ask how global health is being problematized in the first place, why certain agendas and issue areas are prioritised, and what determines the potential solutions put forth to address them? The palpable struggle to better understand the health risks facing a globalized world, and to strengthen collective action to deal with them effectively, begins - they argue - with a more reflexive and critical approach to this rapidly emerging subject.

Reflections on Empire

Reflections on Empire
Author: Antonio Negri
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2008-07-08
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0745637051

This new book from Antonio Negri, one of the most influential political thinkers writing today, provides a concise and accessible introduction to the key ideas of his recent work. Giving the reader a sense of the wider context in which Negri has developed the ideas that have become so central to current debates, the book is made up of five lectures which address a series of topics that are dealt with in his world-famous books empire, globalization, multitude, sovereignty, democracy. Reflections on Empire will appeal to anyone interested in current debates about the ways in which the world is changing today, to the many people who are followers of Negri's work and to students and scholars in sociology, politics and cultural studies.