Postmodernity and its Discontents

Postmodernity and its Discontents
Author: Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 236
Release: 2013-05-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0745656854

When Freud wrote his classic Civilization and its Discontents, he was concerned with repression. Modern civilization depends upon the constraint of impulse, the limiting of self expression. Today, in the time of modernity, Bauman argues, Freud's analysis no longer holds good, if it ever did. The regulation of desire turns from an irritating necessity into an assault against individual freedom. In the postmodern era, the liberty of the individual is the overriding value, the criterion in terms of which all social rules and regulations are assessed. Postmodernity is governed by the 'will to happiness': the result, however, is a sacrificing of security. The most prominent anxieties in our society today, Bauman shows, derive from the removal of security. The world is experienced as overwhelmingly uncertain, uncontrollable and frightening. Totalitarian politics frightened by its awesome power; the new social disorder frightens by its lack of consistency and direction. The very pursuit of individual happiness corrupts and undermines those systems of authority needed for a stable life. This book builds imaginatively upon Bauman's earlier contributions to social theory. It consolidates his reputation as the interpreter of postmodernity. The book will appeal to second-year undergraduates and above in sociology, cultural studies, philosophy and anthropology.

The Postmodern Turn

The Postmodern Turn
Author: Steven Best
Publisher: Guilford Press
Total Pages: 324
Release: 1997-01-01
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9781572302211

This book presents a groundbreaking analysis of the emergence of a pos tmodern paradigm in theory, the arts, science, and politics. From the authors of Postmodern Theory, the much-acclaimed introduction to key p ostmodern thinkers and themes, The Postmodern Turn ranges over diverse intellectual and artistic terrain--from architecture, painting, liter ature, music, and politics, to the physical and biological sciences. C ritically engaging postmodern theory and culture, Steven Best and Doug las Kellner illuminate our momentous transition between a modernist pa st and a future struggling to define itself.

Discontents

Discontents
Author: Paul Hollander
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 642
Release: 2018-01-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351325388

What ails people at the present time in Western and especially American society is an inexhaustible subject. Discussion of these discontents in the United States in the last decade of the twentieth century leads to an obvious question: How much and what kind of discontents are possible in a society that has experienced over a decade of economic growth, close to full employment, hardly any inflation, falling crime rates, declining teenage pregnancies, and other good things? Is there anything to worry about in a country that has become the undisputed superpower of the world and no longer faces another hostile superpower such as the Soviet Union used to be? Paul Hollander wrestles with these and other questions in seeking to understand conditions and developments within American culture and society in the context of their relationship to political systems, movements and ideas critical of the United States and Western values. Hollander examines disparate phenomena, such as the O.J. Simpson case, the banning of West Side Story in Amherst, Massachusetts, the popularity and exposu of Rigoberta Menchu, and the appeal of sports utility vehicles, which shed light on the major themes of the volume. Topics include conflicts among American intellectuals (including disputes over the Kosovo intervention), the impact of postmodernism on higher education, the persisting appeal of victimhood in American society, the flaws of American sociology, academic specialists' failure to anticipate the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the new anti-Americanism in postcommunist societies. Among topics of historical interest are a survey of Western judgments and misjudgments of the communist systems; examination of the relative neglect of political violence in communist states, and analysis of officially enforced, secular-religious cult of communist rulers. Many of these writings are linked to the author's longstanding interest in why people accept or reject particular political systems and in the contradictory human needs and desires which condition and limit the pursuit of social and political ends. Sociologists, political scientists, and the general reader will find this book of great interest.

Modernity and Its Discontents

Modernity and Its Discontents
Author: James L. Marsh
Publisher:
Total Pages: 248
Release: 1992
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN:

Contemporary philosophy are by no means simply the exposition and defense of Habermas and Derrida, for Marsh and Caputo bring to the discussion their own long formation in continental philosophy as interpreted and practiced in North America. Moreover, given their even longer formation in the Christian tradition, they are not bound by the dogmatic secularism of Habermas and Derrida. But the point of contact is not so much religious as political, and the fundamental.

The New Individualism

The New Individualism
Author: Anthony Elliott
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2006
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780415351522

This fascinating and easy to read book offers new insights into the interplay between increasing globalization and the rise of the new individualism. It will be of interest to everyone concerned with the future of the public spheres, progressive

Work, Consumerism and the New Poor

Work, Consumerism and the New Poor
Author: Zygmunt Bauman
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education (UK)
Total Pages: 144
Release: 2004-09-16
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0335224164

Reviewers’ comments on the first edition “Zygmunt Bauman presents a cogently argued and compelling thesis... an important book from a distinguished scholar, that adds a new dimension to the poverty debate.”British Journal of Sociology “It will be of great interest and value to students, teachers and researchers in sociology and social policy… [Bauman] provides a very forceful and sophisticated statement of the case; and a very well written one too. As a wide ranging analysis of our present discontents it is an admirable example of the sort of challenge which sociology at its best can offer to us and our fellow citizens to re-assess and re-think our current social arrangements.”Work, Employment and Society “This is a stylish and persuasive analysis of the transition between the age of the ‘society of producers’ to that of the ‘society of consumers’.”Political Studies It is one thing to be poor in a society of producers and universal employment; it is quite a different thing to be poor in a society of consumers, in which life projects are built around consumer choices rather than on work, professional skills or jobs. Where ‘being poor’ was once linked to being unemployed, today it draws its meaning primarily from the plight of a flawed consumer. This has a significant effect on the way living in poverty is experienced and on the prospects for redeeming its misery. Work, Consumerism and the New Poor traces this change over the duration of modern history. It makes an inventory of its social consequences, and considers how effective different ways of fighting poverty and relieving its hardships are. The new edition of this seminal work features: Updated coverage of key thinkers in the field Discussion of recent work on redundancy, disposability and exclusion Current thinking on the effects of capital flows on different countries and the changes on the shop floor through, for example, business process re-engineering New material on security and vulnerability Key reading for students and lecturers in sociology, politics and social policy, and those with an interest in contemporary social issues.

Neoliberalism, Postmodernity, and the Contemporary Memorial-Building Boom

Neoliberalism, Postmodernity, and the Contemporary Memorial-Building Boom
Author: Nicola Clewer
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2022-06-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 178661300X

The book develops a new approach to, and a distinct reading of, the contemporary memorial-building boom which began in the 1980s. Locating the origins of this boom in the crises associated with postmodernity and the rise of neoliberalism, it analyses the complex interplay between neoliberalism, postmodernism and nationalism in some of the most well-known memorials and memorial-museums to have emerged in the USA and Germany over the last four decades. Rather than offering a survey of contemporary memorials, it traces a specific trajectory (and certainly not the only one ripe for analysis): from the postmodern memorials of the 1980s to the increasingly monumental and authoritative memorials and memorial-museums being constructed today. Developing a distinct interdisciplinary approach, the book offers a critical analysis of the relationship between the memorials’ form, the “visitor experience” they’re intended to offer. and the understanding of history and our relation to it which underpins their philosophical, ethical and political stance. Questioning the notion that contemporary memorials are ambiguous, non-ideological and non-nationalistic, the book argues that they are engaged in rearticulating nationalism in line with the contradictory demands of the current conjuncture. As well as critically analysing the political function of national memorials, the book is equally concerned with interrogating the aesthetic means they employ, with a specific focus on the way in which they mobilise the power of the sublime to generate particular affective responses. The book argues that contemporary national memorials reflect one of the most significant convergences between postmodern thought and neoliberal ideology – both project a permanent present, urging us to recreate ourselves in the light of existing conditions, for “there is no alternative”.

The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion

The Blackwell Companion to the Study of Religion
Author: Robert A. Segal
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 496
Release: 2009-02-04
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1405154659

This prestigious Companion offers the most comprehensive survey todate of the study of religion. Featuring a team of internationalcontributors, and edited by one of the most widely respectedscholars in the field, The Blackwell Companion to the Study ofReligion provides an interdisciplinary and authoritative guideto the subject. Examines the main approaches to the study of religion:anthropology, the comparative method, economics, literature,philosophy, psychology, sociology, and theology. Also covers a diverse range of topical issues, such as thebody, fundamentalism, magic, and new religious movements Consists of 24 essays written by an outstanding team ofinternational scholars Reviews, within each chapter, an outline of a particularsubfield and traces its development up to the present day Debates how the discipline may look in the future Represents all the major issues, methods and positions in thefield

Postmodernity

Postmodernity
Author: David Lyon
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
Total Pages: 148
Release: 1999
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780816632275

In the second edition of this highly successful text, postmodernity is seen as the social condition of the twenty-first century, in which some of the most familiar features of the modern world are not only called into question, but actually undermined by novel trends. The key carriers of the postmodern--new technologies and consumerism--emerged in thoroughly modern contexts, but so profoundly affect everyday social life that modernity itself is changing shape. Postmodernity is a way of describing a new society-in-the-making without supposing that modernity has been entirely left behind. While some dub these changes as "high" or "late" modern, this book argues that "postmodernity" best captures today's transformations or modernity.