Theorizing Culture

Theorizing Culture
Author: Barbara Adam
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2006-04-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1135366810

This highly original and timely volume engages scholars from the breadth of social science and the humanities to provide a critical perspective on cultural forms, practices and identities. It looks beyond the postmodern debate to reinstate the critical dimension in cultural analysis, providing a "student-friendly" introduction to key contemporary issues such as the body, AIDS, race, the environment and virtual reality. Theorizing Culture is essential reading for undergraduate courses in cultural and media studies and sociology, and will have considerable appeal for students and scholars of critical theory, gender studies and the history of ideas.

Theorizing Culture: Critique

Theorizing Culture: Critique
Author: Barbara Adam
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 288
Release: 2015-01-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1134219547

First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Critical Social Theory

Critical Social Theory
Author: Tim Dant
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2004-01-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1847871194

Critical theory has left an indelible mark on postwar social thought. But what are the relations between critical theory and ′the cultural turn′ ? How did critical theory inform later French critical theorists, such as Lefebvre, Barthes and Baudrillard? This accomplished and accessible book: - Demonstrates the origins of critical theory in the Marxian analysis of the capitalist mode of production and Freudian psychoanalysis - Clearly explains the main achievements of critical theory - Elucidates how critical theory defines culture as a system that constrains and alienates the individual - Explores the potential for social change and personal emancipation in the critical heritage. The author locates the importance of myth and reason, the significance of sexuality, the place of work, the difference between art and entertainment, the nature of everyday life and the relationship between knowledge and action. The result is a lucid and informative text which will appeal to all students interested in the critical traditions of social thought.

Cultural Theory

Cultural Theory
Author: Philip Smith
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 322
Release: 2011-09-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1444358901

This second edition of Cultural Theory provides a concise introduction to cultural theory, placing major figures, traditional concepts, and contemporary themes within a sharp conceptual framework. Provides a student-friendly introduction to what can often be a complex field of study Updates the first edition in response to reader feedback and to the changing nature of the field Includes additional coverage of theorists from the classical period to include Nietzsche and DuBois Introduces entirely new chapters on race and gender theory, and the body Considers themes that have become more important in theoretical activity in recent years such as computers and virtual reality, cosmopolitanism, and performance theory Draws on theories and theorists from continental Europe as well as the English-speaking world

Critique and Praxis

Critique and Praxis
Author: Bernard E. Harcourt
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 730
Release: 2020-08-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0231551452

Critical philosophy has always challenged the division between theory and practice. At its best, it aims to turn contemplation into emancipation, seeking to transform society in pursuit of equality, autonomy, and human flourishing. Yet today’s critical theory often seems to engage only in critique. These times of crisis demand more. Bernard E. Harcourt challenges us to move beyond decades of philosophical detours and to harness critical thought to the need for action. In a time of increasing awareness of economic and social inequality, Harcourt calls on us to make society more equal and just. Only critical theory can guide us toward a more self-reflexive pursuit of justice. Charting a vision for political action and social transformation, Harcourt argues that instead of posing the question, “What is to be done?” we must now turn it back onto ourselves and ask, and answer, “What more am I to do?” Critique and Praxis advocates for a new path forward that constantly challenges each and every one of us to ask what more we can do to realize a society based on equality and justice. Joining his decades of activism, social-justice litigation, and political engagement with his years of critical theory and philosophical work, Harcourt has written a magnum opus.

A General Theory of Visual Culture

A General Theory of Visual Culture
Author: Whitney Davis
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 400
Release: 2011
Genre: Art
ISBN: 0691178070

What is cultural about vision--or visual about culture? In this ambitious book, Whitney Davis provides new answers to these difficult and important questions by presenting an original framework for understanding visual culture. Grounded in the theoretical traditions of art history, A General Theory of Visual Culture argues that, in a fully consolidated visual culture, artifacts and pictures have been made to be seen in a certain way; what Davis calls "visuality" is the visual perspective from which certain culturally constituted aspects of artifacts and pictures are visible to informed viewers. In this book, Davis provides a systematic analysis of visuality and describes how it comes into being as a historical form of vision. Expansive in scope, A General Theory of Visual Culture draws on art history, aesthetics, the psychology of perception, the philosophy of reference, and vision science, as well as visual-cultural studies in history, sociology, and anthropology. It provides penetrating new definitions of form, style, and iconography, and draws important and sometimes surprising conclusions (for example, that vision does not always attain to visual culture, and that visual culture is not always wholly visible). The book uses examples from a variety of cultural traditions, from prehistory to the twentieth century, to support a theory designed to apply to all human traditions of making artifacts and pictures--that is, to visual culture as a worldwide phenomenon.

Anthropology and Social Theory

Anthropology and Social Theory
Author: Sherry B. Ortner
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 206
Release: 2006-11-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780822338642

The award-winning anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner draws on her longstanding interest in theories of cultural practice to rethink key concepts of culture, agency, and subjectivity.

Religion, Theory, Critique

Religion, Theory, Critique
Author: Richard King
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 558
Release: 2017-07-18
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0231518242

Religion, Theory, Critique is an essential tool for learning about theory and method in the study of religion. Leading experts engage with contemporary and classical theories as well as non-Western cultural contexts. Unlike other collections, this anthology emphasizes the dynamic relationship between "religion" as an object of study and different methodological approaches and openly addresses the question of the manifold ways in which "religion," "secular," and "culture" are imagined within different disciplinary horizons. This volume is the first textbook which seeks to engage discussion of classical approaches with contemporary cultural and critical theories. Contributors write on the influence of the natural sciences in the study of religion; the role of European Christianity in modeling theories of religion; religious experience and the interface with cognitive science; the structure and function of religious language; the social-scientific study of religion; ritual in religion; the phenomenology of religion; critical theory and religion; embodiment and religion; the impact of colonialism and modernity; theorizing religion in terms of race and ethnicity; links among religion, nationalism, and globalization; the interplay of gender, sex, and religion; and religion and the environment. Each chapter introduces the topic, identifies key theorists and issues, and respects the pluralistic nature of the scholarship in the field. Altogether, this collection scrutinizes the explicit and implicit assumptions theorists make about religion as an object of analysis.

Pierre Bourdieu and Cultural Theory

Pierre Bourdieu and Cultural Theory
Author: Bridget Fowler
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 214
Release: 1997-04-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780803976269

This is the first comprehensive description of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of culture and habitus. Within the wider intellectual context of Bourdieu's work, this book provides a systematic reading of his assessment of the role of `cultural capital' in the production and consumption of symbolic goods. Bridget Fowler outlines the key critical debates that inform Bourdieu's work. She introduces his recent treatment of the rules of art, explains the importance of his concept of capital - economic and social, symbolic and cultural - and defines such key terms as habitus, practice and strategy, legitimate culture, popular art and distinction. The book focuses particularly on Bourdieu's account of the nature of capit

Critique of Black Reason

Critique of Black Reason
Author: Achille Mbembe
Publisher: Duke University Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2017-03-02
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0822373238

In Critique of Black Reason eminent critic Achille Mbembe offers a capacious genealogy of the category of Blackness—from the Atlantic slave trade to the present—to critically reevaluate history, racism, and the future of humanity. Mbembe teases out the intellectual consequences of the reality that Europe is no longer the world's center of gravity while mapping the relations among colonialism, slavery, and contemporary financial and extractive capital. Tracing the conjunction of Blackness with the biological fiction of race, he theorizes Black reason as the collection of discourses and practices that equated Blackness with the nonhuman in order to uphold forms of oppression. Mbembe powerfully argues that this equation of Blackness with the nonhuman will serve as the template for all new forms of exclusion. With Critique of Black Reason, Mbembe offers nothing less than a map of the world as it has been constituted through colonialism and racial thinking while providing the first glimpses of a more just future.