Synopses & Reviews
In the tradition of Mike Davis and Fredric Jameson, Nick Heffernan engages in a series of meditations on capital, class and technology in contemporary America. He turns to the stories we generate and tell ourselves - via fiction, film journalism, theory - to see how change is registered. By investigating a variety of texts, he observes how structural change affects the way people organise their lives economically, socially and culturally. Case studies include Ridley Scotts Blade Runner, William Gibsons cyberspace trilogy, Thomas Pynchons The Crying of Lot 49, and Wim Wenderss Until the End of the World.Using the links between narrative cultural forms and the process of historical understanding, he brings together debates that have so far been conducted largely within the separate domains of political economy, social theory and cultural criticism to provide a compelling analysis of contemporary cultural change. By relocating postmodernism in the context of changing modes of capitalism, Heffernan puts the question of class and class agency back at the centre of the critical agenda.
Synopsis
Looks at the intersection of class, capital and technology in contemporary America. Includes a variety of textual analyses, including readings of science fiction and film.
Synopsis
... brilliantly original ... brings cultural and post-colonial theory to bear on a wide range of authors with great skill and sensitivity.' Terry Eagleton
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. 230-243) and index.
About the Author
Nick Heffernan teaches American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University College Northampton.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part 1. Late Capitalism, Fordism, Post-Fordism
1. Postmodernism and Late Capitalism
2. Class and Consensus, Ideology and Technology
Part 2. Putting 'IT' to Work: Post-Fordism, Information Technology and the Eclipse of Production
3. Making 'IT': The Soul of a New Machine
4. Faking 'IT': True Stories
5. Playing with 'IT': Microserfs
Part 3. Impotence and Omnipotence: The Cybernetic Discourse of Capitalism
6. Cybernetics, Systems Theory and the End of Ideology
7. Imaginary Resolutions: