Synopses & Reviews
The intellectual radicalism of the 1960s spawned a new set of questions about the role and nature of "the political" in social life, questions that have since revolutionized nearly every field of thought, from literary criticism through anthropology to the philosophy of science. Michel Foucault in particular made us aware that whatever our functionally defined "roles" in society, we are constantly negotiating questions of authority and the control of the definitions of reality. Such insights have led theorists to challenge concepts that have long formed the very underpinnings of their disciplines. By exploring some of the most debated of these concepts--"culture," "power," and "history"--this reader offers an enriching perspective on social theory in the contemporary moment.
Organized around these three concepts, Culture/ Power/History brings together both classic and new essays that address Foucault's "new economy of power relations" in a number of different, contestatory directions. Representing innovative work from various disciplines and sites of study, from taxidermy to Madonna, the book seeks to affirm the creative possibilities available in a time marked by growing uncertainty about established disciplinary forms of knowledge and by the increasing fluidity of the boundaries between them. The book is introduced by a major synthetic essay by the editors, which calls attention to the most significant issues enlivening theoretical discourse today. The editors seek not only to encourage scholars to reflect anew on the course of social theory, but also to orient newcomers to this area of inquiry.
The essays are contributed by Linda Alcoff ("Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism"), Sally Alexander ("Women, Class, and Sexual Differences in the 1830s and 1840s"), Tony Bennett ("The Exhibitionary Complex"), Pierre Bourdieu ("Structures, Habitus, Power"), Nicholas B. Dirks ("Ritual and Resistance"), Geoff Eley ("Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures"), Michel Foucault (Two Lectures), Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ("Authority, [White] Power and the [Black] Critic"), Stephen Greenblatt ("The Circulation of Social Energy"), Ranajit Guha ("The Prose of Counter-Insurgency"), Stuart Hall ("Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms"), Susan Harding ("The Born-Again Telescandals"), Donna Haraway ("Teddy Bear Patriarchy"), Dick Hebdige ("After the Masses"), Susan McClary ("Living to Tell: Madonna's Resurrection of the Fleshly"), Sherry B. Ortner ("Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties"), Marshall Sahlins ("Cosmologies of Capitalism"), Elizabeth G. Traube ("Secrets of Success in Postmodern Society"), Raymond Williams (selections from Marxism and Literature), and Judith Williamson ("Family, Education, Photography").
Review
"This collection of important essays, with a thoughtful and, in places, moving . . . introduction to the current questions and conversations-and dilemmas-of social-cultural history is now the best volume we have on the topic."--International Labor and Working-Class History
Review
This collection of important essays, with a thoughtful and, in places, moving . . . introduction to the current questions and conversations-and dilemmas-of social-cultural history is now the best volume we have on the topic. International Labor and Working-Class History
Synopsis
"[This] collection of high quality essays performs a great serive to scholarship. It helps set a direction for the next generation's research. There is no comparable reader."--Thomas W. Laquer, University of California, Berkeley
Synopsis
The intellectual radicalism of the 1960s spawned a new set of questions about the role and nature of "the political" in social life, questions that have since revolutionized nearly every field of thought, from literary criticism through anthropology to the philosophy of science. Michel Foucault in particular made us aware that whatever our functionally defined "roles" in society, we are constantly negotiating questions of authority and the control of the definitions of reality. Such insights have led theorists to challenge concepts that have long formed the very underpinnings of their disciplines. By exploring some of the most debated of these concepts--"culture," "power," and "history"--this reader offers an enriching perspective on social theory in the contemporary moment.
Organized around these three concepts, Culture/ Power/History brings together both classic and new essays that address Foucault's "new economy of power relations" in a number of different, contestatory directions. Representing innovative work from various disciplines and sites of study, from taxidermy to Madonna, the book seeks to affirm the creative possibilities available in a time marked by growing uncertainty about established disciplinary forms of knowledge and by the increasing fluidity of the boundaries between them. The book is introduced by a major synthetic essay by the editors, which calls attention to the most significant issues enlivening theoretical discourse today. The editors seek not only to encourage scholars to reflect anew on the course of social theory, but also to orient newcomers to this area of inquiry.
The essays are contributed by Linda Alcoff ("Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism"), Sally Alexander ("Women, Class, and Sexual Differences in the 1830s and 1840s"), Tony Bennett ("The Exhibitionary Complex"), Pierre Bourdieu ("Structures, Habitus, Power"), Nicholas B. Dirks ("Ritual and Resistance"), Geoff Eley ("Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures"), Michel Foucault (Two Lectures), Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ("Authority, [White] Power and the [Black] Critic"), Stephen Greenblatt ("The Circulation of Social Energy"), Ranajit Guha ("The Prose of Counter-Insurgency"), Stuart Hall ("Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms"), Susan Harding ("The Born-Again Telescandals"), Donna Haraway ("Teddy Bear Patriarchy"), Dick Hebdige ("After the Masses"), Susan McClary ("Living to Tell: Madonna's Resurrection of the Fleshly"), Sherry B. Ortner ("Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties"), Marshall Sahlins ("Cosmologies of Capitalism"), Elizabeth G. Traube ("Secrets of Success in Postmodern Society"), Raymond Williams (selections from Marxism and Literature), and Judith Williamson ("Family, Education, Photography").
Synopsis
"[This] collection of high quality essays performs a great serive to scholarship. It helps set a direction for the next generation's research. There is no comparable reader."--Thomas W. Laquer, University of California, Berkeley
Table of Contents
| Preface | |
| Permissions Acknowledgments | |
| Introduction | 3 |
Ch. 1 | Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908-1936 | 49 |
Ch. 2 | Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory | 96 |
Ch. 3 | The Exhibitionary Complex | 123 |
Ch. 4 | Structures, Habitus, Power: Basis for a Theory of Symbolic Power | 155 |
Ch. 5 | Two Lectures | 200 |
Ch. 6 | After the Masses | 222 |
Ch. 7 | Family, Education, Photography | 236 |
Ch. 8 | Authority, (White) Power and the (Black) Critic; It's All Greek to Me | 247 |
Ch. 9 | Women, Class and Sexual Differences in the 1830s and 1840s: Some Reflections on the Writing of a Feminist History | 269 |
Ch. 10 | Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the Nineteenth Century | 297 |
Ch. 11 | The Prose of Counter-Insurgency | 336 |
Ch. 12 | Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties | 372 |
Ch. 13 | Cosmologies of Capitalism: The Trans-Pacific Sector of "The World System" | 412 |
Ch. 14 | Living to Tell: Madonna's Resurrection of the Fleshly | 459 |
Ch. 15 | Ritual and Resistance: Subversion as a Social Fact | 483 |
Ch. 16 | The Circulation of Social Energy | 504 |
Ch. 17 | Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms | 520 |
Ch. 18 | The Born-Again Telescandals | 539 |
Ch. 19 | Secrets of Success in Postmodern Society | 557 |
Ch. 20 | Selections from Marxism and Literature | 585 |
| Notes on the Contributors | 609 |
| Index | 613 |