Synopses & Reviews
Originating in the 1968 student-led strike at San Francisco State University, Asian American Studies was founded as a result of student and community protests that sought to make education more accessible and relevant. While members of the Asian American communities initially served on the departmental advisory boards, planning and developing areas of the curriculum, university pressures eventually dictated their expulsion. At that moment in history, the intellectual work of the field was split off from its relation to the community at large, giving rise to the entire problematic of representation in the academic sphere.
Even as the original objectives of the field have remained elusive, Asian American studies has nevertheless managed to establish itself in the university. Mark Chiang argues that the fundamental precondition of institutionalization within the university is the production of cultural capital, and that in the case of Asian American Studies (as well as other fields of minority studies), the accumulation of cultural capital has come primarily from the conversion of political capital. In this way, the definition of cultural capital becomes the primary terrain of political struggle in the university, and outlines the very conditions of possibility for political work within the academy. Beginning with the theoretical debates over identity politics and cultural nationalism, and working through the origins of ethnic studies in the Third World Strike, the formation of the Asian American literary field, and the Blu's Hanging controversy, The Cultural Capital of Asian American Studies articulates a new and innovative model of cultural and academic politics, illuminating the position of ethnic studies within the American university.
Review
"An essential source of study of social representations."
Review
"The five chapters of the book engage in a systematic analysis of key moments and texts that have shaped the field in its current form...represents a fine work of scholarship and a significant contribution ot the field of Asian American studies" -John Su,The Journal of Asian Studies
Review
"Chiang directly challenges many shibboleths of Asian American Studies. For just this reason, The Cultural Capital of Asian American Studies is certain to be a watershed work in the field of Asian American literary and cultural studies."
-James Kyung-Jin Lee,University of California, Santa Barbara
Synopsis
Considered the leading contemporary European social psychologist for his groundbreaking work on social influence and crowd psychology, Serge Moscovici has played a definitive role in shaping the trajectory of modern social inquiry. Bringing together the key texts in which he outlines and defines his benchmark theory of social representations
including several essays never previously published in Englishhis indispensable sourcebook illustrates the enormous range and scope of Moscovici's work. Moscovici purports a theory of social representations remarkably distinct from the dominant themes in contemporary U.S. social psychology. In contrast to the traditionally individualistic emphasis, Moscovici's work is embedded in a broader social and cultural tradition and is passionately concerned with the social context in which meaning is constructed and lives are enacted. His radical and lucid approach offers fresh and multifarious ways of seeing the world while his clear and coherent perspective provides a rich contribution to a discipline which has been notoriously fragmented.
Addressing contemporary social phenomena rather than being trapped within the artificial limits of laboratory experimentation, Moscovici draws upon the diverse traditions of the wider social sciences, making him a primary voice within the community of social theorists.
Sure to fascinate any researcher, scholar, student, or practitioner of social psychology, Social Representations provides a representative and long overdue collection of Moscovici's unique and important work.
About the Author
Serge Moscovici is Professor of Social Psychology at the Ecole des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris.