Social Postmodernism defends a postmodern perspective anchored in the politics of the new social movements. The volume preserves the focus on the politics of the body, race, gender, and sexuality as elaborated in postmodern approaches. But these essays push postmodern analysis in a particular direction: toward a social postmodernism which integrates the micro-social concerns of the new social movements with an institutional and cultural analysis in the service of a transformative political vision.
A new division has emerged in the social sciences between modernists and their post-modern critics. The former defend the project of a general theory with secure analytical foundations; the latter challenge the possibility and indeed the desirability of aspiring to create totalizing theories. Postmodernists contest the view of science as an autonomous sphere of knowledge and reflection. This volume brings together leading theorists in the social sciences and philosophy to debate the respective merits of modernism and postmodernism as paradigms of social inquiry. It examines the relation between science, critique and narrative, addressing questions about the moral and political meaning of science today.
Post-modernism offers a revolutionary approach to the study of society: in questioning the validity of modern science and the notion of objective knowledge, this movement discards history, rejects humanism, and resists any truth claims. In this comprehensive assessment of post-modernism, Pauline Rosenau traces its origins in the humanities and describes how its key concepts are today being applied to, and are restructuring, the social sciences. Serving as neither an opponent nor an apologist for the movement, she cuts through post-modernism's often incomprehensible jargon in order to offer all readers a lucid exposition of its propositions. Rosenau shows how the post-modern challenge to reason and rational organization radiates across academic fields. For example, in psychology it questions the conscious, logical, coherent subject; in public administration it encourages a retreat from central planning and from reliance on specialists; in political science it calls into question the authority of hierarchical, bureaucratic decision-making structures that function in carefully defined spheres; in anthropology it inspires the protection of local, primitive cultures from First World attempts to reorganize them. In all of the social sciences, she argues, post-modernism repudiates representative democracy and plays havoc with the very meaning of "left-wing" and "right-wing." Rosenau also highlights how post-modernism has inspired a new generation of social movements, ranging from New Age sensitivities to Third World fundamentalism. In weighing its strengths and weaknesses, the author examines two major tendencies within post-modernism, the largely European, skeptical form and the predominantly Anglo-North-American form, which suggests alternative political, social, and cultural projects. She draws examples from anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, law, planning, political science, psychology, sociology, urban studies, and women's studies, and provides a glossary of post-modern terms to assist the uninitiated reader with special meanings not found in standard dictionaries.
The major themes of postmodernist writing are demystified in this introductory text. Robert Hollinger reviews key postmodern discussions on critical topics such as values, identity, and the self and society. He compares postmodern thinking with that of the enlightenment project, modernism, modernity, Marxism and Critical Theory. This, together with his treatment of Foucault, Lyotard, Baudrillard, Derrida, Deleuze, Guattari and other leading postmodern theorists, provides an excellent introduction to modern social theory.
Simon Susen examines the impact of the 'postmodern turn' on the contemporary social sciences. On the basis of an innovative five-dimensional approach, this study provides a systematic, comprehensive, and critical account of the legacy of the 'postmodern turn', notably in terms of its continuing relevance in the twenty-first century.
This book provides an overview of postmodern themes, evaluates the possibilities and dangers of postmodernist thinking and develops ideas on how a selective, sceptical incorporation of postmodernism can make social research more conscious about problems and pitfalls, and more creative in working with empirical material (so called data). A reflexive orientation runs throughout the book, which addresses themes such as how to understand the individual in research, how to deal with the knowledge/power connection, how to relate to language and how to unpack rather than take for granted socially dominant categories in research work. One chapter addresses the research interview in the light of postmodernist concerns about the naivety of assuming that the interviewee is simply an informant, a truth-teller authentically expressing his or her experiences and meaning. Other chapters address issues of voice, interpretation, writing and reflexivity. The book includes a range of empirical illustrations of how postmodernist ideas can inspire social research, and in all it represents a valuable text for students and researchers alike.
By using a series of studies of contemporary mainstream Hollywood movies - Blue Velvet, Wall Street, Crimes and Misdemeanors, When Harry Met Sally, sex lies and videotape, Do the Right Thing - Norman K Denzin explores the tension between ideas of the postmodern, and traditional ways of analyzing society. The discussion moves between two forms of text: social theory and cinematic representations of contemporary life. Denzin analyzes the ideas of society embedded in poststructuralism, postmodernism, feminism, cultural studies and Marxism through the ideas of key theorists (Mills, Baudrillard, Barthes, Habermas, Jameson, Bourdieu, Derrida and others). He relates these ideas to the problematic of the postmodern self as e
Written as a tribute to the remarkable intellectual career of Colin Leys, the debates in this book deal with some of the most pressing problems confronting the majority of citizens in both first world and third world contexts. Their contributions provide the confidence to pursue new possibilities that permit a more optimistic, if critical, outlook. Topics covered include contemporary debates about globalization and the nation state, African development, prospects for British socialism after Blair, social movements, and current issues in political and social theory. Contributors include Laurie Adkin (University of Alberta), Abigail Bakan, Bruce Berman (Queen's University), Manfred Bienefeld (Carleton University), Alex Callinicos (University of York, UK), Bonnie Campbell (University of Quebec at Montreal), Michael Chege (University of Florida), Radhika Desai (University of Victoria), Lauren Dobell (PhD candidate, Oxford University), Phil Goldman (Queen's University), Banu Helvacioglu (Bilkent University, Turkey), Robert Jessop (University of Lancaster, UK), Colin Leys (emeritus, Queen's University), Eleanor MacDonald, Marguerite Mendell (Concordia University), Leo Panitch (York University), Anne Phillips (London School of Economics and Political Science), and John Saul (Atkinson College, York University).
This book applies Owen’s unique genetic-social framework to the study of crime and criminal behaviour, with an emphasis on cybercrime. Moving beyond challenges which confront contemporary criminological theorizing such as: the stagnation of critical criminology, the relativistic nihilism of the ‘cultural turn’, posthumanism, and virtual criminology, the author codifies and ‘applies’ the latest version of the framework to the study of crime, both in and out of cyberspace. Drawing upon evolutionary psychology, behavioural genetics and the philosophy of Heidegger, he introduces new terms such as ‘Neuro-Agency’ and notions of Embodied Cognition into criminological theorizing. Adopting a soft compatibilist approach to free-will, and Realist ontology, Owen’s meta-theoretical focus provides a new direction for criminological theorizing, in particular in the direction of the conceptualization and prediction of cyber violence. Exciting and timely, this book will appeal to scholars and advanced students of criminology, law, sociology, social policy, psychology, philosophy, policing and forensic investigation.
Social postmodernism and systematic theology can be considered the new pair in some of the most creative discussions on the future of theological method on a global scale. Both in the academy and in the public square, as well as in the manifold local and pastoral moments of ministry and community social activism, the social, the postmodern, and the theological intermingle in engaging and border-crossing ways. The Community of the Weak presents a new kind of jazzy fundamental theology with a postmodern touch, using jazz as a metaphor, writing ethnographically messy texts out of the personal windows of lived experiences, combining fragments of autobiography with theological reconstruction. A comparative perspective on North American and European developments in contemporary systematic theology serves as a hermeneutical horizon to juxtapose two continents in their very different contexts. The author proposes a systematic and fundamental theology that is more jazzy, global, and narrative, deeply embedded in pastoral ministry to tell its postmodern story.
