Culture/power/history: A Reader in Contemporary Social TheoryNicholas B. Dirks, Geoff Eley, Sherry B. Ortner Princeton University Press, 1994 - 621 pages 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. |
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... least until ruptured by " cul- ture contact . " But as anthropologists have begun to adopt , at least partially , a historical perspective , the durability of culture has dissolved . In many cases , timeless traditions turn out to have ...
... least some of the critique and transforma- tion of the culture concept derives from its use in creative , and not simply derivative , ways in other fields — in history , philosophy , sociology , and liter- ary criticism , to name only ...
... least society itself , for public display . Foucault argued in Discipline and Punish ( 1977a ) that the modern prison was part of the development of a society based not on spectacle but on sur- veillance . The panopticon was seen from ...
... least one other major strand of social and cultural theorizing which , rather than stressing the determination of power through history , places human agency and social practice at the very center of the problematic . Theories ...
... least partially different sets of practices and views of the world ; and sometimes emphasizing the openness and inexhaustiblity of creative cultural forms , which demand interpretive flexibility and imagina- tiveness on the part of the ...
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Culture/power/history: A Reader in Contemporary Social Theory Nicholas B. Dirks,Geoff Eley No preview available - 1994 |