Author: Greg Sharzer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138242319
Category : Escape (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
This book suggests that escapism - the desire to leave one's physical or emotional circumstances for an ideal alternative - is a way to understand the social conflicts that structure our world. Considering this phenomenon across psychology, labour and cultural studies, the author engages with critical theorists such as Lukács, Fromm and Marcuse to examine how escapism appears in our minds, workplaces and utopian imaginaries from fiction to music. In this study, escapism emerges as a constitutive feature of the late capitalist lifeworld - a feature that must be understood in order to create social change. Defining escapism as a new field of study, Late Escapism and Contemporary Neoliberalism: Alienation, Work and Utopia suggests that the phenomenon has much to teach us about contemporary consciousness and how we resist and reshape the edicts of neoliberalism. As such, this book will appeal to scholars of cultural and critical theory, social movements and political sociology.
Escapism in Contemporary Capitalism
Author: Greg Sharzer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138242319
Category : Escape (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
This book suggests that escapism - the desire to leave one's physical or emotional circumstances for an ideal alternative - is a way to understand the social conflicts that structure our world. Considering this phenomenon across psychology, labour and cultural studies, the author engages with critical theorists such as Lukács, Fromm and Marcuse to examine how escapism appears in our minds, workplaces and utopian imaginaries from fiction to music. In this study, escapism emerges as a constitutive feature of the late capitalist lifeworld - a feature that must be understood in order to create social change. Defining escapism as a new field of study, Late Escapism and Contemporary Neoliberalism: Alienation, Work and Utopia suggests that the phenomenon has much to teach us about contemporary consciousness and how we resist and reshape the edicts of neoliberalism. As such, this book will appeal to scholars of cultural and critical theory, social movements and political sociology.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9781138242319
Category : Escape (Psychology)
Languages : en
Pages : 200
Book Description
This book suggests that escapism - the desire to leave one's physical or emotional circumstances for an ideal alternative - is a way to understand the social conflicts that structure our world. Considering this phenomenon across psychology, labour and cultural studies, the author engages with critical theorists such as Lukács, Fromm and Marcuse to examine how escapism appears in our minds, workplaces and utopian imaginaries from fiction to music. In this study, escapism emerges as a constitutive feature of the late capitalist lifeworld - a feature that must be understood in order to create social change. Defining escapism as a new field of study, Late Escapism and Contemporary Neoliberalism: Alienation, Work and Utopia suggests that the phenomenon has much to teach us about contemporary consciousness and how we resist and reshape the edicts of neoliberalism. As such, this book will appeal to scholars of cultural and critical theory, social movements and political sociology.
Late Escapism and Contemporary Neoliberalism
Author: Greg Sharzer
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315278723
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
This book suggests that escapism – the desire to leave one’s physical or emotional circumstances for an ideal alternative – is a way to understand the social conflicts that structure our world. Considering this phenomenon across psychology, labour and cultural studies, the author engages with critical theorists such as Lukács, Fromm and Marcuse to examine how escapism appears in our minds, workplaces and utopian imaginaries from fiction to music. In this study, escapism emerges as a constitutive feature of the late capitalist lifeworld – a feature that must be understood in order to create social change. Defining escapism as a new field of study, Late Escapism and Contemporary Neoliberalism: Alienation, Work and Utopia suggests that the phenomenon has much to teach us about contemporary consciousness and how we resist and reshape the edicts of neoliberalism. As such, this book will appeal to scholars of cultural and critical theory, social movements and political sociology.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315278723
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
This book suggests that escapism – the desire to leave one’s physical or emotional circumstances for an ideal alternative – is a way to understand the social conflicts that structure our world. Considering this phenomenon across psychology, labour and cultural studies, the author engages with critical theorists such as Lukács, Fromm and Marcuse to examine how escapism appears in our minds, workplaces and utopian imaginaries from fiction to music. In this study, escapism emerges as a constitutive feature of the late capitalist lifeworld – a feature that must be understood in order to create social change. Defining escapism as a new field of study, Late Escapism and Contemporary Neoliberalism: Alienation, Work and Utopia suggests that the phenomenon has much to teach us about contemporary consciousness and how we resist and reshape the edicts of neoliberalism. As such, this book will appeal to scholars of cultural and critical theory, social movements and political sociology.
Entering the Multiverse
Author: Paul Booth
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040254632
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
The multiverse has portaled into the mainstream. Entering the Multiverse unpacks the surprising growth of the multiverse in media and popular culture today, and explores how the concept of alternate realities and parallel worlds has acted as a metaphor for centuries. Edited by leading media and popular culture scholar Paul Booth, this collection explores the many different manifestations of the multiverse across different genres, media, fan-created works, and cultural theory. Each chapter delves into different aspects of the multiverse, including its use as a metaphor, as a scientific reality, and as a media-industry strategy. Addressing the multiplicity of multiversal meanings through multiple perspectives and always with an eye toward engagement with contemporary cultural issues, the chapters also examine various distinctions and contradictions, in order to provide a strong basis for further thinking, writing, and research on the concept of the multiverse. Chapters in this collection tell the story of the multiverse in multiple realities: creative nonfiction, academic essay, screenplay, art, poetry, video, and audio essay. A compelling read for students, researchers, and scholars of media and cultural studies, film and media culture, popular culture, comics studies, game studies, literary studies, and beyond.
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040254632
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338
Book Description
The multiverse has portaled into the mainstream. Entering the Multiverse unpacks the surprising growth of the multiverse in media and popular culture today, and explores how the concept of alternate realities and parallel worlds has acted as a metaphor for centuries. Edited by leading media and popular culture scholar Paul Booth, this collection explores the many different manifestations of the multiverse across different genres, media, fan-created works, and cultural theory. Each chapter delves into different aspects of the multiverse, including its use as a metaphor, as a scientific reality, and as a media-industry strategy. Addressing the multiplicity of multiversal meanings through multiple perspectives and always with an eye toward engagement with contemporary cultural issues, the chapters also examine various distinctions and contradictions, in order to provide a strong basis for further thinking, writing, and research on the concept of the multiverse. Chapters in this collection tell the story of the multiverse in multiple realities: creative nonfiction, academic essay, screenplay, art, poetry, video, and audio essay. A compelling read for students, researchers, and scholars of media and cultural studies, film and media culture, popular culture, comics studies, game studies, literary studies, and beyond.
EA Sports FIFA
Author: Raiford Guins
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501375350
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
If there is anything close to a universal game, it is association football, also known as soccer, football, fussball, fútbol, fitba, and futebol. The game has now moved from the physical to the digital - EA's football simulation series FIFA - with profound impacts on the multibillion sports and digital game industries, their cultures and players. Throughout its development history, EA's FIFA has managed to adapt to and adopt almost all video game industry trends, becoming an assemblage of game types and technologies that is in itself a multi-faceted probe of the medium's culture, history, and technology. EA Sports FIFA: Feeling the Game is the first scholarly book to address the importance of EA's FIFA. From looking at the cultures of fandom to analyzing the technical elements of the sports simulation, and covering the complicated relations that EA's FIFA has with gender, embodiment, and masculinity, this collection provides a comprehensive understanding of a video game series that is changing the way the most popular sport in the world is experienced. In doing so, the book serves as a reference text for scholars in many disciplines, including game studies, sociology of sports, history of games, and sports research.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501375350
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
Book Description
If there is anything close to a universal game, it is association football, also known as soccer, football, fussball, fútbol, fitba, and futebol. The game has now moved from the physical to the digital - EA's football simulation series FIFA - with profound impacts on the multibillion sports and digital game industries, their cultures and players. Throughout its development history, EA's FIFA has managed to adapt to and adopt almost all video game industry trends, becoming an assemblage of game types and technologies that is in itself a multi-faceted probe of the medium's culture, history, and technology. EA Sports FIFA: Feeling the Game is the first scholarly book to address the importance of EA's FIFA. From looking at the cultures of fandom to analyzing the technical elements of the sports simulation, and covering the complicated relations that EA's FIFA has with gender, embodiment, and masculinity, this collection provides a comprehensive understanding of a video game series that is changing the way the most popular sport in the world is experienced. In doing so, the book serves as a reference text for scholars in many disciplines, including game studies, sociology of sports, history of games, and sports research.
24/7
Author: Jonathan Crary
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1781680930
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 145
Book Description
Capitalism's colonization of every hour in the day
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1781680930
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 145
Book Description
Capitalism's colonization of every hour in the day
Video Games as Culture
Author: Daniel Muriel
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317223926
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
Video games are becoming culturally dominant. But what does their popularity say about our contemporary society? This book explores video game culture, but in doing so, utilizes video games as a lens through which to understand contemporary social life. Video games are becoming an increasingly central part of our cultural lives, impacting on various aspects of everyday life such as our consumption, communities, and identity formation. Drawing on new and original empirical data – including interviews with gamers, as well as key representatives from the video game industry, media, education, and cultural sector – Video Games as Culture not only considers contemporary video game culture, but also explores how video games provide important insights into the modern nature of digital and participatory culture, patterns of consumption and identity formation, late modernity, and contemporary political rationalities. This book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers, interested in fields such Video Games, Sociology, and Media and Cultural Studies. It will also be useful for those interested in the wider role of culture, technology, and consumption in the transformation of society, identities, and communities.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317223926
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198
Book Description
Video games are becoming culturally dominant. But what does their popularity say about our contemporary society? This book explores video game culture, but in doing so, utilizes video games as a lens through which to understand contemporary social life. Video games are becoming an increasingly central part of our cultural lives, impacting on various aspects of everyday life such as our consumption, communities, and identity formation. Drawing on new and original empirical data – including interviews with gamers, as well as key representatives from the video game industry, media, education, and cultural sector – Video Games as Culture not only considers contemporary video game culture, but also explores how video games provide important insights into the modern nature of digital and participatory culture, patterns of consumption and identity formation, late modernity, and contemporary political rationalities. This book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers, interested in fields such Video Games, Sociology, and Media and Cultural Studies. It will also be useful for those interested in the wider role of culture, technology, and consumption in the transformation of society, identities, and communities.
The Ethics of Neoliberalism
Author: Peter Bloom
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317212673
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
The 21st century is the age of "neo-liberalism" – a time when the free market is spreading to all areas of economic, political and social life. Yet how is this changing our individual and collective ethics? Is capitalism also becoming our new morality? From the growing popular demand for corporate social responsibility to personal desire for "work-life balance" it would appear that non-market ideals are not only surviving but also thriving. Why then does it seem that capitalism remains as strong as ever? The Ethics of Neoliberalism boldly proposes that neoliberalism strategically co-opts traditional ethics to ideologically and structurally strengthen capitalism. It produces "the ethical capitalist subject" who is personally responsible for making their society, workplace and even their lives "more ethical" in the face of an immoral but seemingly permanent free market. Rather than altering our morality, neoliberalism "individualizes" ethics, making us personally responsible for dealing with and resolving its moral failings. In doing so, individuals end up perpetuating the very market system that they morally oppose and feel powerless to ultimately change. This analysis reveals the complex and paradoxical way capitalism is currently shaping us as "ethical subjects". People are increasingly asked to ethically "save" capitalism both collectively and personally. This can range from the "moral responsibility" to politically accept austerity following the financial crisis to the willingness of employees to sacrifice their time and energy to make their neoliberal organizations more "humane" to the efforts by individuals to contribute to their family and communities despite the pressures of a franetic global business environment. Neoliberalism, thus, uses our ethics against us, relying on our "good nature" and sense of personal responsibility to reduce its human cost in practice. Ironically
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1317212673
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 230
Book Description
The 21st century is the age of "neo-liberalism" – a time when the free market is spreading to all areas of economic, political and social life. Yet how is this changing our individual and collective ethics? Is capitalism also becoming our new morality? From the growing popular demand for corporate social responsibility to personal desire for "work-life balance" it would appear that non-market ideals are not only surviving but also thriving. Why then does it seem that capitalism remains as strong as ever? The Ethics of Neoliberalism boldly proposes that neoliberalism strategically co-opts traditional ethics to ideologically and structurally strengthen capitalism. It produces "the ethical capitalist subject" who is personally responsible for making their society, workplace and even their lives "more ethical" in the face of an immoral but seemingly permanent free market. Rather than altering our morality, neoliberalism "individualizes" ethics, making us personally responsible for dealing with and resolving its moral failings. In doing so, individuals end up perpetuating the very market system that they morally oppose and feel powerless to ultimately change. This analysis reveals the complex and paradoxical way capitalism is currently shaping us as "ethical subjects". People are increasingly asked to ethically "save" capitalism both collectively and personally. This can range from the "moral responsibility" to politically accept austerity following the financial crisis to the willingness of employees to sacrifice their time and energy to make their neoliberal organizations more "humane" to the efforts by individuals to contribute to their family and communities despite the pressures of a franetic global business environment. Neoliberalism, thus, uses our ethics against us, relying on our "good nature" and sense of personal responsibility to reduce its human cost in practice. Ironically
No Local
Author: Greg Sharzer
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1780993323
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 189
Book Description
Can making things smaller make the world a better place? No Local takes a critical look at localism, an ideology that says small businesses, ethical shopping and community initiatives like gardens and farmers’ markets can stop corporate globalization. These small acts might make life better for some, but they don’t challenge the drive for profit that’s damaging our communities and the earth. No Local shows how localism’s fixation on small comes from an outdated economic model. Growth is built into capitalism. Small firms must play by the same rules as large ones, cutting costs, exploiting workers and damaging the environment. Localism doesn’t ask who controls production, allowing it to be co-opted by governments offloading social services onto the poor. At worst, localism becomes a strategy for neoliberal politics, not an alternative to it. No Local draws on political theory, history, philosophy and empirical evidence to argue that small isn’t always beautiful. Building a better world means creating local social movements that grow to challenge, not avoid, market priorities.
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 1780993323
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 189
Book Description
Can making things smaller make the world a better place? No Local takes a critical look at localism, an ideology that says small businesses, ethical shopping and community initiatives like gardens and farmers’ markets can stop corporate globalization. These small acts might make life better for some, but they don’t challenge the drive for profit that’s damaging our communities and the earth. No Local shows how localism’s fixation on small comes from an outdated economic model. Growth is built into capitalism. Small firms must play by the same rules as large ones, cutting costs, exploiting workers and damaging the environment. Localism doesn’t ask who controls production, allowing it to be co-opted by governments offloading social services onto the poor. At worst, localism becomes a strategy for neoliberal politics, not an alternative to it. No Local draws on political theory, history, philosophy and empirical evidence to argue that small isn’t always beautiful. Building a better world means creating local social movements that grow to challenge, not avoid, market priorities.
The Circle of the Snake
Author: Grafton Tanner
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 178904023X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
Shocked by 9/11, the Great Recession, digital anxiety, and ecological collapse, the West suffers from nostalgia. People everywhere yearn for a utopian version of the past that never existed. Desperate for relief, many long to escape from the present. Some will stop at nothing to achieve it. In his essential new book, Grafton Tanner, author of Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts, argues that our nostalgia today is partly a consequence of the attention economy. At a time when historical literacy is crucial, and old prejudices are percolating into the present, Big Tech’s predictive algorithms are locking us into nostalgic feedback loops. The result is a precarious society with its gaze fixed on the good old days. Spanning from the ancient Sophists to Black Mirror, The Circle of the Snake is at once a reckoning with the myth of digital utopia and an incisive analysis of nostalgia as a weapon to spread fascism.
Publisher: John Hunt Publishing
ISBN: 178904023X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 174
Book Description
Shocked by 9/11, the Great Recession, digital anxiety, and ecological collapse, the West suffers from nostalgia. People everywhere yearn for a utopian version of the past that never existed. Desperate for relief, many long to escape from the present. Some will stop at nothing to achieve it. In his essential new book, Grafton Tanner, author of Babbling Corpse: Vaporwave and the Commodification of Ghosts, argues that our nostalgia today is partly a consequence of the attention economy. At a time when historical literacy is crucial, and old prejudices are percolating into the present, Big Tech’s predictive algorithms are locking us into nostalgic feedback loops. The result is a precarious society with its gaze fixed on the good old days. Spanning from the ancient Sophists to Black Mirror, The Circle of the Snake is at once a reckoning with the myth of digital utopia and an incisive analysis of nostalgia as a weapon to spread fascism.
Identity Troubles
Author: Anthony Elliott
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135043728
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Book Description
In our turbulent world of global flows and digital transformations pervasive identity crises and self-reinvention have become increasingly central to everyday life. In this fascinating book, Anthony Elliott shows how global transformations – the new electronic economy, digital worlds, biotechnologies and artificial intelligence - generatesa metamorphosis across the force-field of identities today. Identity Troubles documents various contemporary mutations of identity – from robotics to biomedicine, from cosmetic surgery to digital lives – and considers their broader social, cultural and political consequences. Elliott offers a synthesis of the key conceptual innovations in identity studies in the context of recent social theory. He critically examines accounts of "individualization", "reflexivity", "liquidization" and "new maladies of the soul" – situating these in wider social and historical contexts, and drawing out critical themes. He follows with a series of chapters looking at how what is truly new in contemporary life is having profound consequences for identities, both private and public. This book will be essential reading for undergraduate students in sociology, cultural studies, political science, and human geography. It offers the first comprehensive overview of identity studies in the interdisciplinary field of social theory.
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135043728
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 219
Book Description
In our turbulent world of global flows and digital transformations pervasive identity crises and self-reinvention have become increasingly central to everyday life. In this fascinating book, Anthony Elliott shows how global transformations – the new electronic economy, digital worlds, biotechnologies and artificial intelligence - generatesa metamorphosis across the force-field of identities today. Identity Troubles documents various contemporary mutations of identity – from robotics to biomedicine, from cosmetic surgery to digital lives – and considers their broader social, cultural and political consequences. Elliott offers a synthesis of the key conceptual innovations in identity studies in the context of recent social theory. He critically examines accounts of "individualization", "reflexivity", "liquidization" and "new maladies of the soul" – situating these in wider social and historical contexts, and drawing out critical themes. He follows with a series of chapters looking at how what is truly new in contemporary life is having profound consequences for identities, both private and public. This book will be essential reading for undergraduate students in sociology, cultural studies, political science, and human geography. It offers the first comprehensive overview of identity studies in the interdisciplinary field of social theory.