Exit Capitalism: Literary Culture, Theory and Post-Secular Modernity

by During; Simon

• ISBN13: 9780415246545
• ISBN10: 0415246547
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-09-24
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Exit Capitalism explores a new path for cultural studies and re-examines key moments of British cultural and literary history. Simon During argues that the long and liberating journey towards democratic state capitalism has led to an unhappy dead-end from which there is no imaginable exit. In this context, what do the humanities look like? What's alive and what's dead in the culture and its heritage? It becomes clear that the contemporary world order remains imperfect not just because it is unjust but because it cannot meet ethical standards produced in a past that still knew genuine hope. Simon During emphasises the need to rethink the position of Christianity and religion in the past, and at a more concrete level, also analyses how the decline of the socialist ideal and the emergence of endgame capitalism helped to produce both modern theory and cultural studies as academic fields.

Author Biography

Simon During teaches at the English Department of Johns Hopkins University, USA. He is also a Professional Fellow at the School of Culture and Communications at the University of Melbourne, Australia. His most recent books are Modern Enchantments: The Cultural Power of Secular Magic (2002) and Cultural Studies: A Critical Introduction (2005). He is also the editor of the three editions of the Cultural Studies Reader.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. vi
Modernizing the English literary field	p. 1
Church, state, and modernization: literature as gentlemanly knowledge after 1688	p. 3
Quakery, selfhood, and the emergence of the modern cultural marketplace	p. 24
Interesting: the politics of the sympathetic imagination	p. 39
Towards endgame capitalism: literature, theory, culture	p. 55
World literature, Stalinism, and the nation: Christina Stead as lost object	p. 57
Socialist ends: the emergence of academic theory in post-war Britain	p. 95
Completing secularism: the mundane in the neo-liberal era	p. 115
Refusing capitalism? Theory and cultural studies after 1968	p. 131
Notes	p. 162
Bibliography	p. 173
Index	p. 187
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