Culture/Power/History

by Dirks, Nicholas B.; Eley, Geoff; Ortner, Sherry B.

• ISBN13: 9780691021027
• ISBN10: 0691021023
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1993-11-01
• Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr

Summary

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. Organized around these three concepts,Culture/ Power/Historybrings together both classic and new essays that address Foucault's "new economy of power relations" in a number of different, contestatory directions. Representing innovative work from various disciplines and sites of study, from taxidermy to Madonna, the book seeks to affirm the creative possibilities available in a time marked by growing uncertainty about established disciplinary forms of knowledge and by the increasing fluidity of the boundaries between them. The book is introduced by a major synthetic essay by the editors, which calls attention to the most significant issues enlivening theoretical discourse today. The editors seek not only to encourage scholars to reflect anew on the course of social theory, but also to orient newcomers to this area of inquiry. The essays are contributed by Linda Alcoff ("Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism"), Sally Alexander ("Women, Class, and Sexual Differences in the 1830s and 1840s"), Tony Bennett ("The Exhibitionary Complex"), Pierre Bourdieu ("Structures, Habitus, Power"), Nicholas B. Dirks ("Ritual and Resistance"), Geoff Eley ("Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures"), Michel Foucault (Two Lectures), Henry Louis Gates, Jr. ("Authority, [White] Power and the [Black] Critic"), Stephen Greenblatt ("The Circulation of Social Energy"), Ranajit Guha ("The Prose of Counter-Insurgency"), Stuart Hall ("Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms"), Susan Harding ("The Born-Again Telescandals"), Donna Haraway ("Teddy Bear Patriarchy"), Dick Hebdige ("After the Masses"), Susan McClary ("Living to Tell: Madonna's Resurrection of the Fleshly"), Sherry B. Ortner ("Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties"), Marshall Sahlins ("Cosmologies of Capitalism"), Elizabeth G. Traube ("Secrets of Success in Postmodern Society"), Raymond Williams (selections fromMarxism and Literature), and Judith Williamson ("Family, Education, Photography").

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Permissions Acknowledgments	xiii
Introduction	3	(44)
Nicholas B. Dirks
Geoff Eley
Sherry B. Ortner
PART ONE: CULTURE / POWER / HISTORY	47	(198)
Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908-1936	49	(47)
Donna Haraway
Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory	96	(27)
Linda Alcoff
The Exhibitionary Complex	123	(32)
Tony Bennett
Structures, Habitus, Power: Basis for a Theory of Symbolic Power	155	(45)
Pierre Boundieu
Two Lectures	200	(22)
Michel Foucault
After the Masses	222	(14)
Dick Hebdige
Family, Education, Photography	236	(9)
Judith Williamson
PART TWO: CULTURE / POWER / HISTORY	245	(212)
Authority, (White) Power and the (Black) Critic; It's All Greek to Me	247	(22)
Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Women, Class and Sexual Differences in the 1830s and 1840s: Some Reflections on the Writing of a Feminist History	269	(28)
Sally Alexander
Nations, Publics, and Political Cultures: Placing Habermas in the Nineteenth Century	297	(39)
Geoff Eley
The Prose of Counter-Insurgency	336	(36)
Ranajit Guha
Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties	372	(40)
Sherry B. Ortner
Cosmologies of Capitalism: The Trans-Pacific Sector of ``The World System''	412	(45)
Marshall Sahlins
PART THREE: CULTURE / POWER / HISTORY	457	(152)
Living to Tell: Madonna's Resurrection of the Fleshly	459	(24)
Susan McClary
Ritual and Resistance: Subversion as a Social Fact	483	(21)
Nicholas B. Dirks
The Circulation of Social Energy	504	(16)
Stephen Greenblatt
Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms	520	(19)
Stuart Hall
The Born-Again Telescandals	539	(18)
Susan Harding
Secrets of Success in Postmodern Society	557	(28)
Elizabeth G. Traube
Selections from Marxism and Literature	585	(24)
Raymond Williams
Notes on the Contributors	609	(4)
Index	613