The Evolution of Alienation Trauma, Promise, And the Millennium

by Langman, Lauren; Kalekin-Fishman, Devorah; Berlet, Chip; Dahms, Harry F.; David, Matthew; Gibson, Rick; Gimenez, Martha; Halnon, Karen; Kellner, Douglas; Langman, Lauren; Porpora, Douglas; Prosono, Marvin; Salerno, Roger A.; Smith, David Norman

• ISBN13: 9780742518353
• ISBN10: 0742518353
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-11-18
• Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Summary

Building on the Marxian view of alienation as the inevitable consequence of wage labor that divests human beings of control over their life forces, The Evolution of Alienation provides new insights into contemporary conditions. Contributors explore how alienation is fostered not only by television freak shows and shock music, but also by programmed schooling and even by some scientific theories. Others show that the contradictory relationships possible in some domains, among them, new technologies and domestic work, disclose niches of fulfillment that belie alienation.

Author Biography

Lauren Langman is Professor of sociology at Loyola University of Chicago. Devorah Kalekin Fishman is senior researcher at the University of Haifa in Israel.

Table of Contents

Preface	ix
Acknowledgments	xi
Introduction	1	(22)
Lauren Langman
Devorah Kalekin-Fishman
Part I. Theorizing Promise: Shifting Views of Alienation
Does Alienation Have a Future? Recapturing the Core of Critical Theory	23	(24)
Harry F. Dahms
New Technologies and Alienation: Some Critical Reflections	47	(22)
Douglas Kellner
Embodiment and Communication: Alienation, Genetics, and Computing. What Does It Mean to Be Human?	69	(22)
Matthew David
Part II. Trauma: Alienated Politics
Authority Fetishism and the Manichaean Vision: Stigma, Stereotyping, and Charisma as Keys to Pseudo-Orientation in an Estranged Society	91	(24)
David Norman Smith
When Alienation Turns Right: Populist Conspiracism, the Apocalyptic Style, and Neofascist Movements	115	(30)
Chip Berlet
Lonely Privilege in Despair: Aiming for Unfeigned Hope	145	(34)
Rich Gibson
Part III. Alienation in Identity, Culture, and Religion
Globalization, Alienation, and Identity: A Critical Approach	179	(22)
Lauren Langman
Alienation Incorporated: ``F---the Mainstream Music'' in the Mainstream	201	(26)
Karen Bettez Halnon
The Final Indignity: The Commodification of Alienation	227	(16)
Marvin Prosono
Alienation and the Cosmos	243	(10)
Douglas Porpora
Part IV. Alienation, Gender, and Everyday Life
Alienated Communities: Between Aloneness and Connectedness	253	(16)
Roger A. Salerno
Loving Alienation: The Contradictions of Domestic Work	269	(14)
Martha E. Gimenez
``Plain Talk'': Producing and Reproducing Alienation	283	(26)
Devorah Kalekin-Fishman
Index	309	(8)
About the Editors and Contributors	317