Why are sport stars central to celebrity culture? What are the implications of their fame?
Proceeding from a broadly based discussion of heroism, fame and celebrity, Smart addresses a number of prominent modern sports and sport stars, including Michael Jordan (basketball), David Beckham (football), Tiger Woods (golf), Anna Kournikova and the Williams sisters (tennis).
He analyses the development of modern sport in the UK and USA, demonstrating the key economic and cultural factors that have contributed to the popularity of sport stars, while examining issues such as race and gender, the...
Why are sport stars central to celebrity culture? What are the implications of their fame?
Proceeding from a broadly based discussion of heroism, f...
The last decade has witnessed a clear and steady rise of interest in consumer culture. Many commentators now argue that consumption rather than production is the axis of personal identity and meaningful social action - a standpoint that reverses the traditional view that consumption is an incidental, trivial feature in contemporary culture.
This shrewd and probing book seeks to theorize shopping as an autonomous realm. It avoids the reductionist characteristics of economics and marketing. At the same time it avoids the moralizing tone of many contemporary discussions of shopping and...
The last decade has witnessed a clear and steady rise of interest in consumer culture. Many commentators now argue that consumption rather than produc...
This innovative collection examines the emerging arena of cyberspace and the challenges it presents for the social and cultural forms of the human body. It shows how changing relations between body and technology offer new arenas for cultural representations.
This innovative collection examines the emerging arena of cyberspace and the challenges it presents for the social and cultural forms of the human bod...
This penetrating book raises questions about how power and resistance operate in contemporary society. Scott Lash argues that critique must take place from within information flows, rather than from the safety of academic detachment' and that information is power. The book identifies a central contradiction of the information society, that is, the more intelligent and rational that the information society becomes, the more irrational may be the consequences. Written by one of the most celebrated commentators on power and culture, the book is a major testament on the prospects of intellectual...
This penetrating book raises questions about how power and resistance operate in contemporary society. Scott Lash argues that critique must take place...
Demonstrating that all notions of nature are entangled in different forms of social life, the text elaborates the ways in which the apparently natural world has been produced from within particular social practices. These are analyzed in terms of different senses, different times and the production of distinct spaces.
Demonstrating that all notions of nature are entangled in different forms of social life, the text elaborates the ways in which the apparently natural...
Drawing on the work of Derrida, Foucault, Levinas and Ricouer, this book proposes that the question of postmodernity is inseparable from that of postcolonialism. It maps out a new geneaology of the birth of the modern and suggests a new way of grounding the idea of an emancipation of being.
Drawing on the work of Derrida, Foucault, Levinas and Ricouer, this book proposes that the question of postmodernity is inseparable from that of postc...
Culture is big business. It is at the root of many urban regeneration schemes throughout the world, yet the economy of culture is under-theorized and under-developed.
In this wide-ranging and penetrating volume, the economic logic and structure of the modern cultural industries is explained. The connection between cultural production and urban-industrial concentration is demonstrated and the book shows why global cities are the homelands of the modern cultural industries. This book covers many sectors of cultural economy, from craft industries such as clothing and furniture, to modern...
Culture is big business. It is at the root of many urban regeneration schemes throughout the world, yet the economy of culture is under-theorized and ...
This is a very fine text, a powerful piece of work that deserves to be read widely. The analysis is truly panoramic. It ranges across central concerns in the fields of social theory, political theory, and science studies and engages with and/or draws upon the ideas of key classical and contemporary thinkers, including Tocqueville, Weber, Schumpeter, Polyani, Habermas, Foucault, Schmitt and Beck' - Barry Smart, Professor of Sociology, University of Portsmouth
What are the political implications of 'expert' knowledge and especially scientific knowledge for liberal...
This is a very fine text, a powerful piece of work that deserves to be read widely. The analysis is truly panoramic. It ranges across central concerns...
This text considers Bakhtin as a social theorist, discussing him as a major intellectual figure and relating his ideas to theoretical trends and developments. The book is organized around the four main themes of Bakhtin's work: dialogics, carnivals, conversations and ethics and everyday life.
This text considers Bakhtin as a social theorist, discussing him as a major intellectual figure and relating his ideas to theoretical trends and devel...
