Of all the concepts which have emerged to describe the effects of capitalism on the human world, none is more graphic or easily grasped than reification the process by which men and women are turned into objects, things. Arising out of Marx s account of commodity fetishism, the concept of reification offers an unrivalled tool with which to explain the real consequences of the power of capital on consciousness itself. Symptoms of reification are proliferating around us from the branding of goods and services to racial and sexual stereotypes, all forms of religious faith, the growth of...
Of all the concepts which have emerged to describe the effects of capitalism on the human world, none is more graphic or easily grasped than reificati...
Melancholic and introspective, ironical and apolitical, the urban cynic is a myth of our time. A casualty of modernization? Or a product of postmodernism? In this original and provocative book, Timothy Bewes undertakes a descent into the modern cynical consciousness, and emerges with a critical assessment of the preoccupations of contemporary society. He charts the development of a culture of cynicism within postmodernity, in forms such as an obsession with finality and integrity, a widespread retreat into introspection and inertia, and a neurotic attachment to metaphysical truth. The...
Melancholic and introspective, ironical and apolitical, the urban cynic is a myth of our time. A casualty of modernization? Or a product of postmodern...
In a postcolonial world, where structures of power, hierarchy, and domination operate on a global scale, writers face an ethical and aesthetic dilemma: How to write without contributing to the inscription of inequality? How to process the colonial past without reverting to a pathology of self-disgust? Can literature ever be free of the shame of the postcolonial epoch--ever be truly postcolonial? As disparities of power seem only to be increasing, such questions are more urgent than ever. In this book, Timothy Bewes argues that shame is a dominant temperament in twentieth-century...
In a postcolonial world, where structures of power, hierarchy, and domination operate on a global scale, writers face an ethical and aesthetic dile...
The end of the Soviet period, the vast expansion in the power and influence of capital, and recent developments in social and aesthetic theory, have made the work of Hungarian Marxist philosopher and social critic Georg Lukacs more vital than ever.
The very innovations in literary method that, during the 80s and 90s, marginalized him in the West have now made possible new readings of Lukacs, less in thrall to the positions taken by Lukacs himself on political and aesthetic matters. What these developments amount to, this book argues, is an opportunity to liberate Lukacs's thought...
The end of the Soviet period, the vast expansion in the power and influence of capital, and recent developments in social and aesthetic theory, hav...
