The Politics of Selfhood

Bodies and Identities in Global Capitalism

2003

Richard Harvey Brown, editor

Looks at the ways social change is expressed through debates over identities and bodies

Taking a cross-cultural approach, the authors consider how the body is constructed in various ways for different purposes, how the electronic media shapes selves and sensualities and contributes to civic discourse, and how global capitalism acts as a force in these processes.

Contributors: Antonella Fabri, Eva Illouz, Philip W. Jenks, Lauren Langman, Timothy W. Luke, Timothy McGettigan, Margaret J. Tally.

Highlighting the terra incognita that lies at the intersection of body, self/identity, and globalized capitalism, and in nicely illustrating, comparatively across cultures, the various fragmenting, disempowering ways in which the ‘personal’ is inescapably also ‘political’ within the context of a postmodern world.

Social and Economic Studies

In bodies and selves, we can see politics, economics, and culture play out, and the tensions and crises of society made visible. The women’s movement, lobbies for the elderly, pro-choice and pro-life movements, AIDS research and education, pedophilia and repressed memory, global sports spectacles, organ donor networks, campaigns for safe sex, chastity, or preventive medicine—all are aspects of the contemporary politics of bodies and identities touched on in this book. Three broad themes run through the collection: how the body is constructed in various ways for different purposes, how the electronic media and its uses shape selves and sensualities and contribute to civic discourse, and how global capitalism acts as a direct force in these processes. By taking a distinctly cross-cultural and comparative approach, this volume explores more fully than ever the political, economic, institutional, and cultural settings of corporeality, identity, and representation.

Contributors: Antonella Fabri, John Jay College and New York Academy of Medicine; Eva Illouz, Hebrew U of Jerusalem; Philip W. Jenks, Portland State U; Lauren Langman, Loyola U; Timothy W. Luke, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State U; Timothy McGettigan, Colorado State U, Pueblo; Margaret J. Tally, SUNY, Empire State College.

Richard Harvey Brown was professor of sociology at the University of Maryland.

Highlighting the terra incognita that lies at the intersection of body, self/identity, and globalized capitalism, and in nicely illustrating, comparatively across cultures, the various fragmenting, disempowering ways in which the ‘personal’ is inescapably also ‘political’ within the context of a postmodern world.

Social and Economic Studies