Postmodern Social Analysis And Criticism

Although postmodernism has had clear impact on literary criticism, the social and political implications of this philosophy have not been systematically investigated. Murphy's study is the first to bring a broad interdisciplinary perspective to the subject and to present postmodernism as a coherent social theory. Responding with compelling arguments to critics of postmodernism, Murphy develops a model that offers a viable alternative to traditional approaches to conceptualizing and studying social life. In an introductory chapter, Murphy looks at the differences between modernism and postmodernism and discusses the metanarratives that characterize the former. He goes on to clarify key assumptions and concepts, especially the postmodern opposition to the traditional Western separation of subject and object. In subsequent chapters, he describes the research methodology used by postmodernists, their views of social ontology and the relationship between order and structure, and the creation of socially responsible institutions. The postmodernists' reconceptualization of key aspects of cultural reality, including time, space, reason, and social relations, is examined in detail. Murphy concludes by exploring the political ramifications of the postmodernist model and its potential as a vehicle for building a genuinely democractic society. This study will be of particular interest to philosophers, economists, and sociologists concerned with contemporary developments in European social philosophy. It is relevant to courses or study in social theory and philosophy, communication theory, cultural criticism, and related fields.

The Postmodern Turn gathers together in one volume some of the most important statements of the postmodern approach to human studies. In addressing postmodern social theory and emphasising the social role of knowledge, this book abandons the disciplinary boundaries separating the sciences and the humanities. The first collection of its kind, it provides the classic essays of authors such as Lyotard, Haraway, Foucault and Rorty. Contributors include well-known theorists in the fields of sociology, anthropology, women's and gay studies, philosophy, and history.

This introduction to postmodernism offers a comprehensive examination of postmodern theory and its application to the study of society. It surveys the work of theorists and explores the potential and limits of postmodern analysis across key areas of development, including deconstruction, semiotics, the new ethnography and feminist theory. This guide should be suitable as an undergraduate text for social and cultural theory courses and should appeal to students of social research methods.

Significant to Dunn's critique of poststructuralist and postmodern theories is his application of George Herbert Mead as a means of theorizing identity and difference. The focus on postmodernity, rather than postmodernism grounds his analysis of identity and difference both materially and socially.

This book provides an overview of postmodern themes, evaluates the possibilities and dangers of postmodernist thinking and develops ideas on how a selective, sceptical incorporation of postmodernism can make social research more conscious about problems and pitfalls, and more creative in working with empirical material (so called data). A reflexive orientation runs throughout the book, which addresses themes such as how to understand the individual in research, how to deal with the knowledge/power connection, how to relate to language and how to unpack rather than take for granted socially dominant categories in research work. One chapter addresses the research interview in the light of postmodernist concerns about the naivety of assuming that the interviewee is simply an informant, a truth-teller authentically expressing his or her experiences and meaning. Other chapters address issues of voice, interpretation, writing and reflexivity. The book includes a range of empirical illustrations of how postmodernist ideas can inspire social research, and in all it represents a valuable text for students and researchers alike.

Transforming Social Work Practice shows that postmodern theory offers new strategies for social workers concerned with political action and social justice. It explores ways of developing practice frameworks, paradigms and principles which take advantage of the perspectives offered by postmodern theory without totally abandoning the values of modernity and the Enlightenment project of human emancipation. Case studies demonstrate how these perspectives can be applied to practice.

This highly original and timely volume engages scholars from the breadth of social science and the humanities to provide a critical perspective on cultural forms, practices and identities. It looks beyond the postmodern debate to reinstate the critical dimension in cultural analysis, providing a "student-friendly" introduction to key contemporary issues such as the body, AIDS, race, the environment and virtual reality. Theorizing Culture is essential reading for undergraduate courses in cultural and media studies and sociology, and will have considerable appeal for students and scholars of critical theory, gender studies and the history of ideas.

Postmodernism and the Politics of 'Culture' is a comparative critical analysis of the political and intellectual ambitions of postmodernist critical theory and the academic discipline of cultural studies. Katz's polemical aim is to show that cultural studies comes up short in both areas, because its practitioners focus on too-narrow issues-primarily, celebrating the folkways of micro-communities-while denying the very possibility of studying, understanding, and changing society in any comprehensive way and to any universally beneficial purpose. He argues that scholars and activists alike would do well to make use of the analytical tools of postmodernist critical theory, whose practitioners acknowledge the political significance of the differences between social groups, but do not consider them to be unbridgeable, and so seek to develop a set of practices for creating a truly inclusive, truly democratic public sphere.