Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Lemert, Charles

Titel

POSTMODERNISM IS NOT WHAT YOU THINK

Erscheinungsjahr

1997

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Sociological Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• A Vol in the series, Twentieth-Century Social Theory (Charles Lemert, series editor), shows that postmodernism is less a theory than a condition of social life brought about by processes endemic to modernity. It is suggested that postmodernism is not principally a form of social thought, but a new reality. Critics who disparage postmodern theory are taken to task for not recognizing this important distinction between thought & reality. Postmodern social theory is described as work that seriously considers the real breakup of the world caused by forces stemming from processes of modernity. Three changes from the modern to postmodern period are identified: collapse of the Euro-American world colonial system, lack of an unchallenged world center, & a pervasive challenge to a universal world culture based on Euro-American values. The explanatory utility of theoretical forms, eg, radical postmodernism, radical modernism, & strategic postmodernism, to explain aspects of postmodernism are reviewed, highlighting globalization, the media & popular culture, identity politics, the science wars, politics & cultural studies, structuralism & poststructuralism, & the new sociologies. It is concluded that the groups of contentious sociologies are not meaningless prattle, but represent the unconscious of a cultural war over troubles widely shared in global society. A series editor's Preface accompanies 9 Chpts in III PARTS & Notes. D. M. Smith