Images of Postmodern Society: Social Theory and Contemporary Cinema / Edition 1

by Norman K. Denzin

Overview

The idea of postmodernism poses a fundamental challenge to established modes of understanding society. Postmodern theory represents individuals in the contemporary world as voyeurs adrift in a sea of symbols, knowing and seeing themselves through mediated images from cinema and television.

In this book Norman Denzin uses a series of studies of contemporary mainstream Hollywood movies to explore the tension between ideas of the postmodern, and traditional ways of analyzing society. The discussion moves between two forms of text: social theory, and cinematic representations of contemporary life. Denzin analyzes the ideas of society embedded in poststructuralism, postmodernism, feminism, cultural studies and Marxism through the ideas of key theorists (Mills, Baudrillard, Barthes, Habermas, Jameson, Bourdieu, Derrida and others). He relates these ideas to the problematic of the postmodern self as exposed in cinema - Blue Velvet, Wall Street, Crimes and Misdemeanors, When Harry Met Sally, sex lies and videotape, Do the Right Thing - centering on the decisive performance of race, gender and class.

Images of Postmodern Society moves beyond a simply theoretical analysis of postmodernism to show how it relates to a series of key texts in contemporary life. In doing so, it demonstrates the challenge of postmodernism to classical sociological ways of representing and writing about the dramaturgical, cinematic society. The insights of this approach will appeal to students and researchers not only in sociology and cultural studies but also in philosophy, film theory and across social sciences and humanities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803985162
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	09/26/1991
Series:	Theory, Culture and Society Series , #11
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	196
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.42(d)

About the Author

Norman K. Denzin is Distinguished Professor of Communications, College of Communications Scholar, and Research Professor of Communications, Sociology, and Humanities at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Denzin is the author or editor of more than two dozen books, including Indians on Display; Custer on Canvas; The Qualitative Manifesto; Qualitative Inquiry Under Fire; Searching for Yellowstone; Reading Race; Interpretive Ethnography; The Cinematic Society; The Voyeur’s Gaze; and The Alcoholic Self. He is past editor of The Sociological Quarterly, co-editor (with Yvonna S. Lincoln) of four editions of the Handbook of Qualitative Research, coeditor (with Michael D. Giardina) of eight plenary volumes from the annual Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, co-editor (with Lincoln) of the methods journal Qualitative Inquiry, founding editor of Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies and International Review of Qualitative Research, and editor of three book series.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: THE POSTMODERN
Defining the Postmodern Terrain
Postmodern Social Theory Takes on the Postmodern
Baudrillard, Lyotard, and Jameson
Learning from Mills
PART TWO: LEARNING FROM CINEMA
Wild About Lynch
Blue Velvet
Nouveau Capitalists on Wall Street
Crimes and Misdemeanors in Manhattan
The Postmodern Sexual Order
Sex, Lies, and Yuppie Love
Do the Right Thing
Race in the USA
Paris, Texas
Mills and Baudrillard in America
In Conclusion
The Eye of the Postmodern