Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism (A Public Culture book) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 082232704X ISBN 13: 9780822327042

Publisher: Duke University Press, 2001

Synopsis

The essays in Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism pose a series of related questions: How are we to understand capitalism at the millennium? Is it a singular or polythetic creature? What are we to make of the culture of neoliberalism that appears to accompany it, taking on simultaneously local and translocal forms? To what extent does it make sense to describe the present juncture in world history as an "age of revolution," one not unlike 1789-1848 in its transformative potential? In exploring the material and cultural dimensions of the Age of Millennial Capitalism, the contributors interrogate the so-called crisis of the nation-state, how the triumph of the free market obscures rising tides of violence and cultures of exclusion, and the growth of new forms of identity politics. The collection also investigates the tendency of neoliberal capitalism to produce a world of increasing differences in wealth, environmental catastrophes, heightened flows of people and value across space and time, moral panics and social impossibilities, bitter generational antagonisms and gender conflicts, invisible class distinction, and "pariah" forms of economic activity. In the process, the volume opens up an empirically grounded, conceptual discussion about the world-at-large at a particularly momentous historical time-when the social sciences and humanities are in danger of ceding intellectual initiative to the masters of the market and the media. In addition to its crossdisciplinary essays, Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism-originally the third installment of the journal Public Culture's "Millennial Quartet"-features several photographic essays. The book will interest anthropologists, political geographers, economists, sociologists, and political theorists.Contributors. Scott Bradwell, Jean Comaroff, John L. Comaroff, Fernando Coronil, Peter Geschiere, David Harvey, Luiz Paulo Lima, Caitrin Lynch, Rosalind C. Morris, David G. Nicholls, Francis Nyamnjoh, Elizabeth A. Povinelli, Paul Ryer, Allan Sekula, Irene Stengs, Michael Storper, Seamus Walsh, Robert P. Weller, Hylton White, Melissa W. Wright, Jeffrey A. Zimmerman

About this title

Review

"In an extrarodinary introduction the editors of this book set out to interrogate the features of capitalism at the millennium, not only its technical but also its messianic and magical manifestations. This makes for an unusual treatment of familiar subjects. . . . [M]ust reading for anyone concerned with transnational processes."--Saskia Sassen, author of The Global City

"The savvy success of 'postmodernism, ' that cynical sign of the fin de siecle, has prevented us from re-imagining the present and mapping the future. Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism steps into the breach and opens up a new chapter in our understanding of a world of contradictory forces and ambivalent affiliations. When the rapid expansion of free markets sends sovereign states into free fall, and the value of citizenship is measured in the currency of consumption, the time is ripe for a radical rethinking of political passion in the public interest. In a fine double act the Comaroffs, and their gifted contributors, provide us with brilliant ethnographic and ethical accounts of a world-system whose emergent structures are both older and newer than the globalizing jargon of our times."--Homi K. Bhabha, University of Chicago

From the Back Cover

"The savvy success of 'postmodernism, ' that cynical sign of the fin de siecle, has prevented us from re-imagining the present and mapping the future. "Millennial Capitalism and the Culture of Neoliberalism "steps into the breach and opens up a new chapter in our understanding of a world of contradictory forces and ambivalent affiliations. When the rapid expansion of free markets sends sovereign states into free fall, and the value of citizenship is measured in the currency of consumption, the time is ripe for a radical rethinking of political passion in the public interest. In a fine double act the Comaroffs, and their gifted contributors, provide us with brilliant ethnographic and ethical accounts of a world-system whose emergent structures are both older and newer than the globalizing jargon of our times."--Homi K. Bhabha, University of Chicago

About this edition

• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 082232704X
• ISBN 13: 9780822327042
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Comaroff John L., Comaroff Jean