Debord’s influential theory of the spectacle is vitiated by its lack of historical and analytical differentiation. This article draws on Debord’s own undeveloped distinction between the concentrated spectacle and the diffuse spectacle in order to propose a double genealogy and a fourfold typology of the spectacle since the French Revolution.

A biography of the man who was the major force behind the Situationist International, wrote 'Society of the Spectacle,' considered the best expression of revolutionary thought of the 20th century, and was a major influence on many political and cultural movements including the Paris riots of 1968 and punk rock.

"This title is about a single, serpentine fact: late in 1976 a record called "Anarchy in the UK" was issued in London, and this event launched a transformation of pop music all over the world. The song distilled a critique of modern society once set out by a small group of Paris intellectuals." -- Provided by publisher.

Analyzes the relationship of power, bureaucracy, and change in modern society.

This book provides the first comprehensive critical analysis of the work of Fredric Jameson, one of the most important cultural critics writing today. Homer provides a clear exposition and appraisal of Jameson's theories and an assessment of his contribution to contemporary cultural theory. Homer reappraises Jameson's writing in the context of European and Anglo-American critical and social theory. Detailed analyses are given of contemporary debates within Marxist cultural theory, post-structuralism and postmodernism, including dialectical theories of literature, the representation of history, (...) the politics of desire, spatial theory, and the status of totalizing thought. All of Jameson's major works are considered and Homer gives a lucid and critical assessment of the debates to which they have given rise. Fredric Jameson will be invaluable to students and academics in literary and cultural studies, sociology and media studies, as well as those interested in one of the leading thinkers of our time. (shrink)

This is the first source-book for this cross-disciplinary area. It takes students through a wide range of readings from philosophy, politics, and sociology, to human geography, international relations, and feminist studies. Bringing together statements from leading twentieth-century thinkers such as Derrida, Lyotard, Baudrillard, and Laclau and Mouffe, and with the editor's substantial introduction, this is an ideal teaching text, inspiring debate about the future of Marxism as a cultural theory.

Integral to the modern paradigm of cultural critique is an entropic vision of the `completion' of modernity reaching from Heidegger and Adorno to Debord and Baudrillard. Are contemporary cultural developments to be grasped in terms of this `completion' or do we need a more open-ended account of capitalism and culture? The article examines two key aspects of contemporary culture, both tied to processes of aestheticization and commodification since the 18th century: the progression from the culture industry (Adorno) to the aesthetic (...) economy (Böhme), premised on the creation of aesthetic value in addition to use and exchange value; the progression from the `age of the world picture' (Heidegger) to culturalism, in which the culturalization of nature and history responds to the reduction of nature and history to standing reserves. (shrink)