Comments on: Book Review – Making the Cut

By: SocProf

SocProf — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 19:07:17 +0000

Ooooh, Ben Agger, that’s a great one. The first book I read was The Discourse of Domination and I have kept up with him ever since. The Virtual Self is also great.

We need a book club around here!

There is still A LOT of room in sociology for good critical theory!

By: crtiticalcontexts

crtiticalcontexts — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 18:23:48 +0000

Book suggestion:
Speeding up Fast Capitalism by Ben Agger!

By: crtiticalcontexts

crtiticalcontexts — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 17:18:11 +0000

Thanks, I also got your email today. Kinda feels strange when I read the number of typos and mistakes that I made when making a plain comment. I’ve never been to a ASA breakfest event. I was a member for one year and got my member card and logged online maybe once or twice. Take care,

By: SocProf

SocProf — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 17:18:45 +0000

Thanks for the book recommendation. I am a big fan of the Frankfurt school.
It is funny that I never really considered Bauman a postmodern theorist (I tend to stay away from them) but rather of the post-structuralist bend. Of course, I could be wrong.

And your point about commodification also reminds me of Habermas’s colonization of the lifeworld by the system.

These are indeed the advantages of blogging: meeting people (are you going to be at the ASA? At the community college breakfast? If so, let’s meet!), reading books that I really want to read and writing reviews with complete autonomy.

But again, meeting people and getting book recommendations is definitely the major benefit! I am not after the prestige that comes with being published in the Big Journals, so, I’m fine with bypassing that.

By: crtiticalcontexts

crtiticalcontexts — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 15:23:24 +0000

You spend plenty of time on this book review. I really enjoyed the Zygmunt Bauman quote.Since we are talking about PostModern thinkers , I am really starting to understand better now the concept of the romantic utopia as described by Eva Illouz in here “Consuming the Romantic Utopia Love and the Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism.” She offers a neo-marxist and frankfurt school appraoch to the ideas about love in capitalism. Love no longer exists in capitalism– “all that is romantic melts into thin air” ,she argued. One of the first thinks that comes into my minds when reading this is the Cadillac commercials with kate. In late capitalism, the commodofication of love enters into Utopian and manufactured territory’s that put the boundaries of love towards a collison course with the interests of capitalism. Capitalism is not about love and does not seek harmonious interests with the (sexual) life-chances of the have-nots. ******
Finally, its very clever to put book reviews on blogs, because you do not have to worry about submitting them into those gatekeeping journals.