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"Spectacular, The Political aspects."
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Rethinking the spectacle : Guy Debord, radical democracy, and the digital age
\"Spectacle is usually considered a superficial form of politics, which tries to distract and deceive a passive audience. It is difficult to see how this type of politics could be reconciled with the democratic requirement of active and informed agency. Rethinking the Spectacle re-examines the tension between spectacle and political agency using the ideas and practices of Guy Debord and the Situationist International as a point of departure. Drawing on radical democratic theory and examining case studies such as the 2011 Occupy movement, Devin Penner concludes that spectacle can and should be used to mobilize the public for egalitarian purposes.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Geopolitics of Spectacle
Why do autocrats build spectacular new capital cities? InThe Geopolitics of Spectacle, Natalie Koch considers how autocratic rulers use \"spectacular\" projects to shape state-society relations, but rather than focus on the standard approach-on the project itself-she considers the unspectacular \"others.\" The contrasting views of those from the poorest regions toward these new national capitals help her develop a geographic approach to spectacle.
Koch uses Astana in Kazakhstan to exemplify her argument, comparing that spectacular city with others from resource-rich, nondemocratic nations in central Asia, the Arabian Peninsula, and Southeast Asia.The Geopolitics of Spectacledraws new political-geographic lessons and shows that these spectacles can be understood only from multiple viewpoints, sites, and temporalities. Koch explicitly theorizes spectacle geographically and in so doing extends the analysis of governmentality into new empirical and theoretical terrain.
With cases ranging from Azerbaijan to Qatar and Myanmar, and an intriguing account of reactions to the new capital of Astana from the poverty-stricken Aral Sea region of Kazakhstan, Koch's book provides food for thought for readers in human geography, anthropology, sociology, urban studies, political science, international affairs, and post-Soviet and central Asian studies.
eBook
Stories That Bind
Stories that Bind: Political Economy and Culture in New India examines the assertion of authoritarian nationalism and neoliberalism; both backed by the authority of the state and argues that contemporary India should be understood as the intersection of the two. More importantly, the book reveals, through its focus on India and its complex media landscape that this intersection has a narrative form, which author, Madhavi Murty labels spectacular realism. The book shows that the intersection of neoliberalism with authoritarian nationalism is strengthened by the circulation of stories about “emergence,” “renewal,” “development,” and “mobility” of the nation and its people. It studies stories told through film, journalism, and popular non-fiction along with the stories narrated by political and corporate leaders to argue that Hindu nationalism and neoliberalism are conjoined in popular culture and that consent for this political economic project is crucially won in the domain of popular culture.
Moving between mediascapes to create an archive of popular culture, Murty advances our understanding of political economy through material that is often seen as inconsequential, namely the popular cultural story. These stories stoke our desires (e.g. for wealth), scaffold our instincts (e.g. for a strong leadership) and shape our values.
eBook
Spectacles of Reform
In the nineteenth century, long before film and television brought us explosions, car chases, and narrow escapes, it was America's theaters that thrilled audiences, with \"sensation scenes\" of speeding trains, burning buildings, and endangered bodies, often in melodramas extolling the virtues of temperance, abolition, and women's suffrage. Amy E. Hughes scrutinizes these peculiar intersections of spectacle and reform, revealing the crucial role that spectacle has played in American activism and how it has remained central to the dramaturgy of reform.
Hughes traces the cultural history of three famous sensation scenes-the drunkard with thedelirium tremens, the fugitive slave escaping over a river, and the victim tied to the railroad tracks-assessing how these scenes conveyed, allayed, and denied concerns about the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. These images also appeared in printed propaganda, suggesting that thecoup de théâtrewas an essential part of American reform culture. Additionally, Hughes argues that today's producers and advertisers continue to exploit the affective dynamism of spectacle, reaching an even broader audience through film, television, and the Internet.
To be attuned to the dynamics of spectacle, Hughes argues, is to understand how we see. Her book will interest not only theater historians, but also scholars and students of political, literary, and visual culture who are curious about how U.S. citizens saw themselves and their world during a pivotal period in American history.
eBook
Making It Up
In this article I consider the ethical boundaries of intergenerational activism for the feminist researcher conducting research in pre-existing activist networks. Drawing on a decade of involvement with girl-activists at the United Nations, I revisit key moments that challenged me to re-think the ethical, discursive, and relational conditions of girls’ political empowerment. Intergenerational activism creates relational messiness between adults and girls since effectively partnering with girls requires disruptions of generational power with practitioner-scholars learning to make it up as they go along. This article illustrates the complex and contested ways in which girls and adults build activist partnerships in adult-centered and sometimes politically hostile settings. In exploring the environment within which North American girls experience political (dis)empowerment, I question the ethics of empowering girls under current spectacular discursive conditions.
Journal Article
Authentic New Orleans
Honorable Mention for the 2008 Robert Park Outstanding Book Award given by the ASA's Community and Urban Sociology SectionMardi Gras, jazz, voodoo, gumbo, Bourbon Street, the French Quarter - all evoke that place that is unlike any other: New Orleans. In Authentic New Orleans, Kevin Fox Gotham explains how New Orleans became a tourist town, a spectacular locale known as much for its excesses as for its quirky Southern charm.Gotham begins in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina amid the whirlwind of speculation about the rebuilding of the city and the dread of outsiders wiping New Orleans clean of the grit that made it great. He continues with the origins of Carnival and the Mardi Gras celebration in the nineteenth century, showing how, through careful planning and promotion, the city constructed itself as a major tourist attraction. By examining various image-building campaigns and promotional strategies to disseminate a palatable image of New Orleans on a national scale Gotham ultimately establishes New Orleans as one of the originators of the mass tourism industry - which linked leisure to travel, promoted international expositions, and developed the concept of pleasure travel.Gotham shows how New Orleans was able to become one of the most popular tourist attractions in the United States, especially through the transformation of Mardi Gras into a national, even international, event. All the while Gotham is concerned with showing the difference between tourism from above and tourism from below - that is, how New Orleans' distinctiveness is both maximized, some might say exploited, to serve the global economy of tourism as well as how local groups and individuals use tourism to preserve and anchor longstanding communal traditions.
eBook