Undoing Culture

Mike Featherstone is Professor of Communications and Sociology at Nottingham Trent University. CONTRIBUTORS OUTSIDE NORTH AMERICA : Zygmunt Bauman University of Leeds Henning Bech University of Copenhagen Elizabeth Beck-Gernsheim Universtiy of Erlangen Mary Evans University of Kent at Canterbury David Frisby University of Glasgow Mike Hepworth University of Aberdeen Eva Illouz Tel-Aviv University Maria Esther Maciel Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais Michael Richardson SOAS, University of London Laura Rival University of Kent at Canterbury Andrew Travers Somerset Jeffrey Weeks South Bank University Sasha Weitman Tel-Aviv University Sam Whimster London Guildhall University Elizabeth Wilson University of North London Cas Wouters University of Utrecht

• IntroductionGlobalizing Cultural ComplexityThe Autonomization of the Cultural SpherePersonality, Unity and the Ordered LifeThe Heroic Life and Everyday LifeGlobalizing the PostmodernGlobal and Local CulturesLocalism, Globalism and Cultural IdentityTravel, Migration and Images of Social Life

`What David Chaney has called the "cultural turn" in recent sociology is more than ably reflected and pursued in this thoroughly admirable text by Mike Featherstone. Of course, this should cause little surprise; Theory, Culture & Society, with which Featherstone is so involved... has provided much of the space and encouragement for the sociological examination of the cultural. Yet Undoing Culture demonstrates that Featherstone′s importance to the cultural turn goes far beyond his institutional position as an enabler.... There can be little doubt that sociologists of culture and their students will find much of merit and stimulation in Featherstone′s work′ - The Sociological Review`Featherstone argues that globalization and modernization each hold two contradictory aspects: one toward increasing order and the other toward change and chaos. In this interesting and important book, he focuses primarily on a neglected aspect of modernization as a world culture of competing differences, power struggles, and cultural prestige.... Featherstone′s analyses of prominent social theorists from Baudrillard to Bauman is impressive. This is a worthwhile discussion of postmodernity and modernity′ - Choice