Social Postmodernism
Beyond Identity Politics

Postmodern perspectives on the new social movements (race, gender, sexuality), supported by wider cultural analysis.

Linda Nicholson (Author), Steven Seidman (Author)

9780521475716, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 14 September 1995

412 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.6 kg

"This collection of previously published essays contributes to contemporary social and political theory in a number of important ways." Ethics

Social Postmodernism defends a postmodern perspective anchored in the politics of the new social movements. The volume preserves the focus on the politics of the body, race, gender, and sexuality as elaborated in postmodern approaches. But these essays push postmodern analysis in a particular direction: toward a social postmodernism which integrates the micro-social concerns of the new social movements with an institutional and cultural analysis in the service of a transformative political vision.

Introduction Part I. Critiques of Identity: 1. Interpreting gender Linda Nicholson
2. Feminist encounters: locating the politics of experience Chandra Talpade Monhanty
3. Postcolonial criticism and Indian historiography Gyan Prakash
Part II. Critiques of the Deconstruction of Identity: 4. African identities Kwame Anthony Appiah
5. Deconstructing queer theory or the under-theorization of the social and the ethical Steven Seidman
6. Queer visibility in commodity culture Rosemary Hennessy
Part III. Postmodern Approaches to the Social: 7. Gender as seriality: thinking about women as a social collective Iris Marion Young
8. Refiguring social space Cindy Patton
9. Just framing: ethnicities and racisms in a 'postmodern' framework Ali Rattansi
10. Politics culture and the public sphere: toward a postmodern conception Nancy Fraser
Part IV. Postmodern Approaches to the Political: 11. Feminism citizenship and radical democratic politics Chantal Mouffe
12. The space of justice: lesbians and democratic politics Shane Phelan
13. Against the liberal state: ACT-UP and the emergence of postmodern politics Stanley Aronowitz
14. Democracies of pleasure: thoughts on the goals of radical sexual politics R. W. Connell.

Subject Areas: Social theory [JHBA]