Twilight of the social : resurgent publics in the age of disposability / Henry A. Giroux.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Giroux, Henry A.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States--Social conditions--1980-2020.

United States.

Social conditions.

United States--Social policy--1993-.

Social policy.

United States--Politics and government--2009-.

Politics and government.

Physical Description:

vi, 146 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Boulder, CO : Paradigm Publishers, [2012]

Summary:

Giroux, the Global TV Network chair at McMaster University, addresses in five short chapters the assault on the social state, unions, higher education, democratic values and the public sphere in general. He argues "if democracy is to be reclaimed as a radical idea ... it is crucial for progressives and others to struggle to create those formative cultures that enable people to translate private injustices into social and systemic problems." Girioux draws on Walter Benjamin's "Theses on History", C. Wright Mill's sociology, an analysis of "new media", the erosion of intellectual life and the rise of Economic Darwinism to show what an emerging politics of hope must overcome. Though heavy-handed, this isn't a pessimistic work and explicitly aims to undermine contemporary cynicism about capitalism and the (im)possibility of alternatives to it. Annotation ©2012 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Contents:

The crisis of public values in the age of the new media

The disappearing intellectual in the age of economic Darwinism

In the twilight of the social state: rethinking Walter Benjamin's angel of history

Living in the age of imposed amnesia: the eclipse of democratic formative culture

Defending higher education as a public good.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781612050553

1612050557

9781612050560

1612050565

OCLC:

714715762