Capital, Class & Technology In Contemporary American Culture: Projecting Post-FordismIn the tradition of Mike Davis and Fredric Jameson, Nick Heffernan engages in a series of meditations on capital, class and technology in contemporary America. He turns to the stories we generate and tell ourselves – via fiction, film journalism, theory – to see how change is registered. By investigating a variety of texts, he observes how structural change affects the way people organise their lives economically, socially and culturally. Case studies include Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, William Gibson’s cyberspace trilogy, Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49, and Wim Wenders’s Until the End of the World.Using the links between narrative cultural forms and the process of historical understanding, he brings together debates that have so far been conducted largely within the separate domains of political economy, social theory and cultural criticism to provide a compelling analysis of contemporary cultural change. By relocating postmodernism in the context of changing modes of capitalism, Heffernan puts the question of class and class agency back at the centre of the critical agenda. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Postmodernism and Late Capitalism | 13 |
Class and Consensus Ideology and Technology | 29 |
Copyright | |
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Aglietta ambivalence American capitalism argued author's emphasis autonomy Axton become Bellah Blade Runner Brademas CALIFORNIA/SANTA CRUZ calls capitalist central character characterised class consciousness cognitive condition consumption contemporary corporate cosmopolitanism crisis CRUZ The University cultural cybernation cybernetic cybernetic paradigm cyberspace trilogy Deckard Dennis Hayes deterritorialisation discourse Eclipse Group economic Ehrenreich engineers film Fordism Fredric Jameson Gibson's global globalisation Harvey historical human ideology increasingly industrial Kidder kind labour late capitalism logic Lyotard machine Mandel matrix mediated metaphor Michel Aglietta microelectronic Microserfs middle class mode Mona Lisa Overdrive multinational narrative nature Neuromancer notion organisation political post-Fordism post-Fordist postindustrial postmodernism professional professional-managerial class proletarianisation radical rationalisation rationality relations relationship replicants reproduction Richard Sennett Riesman scientific sense shift social society Soul space spatial structures suggests surplus value technical Tessier-Ashpools totalising transformation True Stories uneven development University Library UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA/SANTA workers