A relation of cruel optimism exists when something you desire is
actually an obstacle to your flourishing. Offering bold new ways of
conceiving the present, Lauren Berlant describes the cruel optimism
that has prevailed since the 1980s, as the social-democratic
promise of the postwar period in the United States and Europe has
retracted. People have remained attached to unachievable fantasies
of the good life—with its promises of upward mobility, job
security, political and social equality, and durable
intimacy—despite evidence that liberal-capitalist societies can
no longer be counted on to provide opportunities for individuals to
make their lives “add up to something.” Arguing that the
historical present is perceived affectively before it is understood
in any other way, Berlant traces affective and aesthetic responses
to the dramas of adjustment that unfold amid talk of precarity,
contingency, and crisis. She suggests that our stretched-out
present is characterized by new modes of temporality, and she
explains why trauma theory—with its focus on reactions to the
exceptional event that shatters the ordinary—is not useful for
understanding the ways that people adjust over time, once crisis
itself has become ordinary. Cruel Optimism is a remarkable
affective history of the present.
General
Imprint: |
Duke University Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Release date: |
October 2011 |
Firstpublished: |
October 2011 |
Authors: |
Lauren Berlant
|
Dimensions: |
233 x 155 x 21mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback
|
Pages: |
342 |
Edition: |
New |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8223-5111-5 |
Categories: |
Books >
Social sciences >
General
|
LSN: |
0-8223-5111-0 |
Barcode: |
9780822351115 |
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