If culture is suspect, what of cultural theory? At a moment when
culture's traditional caretakers -- humanism, philosophy,
anthropology, and the nation-state -- are undergoing crisis and
mutation, this volume charts the tensions and contradictions in the
development and deployment of the concept of culture. A genuinely
interdisciplinary venture, In Near Ruins brings together respected
writers from the fields of history, anthropology, literary
criticism, and communications. Together their essays present an
intriguing picture of "culture" at the edges of humanism, of the
politics of critical inquiry amid current social transformations,
of the status and practice of historical knowledge in an age of
theory.
Skeptical of the concept of culture but fascinated with cultural
forms, the authors take up diverse topics, from debates over
sexuality in the contemporary United States to relations between
empire, capitalism, and gender in nineteenth-century Britain; from
poverty in U.S. inner cities to violence in war-torn Sri Lanka;
from the operation of nostalgia on cultural practices in Japan to
anthropological forms of state power in Indonesia and the writing
of history in India.
Linked by a common urge to think through the aesthetics and
politics of particular social relations amid a variety of
globalizing forces -- revolution, colonialism, nationalism, and the
disciplinary institutions of the academy itself -- these writers
contribute to the ongoing work of remapping the terrain of cultural
analysis and reevaluating the stakes in such a daunting effort.
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