Transformations: Identity Construction in Contemporary Culture

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Indiana University Press, 12 may 2008 - 428 páginas

Self reinvention has become a preoccupation of contemporary culture. In the last decade, Hollywood made a 500-million-dollar bet on this idea with movies such as Multiplicity, Fight Club, eXistenZ, and Catch Me If You Can. Self reinvention marks the careers of Madonna, Ani DiFranco, Martha Stewart, and Robin Williams. The Nike ads of LeBron James, the experiments of New Age spirituality, the mores of contemporary teen culture, and the obsession with "extreme makeovers" are all examples of our culture's fixation with change. In a time marked by plenitude, transformation is one of the few things these parties have in common.

Although transformation is widely acknowledged as a defining characteristic of our culture, we have almost no studies on what it is or how it works. Transformations offers the first comprehensive and systematic view. It is an ethnography of the contemporary world.

 

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Índice

Section 1 SelfTransformation in a Popular Culture
1
Section 2 Traditional Transformations
35
Section 3 Status Transformations
55
Section 4 Modern Transformations
85
Section 5 Postmodern Transformations
111
Conclusion
293
The Argument in Brief
305
Notes
307
Entertainment is Dead Long Live Transformation
xi
Introduction
xix
Section 1 SelfTransformation in a Popular Culture
1
Section 2 Traditional Transformations
35
Section 3 Status Transformations
55
Section 4 Modern Transformations
85
Section 5 Postmodern Transformations
111
Conclusion
293

Acknowledgments
403
Index
407
Back cover
437
Contents
vii
Sightings
ix
The Argument in Brief
305
Notes
307
Acknowledgments
403
Index
407

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Sobre el autor (2008)

Grant McCracken is a research affiliate of the Comparative Media Department at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is author of Culture and Consumption (IUP, 1990), Culture and Consumption II (IUP, 2005), Flock and Flow (IUP, 2006), The Long Interview, and Plenitude. He lives in Rowayton, Connecticut.

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