This book presents a critical analysis of the relation between sociological theory and recent debates in cultural studies. A distinctive sociological perspective is developed based on the work of Marx, Weber, Bourdieu and Bakhtin. The book examines the problems of theorising issues such as modernity, mass culture and postmodernity by advocating a historical and context-based approach.

This text offers an overview of contemporary cultural theory. Drawing together different approaches and traditions, the author demonstrates the breadth of the field of cultural theory and proposes a multidimensional model for understanding culture in late modernity.

This book encapsulates the recent debate on the concepts of modernity and postmodernity. Arguments over modernism and its aftermath are traced to their origins in art, architecture and literature. The authors then focus on the contribution of sociology to this cultural dispute through the theories of Weber, Simmel, Habermas, Lyotard and Baudrillard. Throughout, Theories of Modernity and Postmodernity demonstrates the connections between traditional problems of sociological theory and the contemporary debate around modernity.

The question of modernity has provoked a vigorous debate in the work of thinkers from Hegel to Habermas. Anthony J. Cascardi offers an historical account of the origins and transformations of the rational subject of self as it is represented in Descartes, Cervantes, Pascal, Hobbes and the Don Juan myth.

This book explores the sense in which the uncanny may be a distinctively modern experience, the way these unnerving feelings and unsettling encounters disturb the rational presumptions of the modern world view and the security of modern self-identity, just as the latter may themselves be implicated in the production of these experiences as uncanny.

Modernity and Postmodern Culture critically assesses claims made about the 'postmodernization' of culture and society and explores the complex interplay between the modern and the postmodern in an increasingly ‘globalized world’. The author argues that although culture may be 'postmodern' in terms of art, entertainment and everyday life, modernity still exists and is pervasive. The second edition is revised throughout, updating the literature and viewing international events through a modernist/postmodernist gaze. The theories of Baudrillard, Beck, Castells, Giddens, Jameson, Lyotard and others are discussed and specific issues concerning architecture, theme parks, screen culture, science, technology and the environment are examined. Topics include: Postmodern architecture and the hyperreality of Disney How poststructuralist theory questions modern rationality and reason The relations between postmodern culture, global capitalism and the technological changes brought about by electronics and computing The network society The book is key reading for students on courses in cultural politics, cultural theory, popular culture and sociology.

The crisis~ of the "project of modernity" (Habermas) is, at the same time, a crisis of critical theories of society and culture that have radically questioned bourgeois culture and capitalist society and economy from the perspective of a utopia of enlightened rationality. A number of parallel recent social and political problems, developments, and