The Body in Late-Capitalist USA PDF
Preview The Body in Late-Capitalist USA
TheBodyinLate-CapitalistUSA The Body in Late-Capitalist USA DonaldM. Lowe DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS DurhamandLondon1995 ©1995DukeUniversityPress Allrightsreserved PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmericaonacid-freepaper 00 TypesetinMinionbyKeystoneTypesetting,Inc. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData appearonthelastprintedpageofthisbook. forTani "Sociallifeisessentiallypractical.Allmysterieswhich misleadtheoryintomysticismfindtheirrationalsolu tion in human practiceand in the comprehensionof thispractice."-Marx,"EighthThesisonFeuerbach" "But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing, and many other things. The first historical act is thus the production ofthemeanstosatisfytheseneeds,theproductionof materiallifeitself....Thesecondfundamentalpoint is that as soon as a need is satisfied new needs are made...."-MarxandEngels, TheGermanIdeology "In culture every entity can become a semiotic phe nomenon. The laws of signification are the laws of culture. For this reason culture allows a continuous process ofcommunicative exchanges, in so far as it subsistsasasystemofsystemsofsignification."- Eco, A TheoryofSemiotics "The incomplete character of every totality 'neces sarilyleadsusto abandon,asaterrainofanalysis,the premise of'society' as a sutured and self-defined to tality.'Society'isnotavalidobjectofdiscourse.There is no single underlying principle fixing-and hence constituting-thewhole field ofdifferences."-Laclau andMouffe, HegemonyandSocialistStrategy Contents Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Language,BodyPractices, andtheSocial 1 1 ProductionPractices 17 a. FlexibleAccumulationandtheLaborMarket b. CyberneticSystemsandtheLaborProcess c. TheDisciplineofNeoclassicalEconomics 2 ConsumptionPractices 47 a. ProductCharacteristicsandUseValue b. ImageinLate-CapitalistAdvertising c. TheConsumptionofLifestyle d. TheSemioticsofLate-CapitalistCommodity 3 TheHegemonyofExchangistPractices 75 4 SocialReproductionPractices 91 a. ChangingHouseholdandthePoliticsof"TheFamily" b. Re-Racialization c. TheBodyandBio-TechnicalSystems 5 SexualityandGenderConstruction 121 a. GenderandSexuality b. SexualLifestyleandLate-CapitalistConsumption c. GenderConstructioninLateCapitalism 6 RediscipliningtheSubject 149 a. TheDiscourseofPsychiatry b. ChangingMentalHealthPractices c. TheBoundsofPsychopathology Retrospect: TheProblematicoftheBodyinLateCapitalism 173 References 179 Index 193
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