Transgressing the Modern: Explorations in the Western Experience of Otherness / Edition 1

by John Jervis

Overview

This book provides the most concise, accessible account yet available of modern Western cultural and social explorations of 'other' forms or aspects of life that are devalued or coded as unacceptable, even unthinkable, in the modern ethos.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780631211105
Publisher:	Wiley
Publication date:	08/25/1999
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.70(w) x 9.62(h) x 0.74(d)

About the Author

John Jervis has taught extensively in the areas of Sociology, Social Anthropology, and Cultural Studies, at the University of Kent at Canterbury. His previous book, Exploring the Modern (1999) is also published by Blackwell Publishers.

Table of Contents

List of Plates.

Acknowledgements.

Introduction.

Part I: The Civilising Imperative.

1. Carnival Pleasures and The Spectre of Misrule.

2. Manners and Morals: The Civilisation of Culture.

Part II: Modernity and its Others.

3. Exotic Encounters: Savagery, Civilisation and the Imperial Other.

4. The Alienated Mind: Reason and The Exile of Madness.

5. Modernity's Sphinx: Woman as Nature and Culture.

6. The Rape and Romance of 'Nature'.

7. Forbidden Desires: Taboo, Transgression and Sexuality.

Part III: Continuities, Challenges, Transformations.

8. Blacks, Whites and Hybrids.

9. Postmodern Possibilities: Alienating The Modern.

Key Terms.

Guide to Further Reading.

Index.

Editorial Reviews

"Transgressing the Modern is what should be impossible: 'a carnival of representation' which subverts controversial boundaries between social theory, the humanities and the arts. It excavates the richest veins in modern western societies' endless struggles to marginalize, exclude and repress whatever makes them uncomfortable. John Jervis has written a wonderful synthesizing book - creative, imaginative and deeply suggestive of a better way forward." Rob Stones, University of Essex

From the Publisher