Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. xxiii , 165 pages; 24 cm.

Summary

1. This is a study of vulnerability as a dominant cultural discourse today, especially as it manifests in 'extreme cultures'. These are cultural practices and representations of humans in risky, painful or life-threatening conditions where the limits of their humanity are tested, and producing heightened sensations of pain and pleasure. Extreme cultures in this book signal the social ontology of humans where, in specific conditions, vulnerability becomes helplessness. We see in these cultures the exploitation of the body's immanent vulnerability in involuntary conditions of torture or deprivation, the encounter with extreme situations where the body is rendered incapacitated from performing routine functions due to structural conditions or in a voluntary embracing of risk in sporting events wherein the body pits itself against enormous forces and conditions. The book studies vulnerability across various conditions: torture, disease, accident. It studies spaces of vulnerability and helplessness, the aesthetics and representations of vulnerability, the extreme in the everyday and, finally, the witnessing of (in)human extremes. Extreme cultures suggest shared precarity as a foundational condition of humanity. A witness culture emerges through the cultural discourse of vulnerability, the representations of the victim and/or survivor, and the accounts of witnesses. They offer, in short, an entire new way of speaking about and classifying the human.

Series statement

1. Critical perspectives on theory, culture and politics

Subject

1. Excess (Philosophy) > Social aspects
2. Extremists
3. Civilization, Modern
4. Extremism

Call number

1. JFE 17-3875

Bibliography (note)

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Author

1. Nayar, Pramod K., author.

Title

1. The extreme in contemporary culture : states of vulnerability / Pramod K. Nayar.

Publisher

1. London ; New York : Rowman & Littlefield International, [2017]

Type of content

1. text

Type of medium

1. unmediated

Type of carrier

1. volume

Series

1. Critical perspectives on theory, culture and politics

Bibliography

1. Includes bibliographical references and index.

Indexed term

1. Extremism

Other form:

1. Online version: Nayar, Pramod K., author. Extreme in contemporary culture London ; New York : Rowman & Littlefield International, [2017] 9781783483679 (DLC) 2017010588

LCCN

1. 2017000146

ISBN

1. 9781783483655 hardcover alkaline paper
2. 1783483652 hardcover alkaline paper
3. 9781783483662 paperback alkaline paper
4. 1783483660 paperback alkaline paper

Research call number

1. JFE 17-3875