Books in the Culture & Conflict series

Plots of War: Modern Narratives of Conflictdiscusses the dynamics of change and transformation thatunderlie the troubled project of modernity and shows how deeply it has been shaped by war and violence.

Culture and conflict unavoidably go together. The very idea of culture is marked by the notion of difference and creative, i.e. conflictual, interaction that inevitably support the key themes of the study of culture such as identity and diversity, memory and trauma, the translation of cultures and globalization, dislocation and emplacement, mediation and exclusion. This series publishes theoretically informed original scholarship from the fields of literary and cultural studies as well as media, visual and film studies, fostering a plural disciplinary dialogue on the multiple ways in which conflict supports and constrains the production of meaning in modernity, how the representation of conflict works, how it relates to the past and projects the present and how it frames scholarship within the humanities. Editors:Isabel Capeloa Gil, Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal; Paulo de Medeiros, University of Warwick, UK, Catherine Nesci, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. Editorial Board:Arjun Appadurai, New York University,Claudia Benthien, Universitat Hamburg,Elisabeth Bronfen, Universitat Zurich,Bishnupriya Ghosh, University of California, Santa Barbara,Joyce Goggin, Universiteit van Amsterdam,Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,Andreas Huyssen, Columbia University,Ansgar Nunning, Universitat Gieen,Naomi Segal, University of London, Birkbeck College,Marcio Seligmann-Silva, Universidade Estadual de Campinas,Antonio Sousa Ribeiro, Universidade de Coimbra,Roberto Vecchi, Universita di Bologna,Samuel Weber, Northwestern University,Liliane Weissberg, University of Pennsylvania,Christoph Wulf, FU Berlin,Longxi Zhang, City University of Hong Kong

Panic and Mourning

The book discusses how culture simultaneously shapes and is shaped by the economy. Over the past few years, as the world has staggered from one financial crisis to another, the neat separation of economics and culture has been consistently challenged. To understand the current state of affairs, it has become increasingly necessary to understand the conjuncture that rules the production of value in economic systems, how money shapes social relations and affects discursive practices. By discussing the vocabulary, by understanding the rhetoric and interpreting the narratives, be it of crisis, austerity, growth, welfare, neo-liberalism or socialism, new modes of imaging the economic system may be made possible. The book is structured in four chapters dealing with theory and conjuncture ("Philosophies of Money"), with the visual arts and investment ("The Arts and Finance"), with literary representation and narrativity ("Literature and Money Matters") and with the cognitive impact of fiduciary representation ("Cognitive Moneyscapes"). This collection analyses the process whereby a material icon invested with the symbolical power to rule social exchange becomes an explanatory narrative determining the way societies produce meaning.

Even though much has been said and written about 9/11, the work developed on this subject has mostly explored it as an unparalleled event, a turning point in history. This book wishes to look instead at how disruptive events promote a network of associations and how people resort to comparison as a means to make sense of the unknown, i.e. to comprehend what seems incomprehensible. In order to effectively discuss the complexity of 9/11, this book articulates different fields of knowledge and perspectives such as visual culture, media studies, performance studies, critical theory, memory studies and literary studies to shed some light on 9/11 and analyze how the event has impacted on American social and cultural fabric and how the American society has come to terms with such a devastating event. A more in-depth study of Don DeLillo's Falling Man and Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close draws attention to the cultural construction of catastrophe and the plethora of cultural products 9/11 has inspired. It demonstrates how the event has been integrated into American culture and exemplifies what makes up the 9/11 imaginary.

Poverty and precarity have gained a new societal and political presence in the twenty-first century's advanced economies, which is reflected in cultural production. With a focus on Britain, this book discusses this topic for a wide range of media and genres from the novel to reality television.

Stories about border crossers, illegal aliens, refugees that regularly appear in the press everywhere point to the crucial role national identity plays in human beings' lives today. The National Habitus seeks to understand how and why national belonging became so central to a person's identity and sense of identity. Centered on the acquisition of the national habitus, the process that transforms subjects into citizens when a state becomes a nation-state, the book examines this transformation at the individual level in the case of nineteenth century France. Literary texts serve as primary material in this study of national belonging, because, as Germaine de Stael pointed out long ago, literature has the unique ability to provide access to "e;inner feelings."e; The term "e;habitus,"e; in the title of this book, signals a departure from traditional approaches to nationalism, a break with the criteria of language, race, and ethnicity typically used to examine it. It is grounded instead in a sociology that deals with the subjective dimension of life and is best exemplified by the works of Norbert Elias (1897-1990) and Pierre Bourdieu (1931-2002), two sociologists who approach belief systems like nationalism from a historical, instead of an ethical vantage point. By distinguishing between two groups of major French writers, three who experienced the 1789 Revolution firsthand as adults (Olympe de Gouges, Francois Rene de Chateaubriand and Germaine de Stael) and three who did not (Stendhal, Prosper Merimee, and George Sand), the book captures evolving understandings of the nation, as well as thoughts and emotions associated with national belonging over time. Le Hir shows that although none of these writers is typically associated with nationalism, all of them were actually affected by the process of nationalization of feelings, thoughts, and habits, irrespective of aesthetic preferences, social class, or political views. By the end of the nineteenth century, they had learned to feel and view themselves as French nationals; they all exhibited the characteristic features of the national habitus: love of their own nation, distrust and/or hatred of other nations. By underscoring the dual contradictory nature of the national habitus, the book highlights the limitations nation-based identities impose on the prospect for peace.

Culture and conflict unavoidably go together. The very idea of culture is marked by the notion of difference and creative, i.e. conflictual, interaction that inevitably support the key themes of the study of culture such as identity and diversity, memory and trauma, the translation of cultures and globalization, dislocation and emplacement, mediation and exclusion. This series publishes theoretically informed original scholarship from the fields of literary and cultural studies as well as media, visual and film studies, fostering a plural disciplinary dialogue on the multiple ways in which conflict supports and constrains the production of meaning in modernity, how the representation of conflict works, how it relates to the past and projects the present and how it frames scholarship within the humanities. Editors:Isabel Capeloa Gil, Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal; Paulo de Medeiros, University of Warwick, UK, Catherine Nesci, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. Editorial Board:Arjun Appadurai, New York University,Claudia Benthien, Universitat Hamburg,Elisabeth Bronfen, Universitat Zurich,Bishnupriya Ghosh, University of California, Santa Barbara,Joyce Goggin, Universiteit van Amsterdam,Lawrence Grossberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill,Andreas Huyssen, Columbia University,Ansgar Nunning, Universitat Gieen,Naomi Segal, University of London, Birkbeck College,Marcio Seligmann-Silva, Universidade Estadual de Campinas,Antonio Sousa Ribeiro, Universidade de Coimbra,Roberto Vecchi, Universita di Bologna,Samuel Weber, Northwestern University,Liliane Weissberg, University of Pennsylvania,Christoph Wulf, FU Berlin,Longxi Zhang, City University of Hong Kong

This book investigates the emergence of the modern concept of zeitgeist, the notion of a pervasive contemporary coherence, in the late 18th century. It traces zeitgeist's descent from genius saeculi and investigates its association with public spirit and public opinion before surveying its prominence around the Wars of Liberation in Germany and during the politically restless 1820s in England. This trajectory shows that zeitgeist emerged from the 18th-century discourses about culture and the public functioning of social collectives. Under the impact of the French Revolution the term came to describe social processes of political and cultural challenge. Zeitgeist was discussed as a social dynamic in which emerging elites disseminate new ideas which find enough public approval to influence cultural and political behaviour and practice. These findings modify the view that zeitgeist eludes critical grasp and is mainly invoked for manipulative purposes by showing that the zeitgeist discussions around 1800 contributed to the formation of modern politics and capture key aspects of how ideas are disseminated within societies and across borders, providing a way of reading history horizontally.