Winner of the American Sociological Association’s Distinguished Book Award in 2012, Chandra Mukerji offers with this remarkable new book an explanation of the birth and subsequent proliferation of the many strands in the braid of modernity. The journey she takes us on is dedicated to teasing those strands apart, using forms of cultural analysis from the social sciences to approach history with fresh eyes. Faced with the problem of trying to understand what is hardest to see: the familiar, she gains analytic distance and clarity by juxtaposing cultural analysis with history, asking how modernity began and how people conjured into existence the world we now recognize as modern.
Part I describes the genesis of key modern social forms: the modern self, communities of strangers, the modern state, and the industrial world economy. Part II focuses on modern social types: races, genders, and childhood. Part III focuses on some of the cultural artifacts and activities of the contemporary world that people have invented and used to cope with the burdens of self-making and to react against the broken promises of modern discourse and the silent injuries of material modernism.
Beautifully illustrated with over 100 color photographs in its 10 chapters, MODERNITY REIMAGINED is not just an explanation, an analysis of how modern life came to be, it is also a model for how to do cultural thinking about today’s world.
Preface: Origins and the Analysis of Modernity
Part I. History of Modern Social Forms
Chapter One: Modern Selves and Fashion
Medieval Identity
The Black Death
Modern Subjectivity
Burgundian Fashion and Moral Worth
Italian Fashion and the Distant Self
Spanish Fashion and the Christian Warrior
Dutch Fashion and Consumer Culture
French Fashion and The Theater of Power
Fashionable Dress and Modern Selves
Chapter Two: Communities of Strangers and Infrastructure
Print Infrastructure and the Wars of Religion
The Parisian Water Supply
Chapter Three: Cultural Imaginaries and Modern States
Immersive Theater and Political Spectacle
Learning by Doing
The Power of the Artisans
The Modern State
Chapter Four: Discursive Modernity and Global Industrial Capitalism Philosophical Modernities
Modern Nation States
Modern Cities
The Experimental Self
Part II Genealogies of Modern Social Types
Chapter Five: Geopolitics and Discourses of Race
Monogenesis and Moral Differences (Cell A).
Monogenesis and Degree of Civilization (Cell B)
Polygenesis and Difference of Temperament (Cell C)
Polygenesis and Racial Supremacy (Cell D)
The Legacy of Racial Imaginaries
Chapter Six: Property, Labor and Discourses of Gender
Gendered Differences
Natural Man and Artificial Women
Gender, Property and Labor
Gender Culture and Industrial Labor
Chapter Seven: The Ascent of Man and Discourses of Childhood
Modern Versions of Childhood
Developmental Childhood
Animals and Monsters
The Problem of Modern Selves
Part III Popular Tools of Modern Life
Chapter Eight: Digital Games and Navigating Modernity
Games as Pedagogical Tools
Serious Games of Military Simulation
Mazes and Serious Games of Life
Digital Maze Games and Modern Subjectivity
Mage and Minions
Spiderman II-3D
Monument Valley
Games of Modern Life.
Chapter Nine: Philosophical Media and Critiques of Modernity
No Country for Old Men
Einstein's Wife
Where the Heart Is
Independence Day
Thought Experiments and Philosophical Machines
Chapter Ten: Escape Routes and Restlessness
Aesthetic Escape Routes
Political Escape Routes
Escaping Material Modernity
The Restless Self and Grief
Appendices
Appendix A. Teaching Resources
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Chandra Mukerji is known among students and scholars of culture as one of the titans of the field, primarily because she crosses intellectual and disciplinary boundaries with ease, and also because she has written so many prize-winning books that have astonished colleagues for their range and original insight. She has won the American Sociological Association’s distinguished book award, the Merton Award from the SKAT section of the ASA, and the Douglas prize from the Culture section, all for different publications, but each examining important historical examples of how materiality shapes social life. In tandem with her scholarly publications, she also teaches a broad array of courses at University of California, San Diego to undergraduates – where she encourages students to "theorize about culture" --examining material, social, and organizational forms in original ways.
