Para-Sites: A Casebook against Cynical Reason (Volume 7) (Late Editions: Cultural Studies for the End of the Century)

Para-Sites , the penultimate volume in the Late Editions series, explores how social actors located within centers of power and privilege develop and express a critical consciousness of their own situations. Departing from the usual focus of ethnography and cultural analysis on the socially marginalized, these pieces probe subjects who are undeniably complicit with powerful institutional engines of contemporary change. In each case, the possibility of alternative thinking or practices is in complex relation to the subject's source of empowerment. These cases challenge the condition of cynicism that has been the favored mode of characterizing the mind-set of intellectuals and professionals, comfortable in their lives of middle-class consumption and work. In their effort to establish para-sites of critical awareness parallel to the levels of political and economic power at which they function, these subjects suggest that those who lead ordinary lives of modest power and privilege might not be parasites in relation to the systems they serve, but may be creating unique and independent critical perspectives. "Para-Sites", the penultimate volume in the Late Editions series, explores how social actors located within centres of power and privilege develop and express a critical consciousness of their own situations. Departing from the usual focus on ethnography and cultural analysis on the socially marginalized, these pieces probe subjects who are undeniably complicit with powerful institutional engines of contemporary change. In each case, the possibility of alternative thinking or practices is in complex relation to the subject's source of empowerment. These cases challenge the condition of cynicism that has been the favoured mode of characterizing the mind-set of intellectuals and professionals, comfortable in their lives of middle-class consumption and work. In their effort to establish para-sites of critical awareness parallel to the levels of political and economic power at which they function, these subjects suggest that those who lead ordinary lives of modest power and privilege might not be parasites in relation to the systems they serve, but may be creating unique and independent critical perspectives With A Hammer, A Gouge, And A Woodblock / Michael M.j. Fischer -- Expatriating Culture, Writing Thailand / Kim Fortun, Jeff Petry, And Mike Fortun -- Performing On A Fault Line : The Making(s) Of A South African Spy Novel And Other Stories / Jennifer A. Law -- Fashioning Women : The Dressmaker As A Cultural Producer In Soviet Russia / Olga Vainshtein -- Academics And The Production Of An Intellectual Discourse Of Modernity In Russia / Alexei Elfimov -- Technology, Television, And Myth / Marie Theresa Hernandez -- The Work Of Markets : Filming Within Indian Mediascapes, 1997 / Kim And Mike Fortun -- Museum In A Hat / Ron Burnett. La Laiterie, Strasbourg, France : From The Singular To The Manifold / Gudrun Klein -- If Derrida Is The Gómez-peña Of Philosopy, What Are The Genres Of Social Science? Just Gaming : The Y2k Computer Bug And Other Uncertainties, A Critical Simulation Game / Michael M.j. Fischer -- Commercializing Outer Space : The Satwg Stories / Robbie E. Davis-floyd. George E. Marcus, Editor. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. This is the penultimate volume in the "Late Editions" series, exploring how social actors located within centres of power and privilege develop and express a critical consciousness of their own situations. Cynicism of course is always a possibility and a perversely comforting attribution (since it makes the moderately empowered professional "knowing," it at least imbues him or her with intelligence).