CULTURE MACHINE <http://www.culturemachine.net> is pleased to announce
the publication of the following new book reviews:
* Terry Harpold (2009) Ex-Foliations: Reading Machines and the Upgrade
Path. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press. Reviewed by
Francesco Dimitri.
Ex-foliations is an exploratory book. It aims to draw a map of the early
years of the ‘upgrade path’, the path of textuality in new media.
Harpold takes a much needed polemical stance in saying that scholars
must be wary of dominant narratives on this path, with their promises of
ever-improving experiences and their quite obvious commercial drives.
Narratives of this kind are sustained by a teleological ideology, for
which an improvement in technical resources means per se a ‘better’
experience of the consumption of media texts. At the same time such
narratives usually avoid addressing the nature of that experience itself
and the subtle play of memory, codes and technology in which ‘texts’
actually come to exist. We can’t affirm that new technologies
automatically mean a new reading practice if we don’t even know what
reading is, and, especially, how technologies can orientate it.
* Meredith Jones (2008) Skintight: An Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery.
Oxford and New York: Berg. Reviewed by Nora Ruck.
Meredith Jones’ Skintight: An Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery carefully
navigates between feminist discourse, art, and the latest trends in the
celebrity world. To begin with, the title is telling: already the
subtitle conveys Jones’ approach of both analyzing and critiquing
cosmetic surgery from within its own (ideo)logical framework. ‘I am not
objective but rather part of what I study’, she says (2). However, the
anatomical metaphorical scope activated by the title does not do full
justice to Jones’ major theoretical contribution: a sound
conceptualization of what she calls ‘makeover culture.’
* Jack Z. Bratich (2008) Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and
Popular Culture. Albany: SUNY Press. Reviewed by Shayne Pepper.
In his new book, Conspiracy Panics: Political Rationality and Popular
Culture, Jack Z. Bratich does not just ask what a conspiracy theory is,
but rather asks under what conditions something comes to be called a
conspiracy theory. This book is a valuable contribution to the
increasing literature that takes up Michel Foucault’s writings on
governmentality. Like other works that examine popular culture through
the lens of neoliberalism and governmentality, Bratich considers
conspiracy panics to be a tool of governing at a distance. In short, he
uses Foucault’s method of analyzing liberal governmentality in order to
understand how conspiracy panics are problematized within a form of
governing at a distance that relies on a rational citizenry and a
certain level of individual freedom.
TO READ THE FULL REVIEWS:
1. Go to <http://www.culturemachine.net>
2. Click on the ‘Reviews’ heading right under the journal’s banner.
3. Click on the ‘PDF’ or ‘HTML’ sign next to the review you are
interested in.
CULTURE MACHINE http://www.culturemachine.net is an open-access
peer-reviewed journal of cultural studies and cultural theory which
publishes new work from both established figures and up-and-coming
writers. It is fully refereed and has an International Editorial
Advisory Board which includes Geoffrey Bennington, Robert Bernasconi,
Sue Golding, Lawrence Grossberg, Peggy Kamuf, Alphonso Lingis, Meaghan
Morris, Paul Patton, Mark Poster, Avital Ronell, Nicholas Royle, Tadeusz
Slawek and Kenneth Surin.
--
Dr Joanna Zylinska
Department of Media and Communications
Goldsmiths, University of London
My website: http://www.joannazylinska.net
Reviews Editor for Culture Machine: http://www.culturemachine.net
* New book: Bioethics in the Age of New Media *
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11759
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