The Consumption of Mass

Ideas of mass dominate twentieth century thought. Mass has been core to its triumphs and complicit in the darkest hours. Alongside a repulsion to mass – genocide, bureaucracy and the crowd – lies an unceasing consumption. The icons of progress, democracy and civilization are all mandated by the globalization of wealth, the rise of popular culture and mass access to information.

Yet mass remains the least examined idea in the sociological canon. Indeed, its analysis seems all but abandoned today. The status of mass as antinomy to individuality is made even more vacuous by postmodernity′s celebration of the individual as host to a mass of signs.

This volume sets out to reverse the neglect. Arguing that mass is key to understanding the materialization of social relations, the collection opens up contemporary thinking about identity, choice and values. With new contributions by Zygmunt Bauman, Robert Cooper and Dane Rose, these twelve innovative papers draw together debates on social theory, community, materiality and consumption.

Spis treści:
Part I – Imagining Mass.
Chapter 1 – Individuality and Susceptibility: The Consumption of Agency in Social Structures, Barry Barnes, University of Exeter.
Chapter 2 – Pass the Salt: Materiality and the Production of Mass for Consumption, Dan Rose, University of Pennsylvania.
Chapter 3 – Consuming Mass: Mutability and Consumption, Robert Cooper, Keele University.
Part II – Community and Mass.
Chapter 4 – The Consumption of Masses: Calculating Community for Maximum Impact and Instant Obsolescence, Zygmunt Bauman, Leeds University (Emeritus).
Chapter 5 – Ordering Otherness: The Consumption and Disposal of Others, Christina Palli Monguilod, Aotonoma University.
Chapter 6 – The Waiting of Mass: Individuality and the Process of Double Forgetting, Rolland Munro, Keele Universi ty.
Part III – Writing and Mass.
Chapter 7 – All Consuming Passions: The Refiguiring of Subjectivity in later Twentieth Century Discourses of Consumption, Joanna Latimer, Keele University.
Chapter 8 – The Mystery of the Assumption: Women′s Writing and Endless Consumption, Heather Hopfl, Bolton .
Chapter 9 – The Consumption of Mass: Interpreting Luck and the Mass Average, Jane Parish, Keel University.
Part IV – Performing Mass.
Chapter 10 – The Consumption of Vagrancy, Thomas Bay and Per Backius, University of Stockholm.
Chapter 11 – The Consumption of Bass: Techno′s Funky Alien and the Contusion of Mass, Rob Beeston, Keele University.
Chapter 12 – Border Blues: Maastricht and Dada Disorder, Robert Grafton Small, Keel University

Nota biograficzna:
Nick Lee is Lecturer in Sociology at Keele University. His research explores relations between dignity, presence and materiality. His main contribution so far has been to the sociology of childhood. His publications include ′Childhood and Society: Growing Up in an Age of Uncertainty′, Open University Press, 2001.
Rolland Munro is Professor of Organisation Theory and Director of the Centre for Social Theory and Technology at Keele University. Among many articles on culture, identity, information, knowledge and power is a long standing interest in different forms of accountability and belonging. He is currently writing a book on the Euro–American′s cultural and social entanglement with technology, provisionally called ′The Demanding Relationship′ to clarify ideas like motility, disposal, discretion, punctualising and ethos. He co–edited a 1997 Sociological Review Monograph entitled ′Ideas of Difference: Social Spaces and the Labour of Division′.

Okładka tylna:
Ideas of mass dominate twentieth century t hought. Mass has been core to its triumphs and complicit in the darkest hours. Alongside a repulsion to mass – genocide, bureaucracy and the crowd – lies an unceasing consumption. The icons of progress, democracy and civilization are all mandated by the globalization of wealth, the rise of popular culture and mass access to information.

Yet mass remains the least examined idea in the sociological canon. Indeed, its analysis seems all but abandoned today. The status of mass as antinomy to individuality is made even more vacuous by postmodernity′s celebration of the individual as host to a mass of signs.

This volume sets out to reverse the neglect. Arguing that mass is key to understanding the materialization of social relations, the collection opens up contemporary thinking about identity, choice and values. With new contributions by Zygmunt Bauman, Robert Cooper and Dane Rose, these twelve innovative papers draw together debates on social theory, community, materiality and consumption.