Horizon Information Portal

HSPLS site

eBooks/Audiobooks

Reading Program

Culture / Terry Eagleton.

by Eagleton, Terry, 1943- author.

View full image

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2016.

Civilization, Modern.

9780300218794 (hardcover : alk. paper)

0300218796 (hardcover : alk. paper)

ix, 177 pages ; 22 cm

Culture and civilisation -- Postmodern prejudices -- The social unconscious -- An apostle of culture -- From Herder to Hollywood -- Conclusion: the hubris of culture.

Culture is a defining aspect of what it means to be human. Defining culture and pinpointing its role in our lives is not, however, so straightforward. Terry Eagleton, one of our foremost literary and cultural critics, is uniquely poised to take on the challenge. In this keenly analytical and acerbically funny book, he explores how culture and our conceptualisations of it have evolved over the last two centuries--from rarified sphere to humble practices, and from a bulwark against industrialism's encroaches to present-day capitalism's most profitable export. Ranging over art and literature as well as philosophy and anthropology, and major but somewhat 'unfashionable' thinkers like Johann Gottfried Herder and Edmund Burke aw well as T.S. Eliot, Matthew Arnold, Raymond Williams and Oscar Wilde, Eagleton provides a cogent overview of culture set firmly in its historical and theoretical contexts, illuminating its collusion with colonialism, nationalism, the decline of religion, and the rise of and rule of the 'uncultured' masses. Eagleton also examines culture today, lambasting the commodification and co-option of a force that, properly understood, is a vital means for us to cultivate and enrich our social lives, and can even provide the impetus to transform civil society. -- Inside jacket flap.

Horizon Information Portal 3.25_9884

Powered by Dynix

© 2001-2013 SirsiDynix All rights reserved.

Horizon Information Portal