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Book Review of The Cultures of Globalization (Post-Contemporary Interventions)

The Cultures of Globalization (Post-Contemporary Interventions)
reviewed on


Book information:
A pervasive force that evades easy analysis, globalization has come to represent the export and import of culture, the speed and intensity of which has increased to unprecedented levels in recent years. The Cultures of Globalization presents an international panel of intellectuals who consider the process of globalization as it concerns the transformation of the economic into the cultural and vice versa; the rise of consumer culture around the world; the production and cancellation of forms of subjectivity; and the challenges it presents to national identity, local culture, and traditional forms of everyday life.
Discussing overlapping themes of transnational consequence, the contributors to this volume describe how the global character of technology, communication networks, consumer culture, intellectual discourse, the arts, and mass entertainment have all been affected by recent worldwide trends. Appropriate to such diversity of material, the authors approach their topics from a variety of theoretical perspectives, including those of linguistics, sociology, economics, anthropology, and the law. Essays examine such topics as free trade, capitalism, the North and South, Eurocentrism, language migration, art and cinema, social fragmentation, sovereignty and nationhood, higher education, environmental justice, wealth and poverty, transnational corporations, and global culture. Bridging the spheres of economic, political, and cultural inquiry, The Cultures of Globalization offers crucial insights into many of the most significant changes occurring in todays world.

Table of Contents:
Preface / Fredric Jameson xi
I. Globalization and Philosophy
Beyond Eurocentrism: The World-System and the Limits of Modernity / Enrique Dussel 3
Globalization, Civilization Processes, and the Relocation of Languages and Cultures / Walter D. Mignlo 32
Notes on Globalization as a Philosophical Issue / Fredric Jameson 54
II. Alternative Localities
Global Fragments: A Second Latinamericanism / Alberto Moreiras 81
Toward a Regional Imaginary in Africa / Manthia Diawara 103
Negotiating African Culture: Toward a Decolonization of the Fetish / Ioan Davies 125
The End of Free States: On Transnationalism of Culture / Subramani 146
Is There an Alternative to (Capitalist) Globalization? The Debate about Modernity in China / Liu Kang 164
III. Culture and the Nation
Globalization and Culture: Navigating the Void / Geeta Kapur 191
Nations and Literatures in the Age of Globalization / Paik Nak-chung 218
Media in a Capitalist Culture / Barbara Trent 230
"Globalization," Culture, and the University / Masao Miyoshi 247
IV. Consumerism and Ideology
Dollarization, Fragmentation, and God / Sherif Hetata 273
Social Movements and Global Capitalism / Leslie Sklair 291
"Environmental Justice" (Local and Global) / Joan Martinez-Alier 312
What's Green and Makes the Environment Go Round? / David Harvey 327
Free Trade and Free Market: Pretense and Practice / Noam Chomsky 356
In Place of a Conclusion / Masao Miyoshi 371
Index 385
Contributors 391