One of the major characteristics of our contemporary culture isa positive, almost banal, view of the transgression and disruptionof cultural boundaries. Strangers, migrants and nomads arecelebrated in our postmodern world of hybrids and cyborgs. But wepay a price for this celebration of hybridity: the non–hybridfigures in our societies are ignored, rejected, silenced orexterminated. This book tells the story of these non–hybrid figuresÐ the anti–heroes of our pop culture.The main example of non–hybrids in an otherwise hybridized worldis that of deep old age. Hazan shows how we fervently distanceourselves from old age by grading and sequencing it into stagessuch as ‘the third age’, ‘the fourth age’and so on. Aging bodies are manipulated through anti–agingtechniques until it is no longer possible to do it anymore, atwhich point they become un–transformable and non–marketable objectsand hence commercially and socially invisible or masked. Otherexamples are used to elucidate the same cultural logic of thenon–hybrid: pain, the Holocaust, autism, fundamentalism andcorporeal death. On the face of it, these examples may seem to havenothing in common, but they all exemplify the same cultural logicof the non–hybrid and provoke similar reactions of criticism,terror, abhorrence and moral indignation.This highly original and iconoclastic book offers a freshcritique of contemporary Western culture by focusing on that whichis perceived as its other Ð the non–hybrid in our midst, oftenrejected, ignored or silenced and deemed to be in need of globallymanageable correction. INDICE: PART I.Introduction: Zones and Discourses of Cultural Sturdiness.The Book?s Composition.(Non–)hybridization and (Anti–)globalization.The Genealogy of Hybridity.The Biopolitics of Hybridization, Medicalization, and Cultural Brokering.Medicalization as Cultural Brokering and Staging.Traditional, modern and postmodern anthropology in search of its other..PART II.From Ageless Self to Selfless age: The Very Old as Deadly Others.Before Taking the Plunge.Social Theory and Extreme Old age.The Academic Disciplines of Anthropology and Gerontology in the Context of.Extreme Old Age.The Old–as–Other in Anthropology and Gerontology.Third World and Third Age: A Tale of two Hybrids.Research Methodology and Extreme Old Age.From the Third to the Fourth Age: A Hybrid turned Non–hybrid..PART III .The Fluid and the Immutable: Extending the Argument.Beyond Debate? The Cultural Site of the Holocaust.Translating the Holocaust: The ?Rebel? vs. the ?Lamb to Slaughter?.The Case of Autism, or: Those on the Spectrum.Pain, the Old Barbarian.Surviving Pain.Old Age and the Mark of Pain..In Conclusion: Bringing the Extra–Cultural Back In.References.Index
- ISBN: 978-0-7456-9070-4
- Editorial: Polity Press
- Encuadernacion: Rústica
- Páginas: 200
- Fecha Publicación: 20/02/2015
- Nº Volúmenes: 1
- Idioma: Inglés