Addressing Modernity : Social Systems Theory and US Cultures.
Title:
Addressing Modernity : Social Systems Theory and US Cultures.
Author:
Bergthaller, Hannes.
ISBN:
9789042032583
Personal Author:
Edition:
1st ed.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (365 pages)
Series:
Postmodern Studies
Contents:
Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Acknowledgements -- Table of Contents -- 1 Introduction: From National Cultures to the Semantics of Modern Society -- Literary Observations -- 2 The Emergence of Literature as Art and the Refinement of Literary Perspective -- 3 Reading the Waste Land: Textuality, Mediality, Modernity -- 4 Black Boxes and White Noise. Don DeLillo and the Reality of Literature -- Systemic (Dis-)Closures -- 5 Who is Afraid of Arnold Schwarzenegger? Absurd Democracy in the United States -- 6 The Semantics of Self-Denial: The New American Studies through the Lens of Luhmann's Social Systems Theory -- 7 Nation of Speculation: The Construction of a Financial Public in 19th Century America -- Semantics of Individualism -- 8 Institutionalised Individualism. Parsons and Luhmann on American Society -- 9 Why Did Luhmann's Social Systems Theory Find So Little Resonance in the United States of America? -- 10 Drawing out the Reader: Tourism, Literature, Individuality -- American Holographics -- 11 Steps to an Ecology of Systems: Whole Earth and Systemic Holism -- 12 The System in the Garden: American Studies and Functional Differentiation -- 13 World-Systems Colliding: Thomas Pynchon and Niklas Luhmann -- 14 Conclusion: Luhmann, Literature, and American Multiculturalism.
Abstract:
Niklas Luhmann's theory of social systems is one of the most ambitious attempts to create a coherent account of global modernity. Primarily interested in the fundamental structures of modern society, however, Luhmann himself paid relatively little attention to regional variations. The aim of this book is to seek out modernity in one particular location: The United States of America. Gathering essays from a group of cultural and literary scholars, sociologists, and philosophers, Addressing Modernity reassesses the claims of American exceptionalism by setting them in the context of Luhmann's conception of modernity, and explores how social systems theory can generate new perspectives on what has often been described as the first thoroughly modern nation. As a study of American society and culture from a Luhmannian vantage point, the book is of interest to scholars from both American Studies and social systems theory in general.
Local Note:
Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2017. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.
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