David R. Dickens

Postmodern media studies: Analysis or symptom?

There is much current discussion about “the postmodern condition”‐a sea change in the configuration of society that has brought about a dramatic new set of cultural forms and social experiences. At the center of the postmodern condition are the issues of communication and the nature of signification and language. Here, we identify the major insights concerning contemporary communication and media practices associated with the postmodern condition and evaluate their contribution to critical media studies.

Leisure and legitimation.

ABSTRACT In this essay we argue that the historical redefinition of leisure in the United States roughly corresponds to the extension of commodity relations in U.S. society. We show how the negative view of leisure, traditionnally associated with the Puritan ethic, was deeply reinforced by the requirements of wage labor during the early stages of capital accumulation. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, the maturation of a distinctively capitalist mode of consumption based on commodity relations in conjunction with the shifting requirements of the accumulation system had the effect of making leisure more individuated and consumable. The meaning of leisure was thus enhanced, and this enhanced meaning of leisure began to emerge as a means of legitimating first, the conditions of work, and later the operation of the U.S. political and economic system. In the present era appeals to freedom, individuality and well-being, once grounded in the supposed virtues of the free market and the public sphere,...

Dimensions of the postmodern self

In this essay I examine a variety of approaches to the contemporary postmodern self. I argue that this diverse literature may be analytically distinguished along two general lines. The first concerns institutional or structural claims regarding what a self “is” or “is not.” The second focuses instead on what a self “does” or “does not do.” I conclude by recommending a more comprehensive approach that takes into account the salience of both of these analytical dimensions in the contemporary debates over the postmodern self.

DECONSTRUCTION AND MARXIST INQUIRY

This study examines the relationship between deconstruction and Marxist inquiry. Derridas philosophical conception of deconstruction is presented, followed by a discussion and assessment of the arguments for a Marx–deconstruction articulation. I argue that such an articulation is not supportable due to a fundamental incompatibility between Marxism and Derridas Saussurean-based conception of language and meaning. Finally, I conclude that language-based approaches in general are of limited utility in reorienting Marxist theory and practice.

Analyzing development, dependency and underdevelopment: Suggestions for an alternative approach

This paper reexamines sociological modernization theories of development and current theories of dependency and underdevelopment. It is argued that both sets of literature present one‐sided portrayals of social change in contemporary Third World countries. In place of these we propose an alternative dialectical approach. We suggest the way in which this approach integrates international political and economic emphases of the neo‐Marxist approaches with domestic socio‐cultural foci of modernization theory through examples from classic and contemporary studies.

Landscapes of Capital: Representing Time, Space, and Globalization in Corporate Advertising

The Spectacular State explores the production of national identity in post-Soviet Uzbekistan. The main protagonists are the cultural elites involved in the elaboration of new state-sponsored mass-spectacle national holidays: Navro’z (Zoroastrian New Year) and Independence Day. The overall argument is that despite their aspirations to reinvigorate national identity, mass spectacle creators in Uzbekistan have reproduced much of the Soviet cultural production. National identity has been one of the most fraught questions in Central Asia, where nationality was a contradictory and complicated product of the Soviet rule. Although the category of nationality was initiated, produced, and imposed by the Soviet state in the 1920s, it eventually became a source of power and authority for local elites, including cultural producers. The collapse of the Soviet Union opened up possibilities for revising and reversing many understandings manufactured by the socialist regime. Yet, upon her arrival in Tashkent to conduct her research on the renegotiation of national identity in 1995, Laura Adams discovered that instead of embracing newly-found freedom to recover a more authentic history, most Uzbek intellectuals, especially cultural producers working with the state, avoided probing too far in this direction. Rather than entirely discarding the Soviet colonial legacies, they revised their history selectively. Whereas the ideological content of their cultural production shifted from socialism to nationalism, many of the previous cultural ‘‘forms’’ have remained. Similarly, the Uzbek government continued to employ cultural elites to implement the task of reinforcing its nation-building program, thus following the Soviet model of cultural production. The book consists of four chapters. The first chapter delineates the broad themes of national identity building, and the remaining chapters explore mass spectacle creation by distinguishing between three elements: form (Chapter Two), content (Chapter Three), and the mode of production (Chapter Four). The study is based on content analysis of two Olympic Games-style national holidays, interviews with cultural producers, and participation observation of festivals and behind-the-scenes preparation meetings. Although Adams provides a few references to viewers and their attitude toward the public holiday performances, her book does not offer an extended engagement with reception and consumption of these holidays. The comprehensive and multi-layered overview of the process of revising national identity in Uzbekistan is one of the book’s major accomplishments. For Adams, the production of national identity is not a selfevident and seamless production forced by the state but instead a dynamic, complex, and dialogical process of negotiation between various parties (intellectual factions, state officials, mass spectacle producers, etc.). Her account reveals the messy and often contradictory nature of national identity production and thus moves away from the tendency to reify the state and its policies. The book makes a significant contribution to studies of nationalism by suggesting that the production of national identity in Uzbekistan was centrally constituted by the consideration of the ‘‘international audience.’’ Although public holidays, studied by Adams, aimed at fostering national identification, the forms in which these celebrations are performed (including national dances and music) indicate the aspiration of cultural producers to be part of the international community. This kind of national production self-consciously oriented toward the international viewer has been the legacy of the Soviet nationalities policy where all cultural producers had to produce art ‘‘socialist in content, national in form.’’ Notwithstanding the difference in generations or genres,