Category: Postmodernism and Late Modernsim

  • The Condition of Postmodernity, Chapter 1 Summary

    The Condition of Postmodernity, Chapter 1 Summary

    A summary of chapter one of David Harvey’s (1989) Condition of Postmodernity

  • Postmodernism – An Introduction for A-level Sociology Students

    A summary of the work of three postmodern thinkers: Lyotard, Baudrillard and Bauman who argue that we need to think differently about the social world now we have moved out of the modernity.

  • Changing Education Paradigms

    In this TED talk, Sir Ken Robinson argues that our current educational systems are still based on a industrial paradigm of education – education is increasingly standardised and about conformity, and kids, who are living in the most stimulating age in history, fail to see the point of going to school, which is about ‘finding…

  • Modernism and Postmodernism – What’s the Difference?

    Modernism and Postmodernism – What’s the difference? The table below is taken from David Harvey’s Condition of Postmodernity (in turn taken from Hassan 1985). Harvey suggests that its a useful tool which helps us to see how postmodernity is, in some ways, a reaction to modernity. I cut out a few of the more hectic…

  • Sociological Theories of Consumerism and Consumption

    Many of us spend a lot of time thinking about the things we might consume, and how we might consume them, and we do this not only as individuals, but as friends, partners, and families, and so intensely do we think about our consumption practices that the things we buy and the experiences we engage…

  • Giddens – Fate, Risk and Security

    A Summary of Anthony Giddens’ Modernity and Self Identity, Chapter 4 – Fate, Risk and Security Fate, Fatalism, Fateful Moments To live in the universe of high modernity is to live in an environment of chance and risk. The future is seen as a place which can be shaped by human intervention, and thus, within…

  • Jock Young: Late Modernity, Exclusion and Crime

    Jock Young (2002) argues that we are now living in a late modern society characterised by instability, insecurity and exclusion, which make the problem of crime worse. He contrasts today’s society (since the 1970s) with the period preceding it, arguing that the 1950s and 60s represented a golden age of modern capitalist society, a period…

  • Sociological Perspectives on Identity (1)

    A brief summary of Steph Lawler’s ‘Identity’ – Chapter One – Stories, Memories, Identities Introduction: living lives and telling stories ‘We endlessly tell stories, both about ourselves and others, and it is through these stories that we make sense of ourselves.’ This chapter explores the perspective which sees people engaged in a creative process of…

  • Giddens – The Trajectory of the Self

    A Summary of chapter three of Anthony Giddens’ Modernity and Self-Identity Self-identity, history, modernity Drawing on a therapeutic text – ‘Self-Therapy’ by Janette Rainwater – Giddens selects ten features which are distinctive about the search for self-identity in the late modern age: The self is seen as a reflexive project for which the indivdual is…

  • Zygmunt Bauman’s Liquid Times – A Summary

    Zygmunt Bauman is one of the world’s leading sociologists. He is particularly interested in how the west’s increasing obsession with ‘individualism’ actually prevents the individual from being free in any meaningful sense of the word. In  ‘Liquid Times (2007), Bauman argues that there are a number of negative consequences of globalisation such as the generation…