The distinguished sociologist Richard Sennett surveys major differences between earlier forms of industrial capitalism and the more global, more febrile, ever more mutable version of capitalism that ...is taking its place. He shows how these changes affect everyday life-how the work ethic is changing; how new beliefs about merit and talent displace old values of craftsmanship and achievement; how what Sennett calls "the specter of uselessness" haunts professionals as well as manual workers; how the boundary between consumption and politics is dissolving.
In recent years, reformers of both private and public institutions have preached that flexible, global corporations provide a model of freedom for individuals, unlike the experience of fixed and static bureaucracies Max Weber once called an "iron cage." Sennett argues that, in banishing old ills, the new-economy model has created new social and emotional traumas. Only a certain kind of human being can prosper in unstable, fragmentary institutions: the culture of the new capitalism demands an ideal self oriented to the short term, focused on potential ability rather than accomplishment, willing to discount or abandon past experience. In a concluding section, Sennett examines a more durable form of self hood, and what practical initiatives could counter the pernicious effects of "reform."
The book Glasba, politika, afekt: novo življenje partizanskih pesmi v Sloveniji ('Music, Politics, Affect: New Lives of Partisan Songs in Slovenia') explores the potentialities of music in imagining ...alternatives and establishing alliances, which introduce new senses of belonging and solidarity in global neoliberal capitalism. It examines the reactualization of partisan songs in post-Yugoslav Slovenia with an emphasis on the collective spirit, its rebelliousness and emancipatory potential. In researching the “new lives” of partisan songs, the book focuses on the self-organized female choir Kombinat, an emblematic example of thinking about the partisan art in Slovenia today. Just a part of Kombinat repertoire, partisan songs are discursively, sonically, spatially, ideologically and symbolically reloaded, challenging thus the various boundaries in thinking about this legacy in Slovenian context. Using theoretical framework of affect theory, and particularly theories of music materialism and sonic affect, the book provides an alternative perspective to our understanding of political capacity of music. It addresses four main issues: the role of music and sound in political mobilization and participation, the potentials of musical alliances and musical self-organization and self-education, referencing musical past as a way of political engagement, and finally, revitalization and reactualization of socialist ideas and values in the current moment of global transition.
Using Kosovo as a case study, the book illuminates the interplay of some of the most controversial concepts in postcolonial times, including humanitarian intervention, peacebuilding, nation-state ...building, and doing development in war torn states. A special focus is on development professionals, mandated to build peace and implement development projects in war-torn or failed states. The book seeks to uncover the complex nature of doing good for others, especially when development efforts are serving the political and economic interests of donor states and when the social status attained by the expatriate development workers tends to improve upon migrating to and working in war-torn states.
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