Global Modernities is a sustained commentary on the international character of the most microcosmic practices. It demonstrates how the global increasingly informs the regional, so deconstructing ideas like the `nation state′ and `national sovereignty′. The spatialization of social theory, hybridization and bio-politics are among the critical issues discussed.

This fascinating collection explores the growing range of body modification practices such as piercing, tattooing, branding, cutting and inserting implants, which have sprung up recently in the West.It asks whether this implies that we are returning to traditional tribal practices of inscribing identities onto bodies on the part of ′modern primitives′, or is body modification better understood as purely cosmetic and decorative with body markings merely temporary signs of transferab...

The first edition of this contemporary classic can claim to have put ′consumer culture′ on the map, certainly in relation to postmodernism. This expanded new edition includes:a fully revised preface that explores the developments in consumer culture since the first editiona major new chapter on ′Modernity and the Cultural Question′an update on postmodernism and the development of contemporary theory after postmodernisman account of multiple and a...

We all have a finite life-span. We are born, we get old and we die. Given the universiality of the ageing process, it is remarkable that there is almost a complete absence of study of culture and self-image of the middle aged and old. Images of Ageing: Cultural Representations of Later Life changes this. The contributors discuss images of ageing which have come to circulate in the advanced industrial societies today. They address themes such as: body and self image in everyday int...