Hybrids Of Modernity
Subtitle: Anthropology, the Nation State and the Universal Exhibition
Publisher: Routledge
Published: August 13, 1996
Language: eng
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780415130455
First sentence: Mitchell opens his book on 'the peculiar methods of order that characterize the modern West' with a reminder of the nature of a peculiarity prevalent in nineteenth century Europe: Middle Eastern visitors found Europeans a curios people, with an uncontainable eagerness to stand and stare.
Description: Hybrids of Modernity considers the relationship between three western modernist institutions: anthropology, the nation state and the universal exhibition. It looks at the ways in which these institutions are linked, how they are engaged in the objectification of culture, and how they have themselves become objects of cultural theory - the target of critics who claim that despite their continuing visibility these are all institutions with questionable viability in the late twentieth century. Through an analysis of the Universal Exhibition held in Seville in 1992, the themes of culture, nationality and technology are explored. Particular attention is paid to how 'culture' is produced and put to work by the national and corporate participants, and to the relationship between the emergence of culture as a commodity and the way in which the concept is employed in contemporary cultural theory. Hybrids of Modernity will appeal to students in anthropology, sociology and cultural studies.