Dear Friends,

Orient BlackSwan is delighted to announce their new publication in hardback

States of Sentiment: The Cultural Politics of Emotions

by

Pramod K. Nayar

You can get copies online from www.orientblackswan.com or purchase bulk copies from any of our offices.

We look forward to receiving your valuable order.

Thank you

Orient Blackswan Private Limited

N E W B O O K I N F O R M A T I O N

States of Sentiment: The Cultural Politics of Emotions

Pramod K. Nayar

Binding: Hardback Pages: 316 Price: Rs 595/- ISBN: 978-81-250-4199-3

 

The Book

States of Sentiment, a fascinating merger of cultural studies with philosophy, psychology and trauma studies, analyses how sentiments of care, passion, desire, pleasure, fear, sympathy or pity are discursively commodified (made a commodity) in the mass media, films, reportage and the other public culture forms. It demonstrates that cultures today are becoming emotion-driven, and that there are crucial social dimensions to our responses to various situations, events and representations. Organised around four ‘sentiments’—well-being, suffering, aversion and hope—and analysing contemporary cultural events and icons, the book unravels the representational strategies, cultural codes and discourses that inform, and even determine the appropriateness or inappropriateness of our emotional responses.

 

The Author

Pramod K. Nayar is Lecturer, Department of English, University of Hyderabad.

 

Contents

 

Preface

Foreword: Overture to a Study of Emotions

by Shiv Visvanathan

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Emotion Cultures and Cultural Emotion Studies

 

One

Smile: Cultures of Well-being

The Idea of Well-being

Well-being and Sociality

Spectacles of Well-being

Well-being Cultures

The Transformational Citizen

 

Two

Scars: Cultures of Suffering

The Idea of Suffering

Suffering and its Affective Sociality

Scar Culture, Extreme

Cultures and Tele-Trauma

The Trauma-Aesthetic

Suffering and its Collaterals

Spectacles of Sentiment

Precarious Lives, Witnessing and the Coming Community

 

Three

Shudders: Cultures of Aversion

The Idea of Aversion

Aversion Cultures

The Rhetorics of Aversion

Aversion Spectacle

 

Four

Yearning: Cultures of Hope

The Idea of Hope

Utopianism and Hope

Spectacles of Hope-cultures

Utopian Processes and Practices