Images of Deviance and Social Control: A Sociological History, 3rd Edition.
This work represents a critical sociological history of a theoretical approaches used to explain and control so-called "deviant" peoples, social practices and ideas. Using power-reflexive methods of social inquiry the book examines a wide variety of religious, legal, medical, criminological, and social science frameworks employed to understand deviance, examining the historical contexts in which each theoretical perspective rose to prominence. The 3rd edition of this McGraw-Hill book will include updated treatments of the roles of religion and biomedicine in the control of nonconformity, while exploring the politics of deviance and social control in a global social and historical context.
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Venus In Video: Cybernetic Social Control and the Power of Fascination
Venus in Video is the second phase of a three-part program of theoretical research and writing on the socio-historical conditions and ethical-political implications of postmodernity as an emerging global cultural phenomenon. The first phase of this proje ct, Death at the Parasite Cafe: Social Science (Fictions) and the Postmodern was completed in 1992 and published by St. Martin's Press. Venus in Video extends this investigation by critically examining the historical origins and social impact of the appl ied science of cybernetics as a new global technology of power. Of particular concern is the capability of cybernetics to engineer social control in the areas of military power, business, consumer society, and popular culture. At issue is the ability of cybernetic feedback mechanisms to steer conformity, not merely through the power of punishment, threat or censure, but by the somewhat magical technological production of seductive and often captivating states of psychic and bodily fascination.
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Related Publications
"New Global Technologies of Power: Cybernetic Capitalism and Social Inequality," Chapter 23 in Mary Romero and Eric Margolis, eds., The Blackwell Companion for Social Inequalities, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2005, pp. 1042-1132.
"Theses on the Cyberotics of History: Venus in Microsoft, remix," in Joan Broadhurst Dixon and Eric J. Cassidy, ed. Cyberotics: Virtual Futures, Technology and Post-Human Pragmatism, New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 11-29.
"The Cybernetic Delirium of Norbert Wiener," in CTHEORY: Theory, Technology and Culture, Vol. 20 (1997), pp. 57-87.
"Twilight of the Parasites: Ultramodern Capital and the New World Order," Social Problems, Vol. 40, No. 2 (May 1993), pp. 801-827.