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ALIENATION: CRITIQUE AND ALTERNATIVE FUTURES 25

of alienation and its theorization shed light
Bellah, Robert, Madsen, Richard, Sullivan,
on hitherto unexplored subtleties in social William M. and Swidler, Ann (1985) Habits
and personal life. of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment
in American Life. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Berlet, Chip (2005) ‘When Alienation Turns
NOTES Right: Populist Conspiracism, the Apocalyptic
Style, and Neofascist Movements,’ in Lauren
Langman and Devorah Kalekin-Fishman
1 We acknowledge that terrorism has multiple
roots, but here we wish to underscore how alien- (eds.) The Evolution of Alienation: Trauma,
ation can be recruited through popular culture. Promise and the Millennium. Boulder, CO:
2 Because Hegel’s Absolutes emerged out of the Rowman and Littlefield. pp. 115–44.
French Revolution which put an end to serfdom, Berlet, Chip and Lyons, M. N. (2000) Right-
Hegel’s Absolutes breathed the air, the earthly air of Wing Populism in America: Too Close for
freedom. Even when one reads Absolute Mind as Comfort. NY: Guilford.
God, one cannot escape the earthly quality of the Best, Stephen and Kellner, Douglas (1991)
unity of theory and practice, and grasp the Absolute ‘Kevin Kelly’s Complexity Theory: The Politics
Reality as man’s attainment of total freedom, inner and Ideology of Self-Organizing Systems,’
and outer and temporal. The bondsman, having gained
through his labor, as Hegel put it, ‘a mind of his own,’ Illuminations. http://www.uta.edu/huma/
becomes part of the struggle between ‘consciousness- illuminations/best7.htm
in-itself’ and ‘consciousness-for-itself.’ Or, more pop- Boggs, Carl (1976) Gramsci’s Marxism.
ularly stated, the struggle against alienation becomes London: Pluto Press.
the attainment of freedom (see Korsch, 1923). Braverman, Harvey (1998) Labor and Monopoly
3 Members of the International Sociological Capital: The Degradation of Work in the
Association’s Research Committee for the Study of Twentieth Century. NY: Monthly Review
Alienation Theory and Research are among those Press.
whose work is at the cutting edge of new Castells, Manuel (1996) The Power of Identity.
approaches to alienation research. They have elabo- Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell.
rated on the contemporary relevance of alienation
for theoretical critiques, descriptions of concrete Coontz, Stephanie (1997) The Way We Really
political developments that embody authoritarian Are: Coming to Terms with America’s
responses to alienation, as well as cultural expres- Changing Families. NY: Basic Books.
sions of ambiguities in forms of everyday life under Dahms, Harry (2002) ‘Sociology in the Age of
late capitalism. For a wider view, see Langman and Globalization: Toward a Dynamic Sociological
Kalekin-Fishman (2005). Theory,’ in Jennifer Lehmann (ed.) Current
4 Sklair (2002) has argued that consumerism Perspectives in Social Theory. Greenwich, CN:
serves as the ideological glue that sustains transna- JAI Press, 21: 287–320.
tional capitalism. David, Matthew (2005) ‘Embodiment and
5 See, for example Fraser and Honneth (2003), or
Taylor (1994). Communication: Alienation, Genetics and
Computing. What Does it Mean to be
Human?,’ in Lauren Langman and Devorah
Kalekin-Fishman (eds.) The Evolution of
Alienation: Trauma, Promise and the
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