Still Life: Hopes, Desires and Satisfactions

by Henrietta L. Moore

How adequate are our theories of globalisation for analysing the worlds we share with others? In this provocative new book, Henrietta Moore asks us to step back and re-examine in a fresh way the interconnections normally labeled 'globalisation'. Rather than beginning with abstract processes and flows, Moore starts by analyzing the hopes, desires and satisfactions of individuals in their day-to-day lives.  Drawing on a wide range of examples, from African initiation rituals to Japanese anime, from sex in virtual worlds to Schubert songs, Moore develops a theory of the ethical imagination, exploring how ideas about the human subject, and its capacities for self-making and social transformation, form a basis for reconceptualizing the role and significance of culture in a global age. She shows how the ideas of social analysts and ordinary people intertwine and diverge, and argues for an ethics of engagement based on an understanding of the human need to engage with cultural problems and seek social change. This innovative and challenging book is essential reading for anyone interested in the key debates about culture and globalization in the contemporary world.

Genres: Philosophy

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2011

About the author

Henrietta L. Moore is a British social anthropologist. She is the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Culture and Communications Programme at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics (LSE). Previously Moore was a Governor of the LSE; LSE Deputy Director for research and external relations 2002-2005, and served as the Director of the Gender Institute at the LSE from 1994-1999.