Postmodern social theory has provided significant insights into our understanding of society and its components. Key thinkers including Foucault; Baudrillard and Lyotard have challenged existing ideas about power and rationality in society. This book analyses planning from a postmodern perspective and explores alternative conceptions based on a combination of postmodern thinking and other fields of social theory. In doing so; it exposes some of the limits of postmodern social theory while providing an alternative conception of planning in the twenty-first century.This title will appeal to anyone interested in how we think and act in relation to cities; urban planning and governance.
#4309389 in eBooks 2002-01-04 2002-01-04File Name: B000FA63N8
Review
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. I suspect nobody needs this book; and it does ...By flocksofI suspect nobody needs this book; and it does feel dated; but it makes for lots of laughs if you are in academia and keep it in a space shared by other academics... Especially if you are currently organizing.21 of 23 people found the following review helpful. At Last a Tenured Professor who Tells the TruthBy pannapac@fas.harvard.eduOnce again the prolific; visionary critic of the academic job system; Cary Nelson; and his astute colleague Stephen Watt have the courage to tell it like it is. They expose the false consciousness that permeates higher education: the rhetoric of "apprenticeship;" buzzwords like "excellence;" the fiction of "academic freedom"--everything that keeps us from recognizing the constructed nature of the academic job crisis. Contrary to what the corporate managers of our universities and their bloated allies among the tenured faculty would have us believe; the job crisis is not about supply and demand; rather; it is about seizing capital from the weakest members of the profession (graduate students; part-timers; and adjuncts); who have become a disposable commodity; enabling universities to provide their student-customers with cheap instruction while an ever-diminishing academic elite promote themselves bewailing the plight of oppressed people with whom they have no contact. Nelson and Watts "Devils Dictionary" is the perfect resource for a profession thats going to hell. Every exploited worker in higher education should own a copy of this book; along with Nelsons Manifesto of a Tenured Radical; Will Teach for Food; and Christina Boufis On the Market.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Subtle treatment of a complicated subject (but a bit repetitive)By Matthew LefavorIn this volume; Nelson and Watt present the reader with a series of alphabetically-arranged essays on the problems confronting higher education. It is a work that bears the stamp of long; evenhanded research and personal involvement; full of surprising statistics and shocking anecdotes.The authors display great skill at discerning the subtle ways many disparate forces interact to effect an almost unseen crisis in university life. When the big picture comes together; it is overwhelming; for me; the moment came when reading the essay on scholarly books. In the late eighties a single British entrepreneur hired a star-studded staff of editors and reviewers to create the worlds most prestigious science journal. Shortly thereafter; he was able to charge subscription fees in the thousands. He repeated the model for many of the other sciences; and a number of other journals followed suit. This meant that science and engineering departments began demanding these essential journals; which forced libraries to cut back on their humanities book budget. These cutbacks were felt by the academic publishing industry; who once could have published any book that made a significant contribution to a field but now found itself rejecting scholars books on the basis of limited marketability. This in turn made it harder for scholars (especially in English departments) to publish their material; which led to their failing to get tenure for reasons entirely out of control. Meanwhile; English departments around the country are ruthlessly exploiting part-time English faculty; paying them less than minimum wage to work impossible hours. This means that individual scholars have less money to buy scholarly books; further exacerbating the book industrys problems; which in turn further exacerbate the part-timers struggle to get published and build their CVs to prove their worth. This book is full of depressing analyses like the one above; the authors really do not exaggerate the abysmal state of higher education at all.There are a number of problems with the book; however. As Nelson and Watt aim to show; the issues threatening the quality of higher education (and thus American intellectual life) are varied; complex; and tightly interconnected; which is perhaps the rationale for arranging the work into short; discrete essays focused on single issues rather than a sequential narrative. Unfortunately; the fact that the issues are so interconnected means there is a substantial amount of repeated information. The casual reader thumbing through this volume in a public or university library and perusing only those entries that interest them might need to have the point about the gradual replacement of full-time faculty by part-timers to be stated in the entries on Superstars and Tenure; those of us who have been reading straight from Academic Departments to Yuppies; however; had seen that issue addressed numerous times before.Furthermore; the book is marred by a number of unentertaining polemics (which I suppose are what the other reviewers have been praising as "wit") that lessen the authors credibility. I; too; have little sympathy for the unrealistic and misinformed attacks on higher education by the far right; but the I found venemous entry on the National Association of Scholars a little too mean-spirited. Picking on an easy target rarely makes for an entertaining fight. And even when the authors intent is not overtly polemical; there is still a clear political slant in favor of faculty unionization as a solution for the universitys ills. It is; of course; a well-informed slant supported by hard statistics and honest; reasoned reflection; but the format of the book made it impossible to give this solution the full; nuanced treatment it deserves and evaluate it in contrast to other possible solutions.The bottom line: This book is a good purchase (especially at the bargain used prices current at the time of this review); but one is left feeling that it could have been better. It (or something like it) is essential for anyone considering graduate study (particularly the humanities); full of sobering statistics to remind you of the reality you might face when you get there. Otherwise; it might be an inspiring call to action for graduate students; and a valuable wealth of information for anybody who wants to discover the real issues facing higher education today are. But it is only a place to start; and it would be a good idea to supplement it with other views. If anything; Nelson and Watts greatest strength is showing that the problems of the contemporary university have no straightforward solutions. Lovers of rhetorical showdowns beware--but then again; if spectacle and easy answers are what you are after; you probably arent much concerned for the state of American intellectual life; anyways.