"I highly appreciate the quality of Fejes’ and Dahlstedt’s research and writing. They manage to present in a comprehensible way some essential concepts of Foucault that help us to understand better what practices of lifelong learning, in a broad sense, are emerging nowadays in advanced liberal societies. In doing so, they contribute to the renewal of critical thinking in education. They convince me that such renewal is important and necessary... and I think both theoreticians and practitioners of lifelong learning will equally recognize and value this analysis, particularly also, because they present a good mix of theory and practice." -Professor Danny Wildemeersch Today, people are constantly encouraged to verbalise and disclose their "true" inner self to others, whether on TV shows, in newspapers, in family life or together with friends. Such encouragement to disclose the self has proliferated through discourses on lifelong learning through which each citizen is encouraged to become a constant learner. The Confessing Society takes a critical stance towards the modern relentless will to disclose the self and argues that society has become a confessing society. Drawing on Foucault’s later work on confession and governmentality, this book carefully analyses how confession operates within practices of lifelong learning as a way to shape activated and responsible citizens and provides examples of how it might be possible to traverse the confessional truth of the present time. Chapters include: Reflection and Reflective Practices Deliberation and Therapeutic Intervention Lifelong Guidance Medialised Parenting This controversial book is international in its scope and pursues current debates regarding trans-national policy and to research discussions on education, lifelong learning and governance, and it will provoke lively debate amongst educational practitioners, academics, postgraduate and research students in education and lifelong learning in Europe, North America and Australasia.

This book offers an entryway to the discussion between theological interpretation of Scripture and contextual theology (i.e., tribal theology). It argues for the need to consider the importance of reading the Bible with multiple contexts in mind, while addressing the tension between church and academy in the area of biblical interpretation. Adapting from the theological method of Kevin J. Vanhoozer, it argues for a multi-contextual biblical-theological interpretation of Scripture that maintains evangelical ethos (i.e., the solas of the Reformation), recognizes canonical sense (i.e., the measuring and guiding criteria), asserts Catholic sensibility (i.e., value the contribution of the local and Catholic church), and affirms contextual sensitivity (i.e., the local/tribal confessing community). These are the contexts that enable Christians to read the Bible as what it is, namely, human and divine discourse.

Combining carefully chosen primary quotes with extensive discussion and everyday illustrative examples, this book provides an in-depth introduction to classical and contemporary theory. Uses a wide range of newspaper examples to illustrate the relevance to sociological theory Contains excerpts from theorists’ primary texts Includes chapter-specific glossaries of all theoretical concepts discussed in the book Short biographies and historical timelines of significant events provide context to various theorists’ ideas Incorporates a range of pedagogical features Supporting website includes multiple choice and essay questions, PowerPoint slides, a quotation bank, and other background materials Visit www.wiley.com/go/dillon for additional student and instructor resources.

"The ... volume ... examines one significant political phenomenon--Suku in revolutionary China through a matrix of western social theory: Freud, Marcuse, Arendt, and Ricoeur. Suku is the practice of confessing individual suffering in a political context and in a collective public forum. By interpreting Suku from the joint perspectives of political identity and subjective psychological identity, the book presents a new paradigm for discussing social suffering and collective confession in a context of revolutionary change in China's modern history."--P. [4] of cover.

This social theory text combines the structure of a print reader with the ability to tailor the course via an extensive interactive website. Readings from important classical and contemporary theorists are placed in conversation with one another through core themes—the puzzle of social order, the dark side of modernity, identity, etc. The website includes videos, interactive commentaries, summaries of key concepts, exams and quizzes, annotated selections from key readings, classroom activities, and more. See the website at www.routledgesoc.com/theory New to the second edition: Expanded web content. Teacher/student feedback employed to clarify difficult concepts. Reframed contemporary section now offers readings by Robert Merton, Bruno Latour, David Harvey, Zygmut Bauman, and Anthony Giddens.

In liberal, democratic and capitalist societies today, we are increasingly invited to disclose our innermost thoughts to others. We are asked to turn our gaze inwards, scrutinizing ourselves, our behaviours and beliefs, while talking and writing about ourselves in these terms. This form of disclosure of the self resonates with older forms of church confession, and is now widely seen in practices of education in new ways in nurseries, schools, colleges, universities, workplaces and the wider policy arena. This book brings together international scholars and researchers inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, to explore in detail what happens when these practices of confession become part of our lives and ways of being in education. The authors argue that they are not neutral, but political and powerful in their effects in shaping and governing people; they examine confession as discursive and contemporary practice so as to provoke critical thought. International in scope and pioneering in the detail of its scrutiny of such practices, this book extends contemporary understanding of the exercise of power and politics of confessional practices in education and learning, and offers an alternative way of thinking of them. The book will be of value to educational practitioners, scholars, researchers and students, interested in the politics of their own practices.

Hegel’s Social Ethics offers a fresh and accessible interpretation of G. W. F. Hegel’s most famous book, the Phenomenology of Spirit. Drawing on important recent work on the social dimensions of Hegel’s theory of knowledge, Molly Farneth shows how his account of how we know rests on his account of how we ought to live. Farneth argues that Hegel views conflict as an unavoidable part of living together, and that his social ethics involves relationships and social practices that allow people to cope with conflict and sustain hope for reconciliation. Communities create, contest, and transform their norms through these relationships and practices, and Hegel’s model for them are often the interactions and rituals of the members of religious communities. The book’s close readings reveal the ethical implications of Hegel’s discussions of slavery, Greek tragedy, early modern culture wars, and confession and forgiveness. The book also illuminates how contemporary democratic thought and practice can benefit from Hegelian insights. Through its sustained engagement with Hegel’s ideas about conflict and reconciliation, Hegel’s Social Ethics makes an important contribution to debates about how to live well with religious and ethical disagreement.

This anthology of hard-to-find primary documents provides a solid overview of the foundations of American media studies. Focusing on mass communication and society and how this research fits into larger patterns of social thought, this valuable collection features key texts covering the media studies traditions of the Chicago school, the effects tradition, the critical theory of the Frankfurt school, and mass society theory. Where possible, articles are reproduced in their entirety to preserve the historical flavor and texture of the original works. Topics include popular theater, yellow journalism, cinema, books, public relations, political and military propaganda, advertising, opinion polling, photography, the avant-garde, popular magazines, comics, the urban press, radio drama, soap opera, popular music, and television drama and news. This text is ideal for upper-level courses in mass communication and media theory, media and society, mass communication effects, and mass media history.

Secrecy and Community in 21st-Century Fiction examines the relation between secrecy and community in a diverse and international range of contemporary fictional works in English. In its concern with what is called 'communities of secrecy', it is fundamentally indebted to the thought of Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy and Maurice Blanchot, who have pointed to the fallacies and dangers of identitarian and exclusionary communities, arguing for forms of being-in-common characterized by non-belonging, singularity and otherness. Also drawing on the work of J. Hillis Miller, Derek Attridge, Nicholas Royle, Matei Calinescu, Frank Kermode and George Simmel, among others, this volume analyses the centrality of secrets in the construction of literary form, narrative sequence and meaning, together with their foundational role in our private and interpersonal lives and the public and political realms. In doing so, it engages with the Derridean ethico-political value of secrecy and Derrida's conception of literature as the exemplary site for the operation of the unconditional secret.