An Archaeology of the Immaterial examines a highly significant but poorly understood aspect of material culture studies: the active rejection of the material world. Buchli argues that this is evident in a number of cultural projects, including anti-consumerism and asceticism, as well as other attempts to transcend material circumstances. Exploring the cultural work which can be achieved when the material is rejected, and the social effects of these ‘dematerialisations’, this book situates the way some people disengage from the world as a specific kind of physical engagement which has profound implications for our understanding of personhood and materiality. Using case studies which range widely in time over Western societies and the technologies of materialising the immaterial, from icons to the scanning tunnelling microscope and 3-D printing, Buchli addresses the significance of immateriality for our own economics, cultural perceptions, and emerging forms of social inclusion and exclusion. An Archaeology of the Immaterial is thus an important and innovative contribution to material cultural studies which demonstrates that the making of the immaterial is, like the making of the material, a profoundly powerful operation which works to exert social control and delineate the borders of the imaginable and the enfranchised.

This book applies a novel conflict-based approach to the notions of ‘idea’, ‘concept’, ‘invention’ and ‘immateriality’ in the legal regime of intellectual property rights by turning to the adversarial legal practices in which they occur. In doing so, it provides extensive ethnographies of the courts and law firms, and tackles classical questions in legal doctrine about the immaterial nature of intellectual property rights from a thoroughly new perspective.

In romances—Renaissance England’s version of the fantasy novel—characters often discover books that turn out to be magical or prophetic, and to offer insights into their readers’ selves. The Immaterial Book examines scenes of reading in important romance texts across genres: Spenser’s Faerie Queene, Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and The Tempest, Wroth’s Urania, and Cervantes’ Don Quixote. It offers a response to “material book studies” by calling for a new focus on imaginary or “immaterial” books and argues that early modern romance authors, rather than replicating contemporary reading practices within their texts, are reviving ancient and medieval ideas of the book as a conceptual framework, which they use to investigate urgent, new ideas about the self and the self-conscious mind.

This handbook addresses the issues and challenges of the delivery of social work education in the contemporary world. It provides an authoritative overview of the key debates, switching the lens away from a Western-centric focus to engage with a much broader audience in countries that are in the process of modernization and professionalization, alongside those where social work education is more developed. Chapters tackle major challenges with respect to curriculum, teaching, practice, and training in light of globalization, providing a thorough examination of the practice of social work in diverse contexts. This handbook presents a contribution to the process of knowledge exchange which is essential to global social work education. It brings together professional knowledge and lived experience, both universal and local, and aims to be an essential reference for social work educators, researchers, and students.

Critical theory has left an indelible mark on postwar social thought. But what are the relations between critical theory and 'the cultural turn' ? How did critical theory inform later French critical theorists, such as Lefebvre, Barthes and Baudrillard? This accomplished and accessible book: - Demonstrates the origins of critical theory in the Marxian analysis of the capitalist mode of production and Freudian psychoanalysis - Clearly explains the main achievements of critical theory - Elucidates how critical theory defines culture as a system that constrains and alienates the individual - Explores the potential for social change and personal emancipation in the critical heritage. The author locates the importance of myth and reason, the significance of sexuality, the place of work, the difference between art and entertainment, the nature of everyday life and the relationship between knowledge and action. The result is a lucid and informative text which will appeal to all students interested in the critical traditions of social thought.

This fascinating argument from Jonathan Hill presents the case for the significance and importance of the immaterial in architecture. Architecture is generally perceived as the solid, physical matter that it unarguably creates, but what of the spaces it creates? This issue drives Hill's explorative look at the immaterial aspects of architecture. The book discusses the pressures on architecture and the architectural profession to be respectively solid matter and solid practice and considers concepts that align architecture with the immaterial, such as the superiority of ideas over matter, command of drawing and design of spaces and surfaces. Focusing on immaterial architecture as the perceived absence of matter, Hill devises new means to explore the creativity of both the user and the architect, advocating an architecture that fuses the immaterial and the material and considers its consequences, challenging preconceptions about architecture, its practice, purpose, matter and use. This is a useful and innovative read that encourages architects and students to think beyond established theory and practice.

In this unique contribution, Blackman focuses upon the affective capacities of bodies, human and non-human as well as addressing the challenges of the affective turn within the social sciences. Fresh and convincing, this book uncovers the paradoxes and tensions in work in affect studies by focusing on practices and experiences, including voice hearing, suggestion, hypnosis, telepathy, the placebo effect, rhythm and related phenomena. Questioning the traditional idea of mind over matter, as well as discussing the danger of setting up a false distinction between the two, this book makes for an invaluable addition within cultural theory and the recent turn to affect. In a powerful and engaging matter, Blackman discusses the immaterial body across the neurosciences, physiology, media and cultural studies, body studies, artwork, performance, psychology and psychoanalysis. Interdisciplinary in its core, this book is a must for everyone seeking a dynamic and thought provoking analysis of culture and communication today.

»Digital Culture & Society« is a refereed, international journal, fostering discussion about the ways in which digital technologies, platforms and applications reconfigure daily lives and practices. It offers a forum for critical analysis and inquiry into digital media theory. The journal provides a venue for publication for interdisciplinary research approaches, contemporary theory developments and methodological innovation in digital media studies. It invites reflection on how culture unfolds through the use of digital technology, and how it conversely influences the development of digital technology itself. The inaugural issue »Digital Material/ism« presents methodological and theoretical insights into digital materiality and materialism.

This unique volume brings together a selection of the most important texts of Nico Stehr for the first time and puts them in dialogue with original research that draws on his prolific work. Covering five decades of pioneering sociological research on the theory of society and knowledge, the book introduces the reader to Stehr’s seminal inquiries into the economic, political and social role of knowledge. Original concepts, such as his groundbreaking studies on the Knowledge Society, are introduced as the volume traces Stehr’s pursuit of social scientific research as a source of practical knowledge for modern society. The book comprises three parts devoted to the many facets and the remarkable range of Nico Stehr’s oeuvre. Part 1 provides an introduction to the significance of his pioneering work and career. Part 2 demonstrates the practical application of Nico Stehr’s research as seen through the eyes of eminent scholars. Part 3 presents a selection of the milestones of his publications.