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Habit's Pathways
Repetition, Power, Conduct
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2023
About this book
Habit has long preoccupied a wide range of theologians, philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, and neuroscientists. In Habit’s Pathways Tony Bennett explores the political consequences of the varied ways in which habit’s repetitions have been acted on to guide or direct conduct. Bennett considers habit’s uses and effects across the monastic regimens of medieval Europe, in plantation slavery and the factory system, through colonial forms of rule, and within a range of medicalized pathologies. He brings these episodes in habit’s political histories to bear on contemporary debates ranging from its role in relation to the politics of white supremacy to the digital harvesting of habits in practices of algorithmic governance. Throughout, Bennett tracks how habit’s repetitions have been articulated differently across divisions of class, race, and gender, demonstrating that although habit serves as an apparatus for achieving success, self-fulfillment, and freedom for the powerful, it has simultaneously served as a means of control over women, racialized peoples, and subordinate classes.
Author / Editor information
Tony Bennett is Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University and Honorary Professor in the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. Among his many books are Making Culture, Changing Society and, as coauthor, Collecting, Ordering, Governing: Anthropology, Museums, and Liberal Government.
Reviews
“Habit’s Pathways makes a valuable contribution to discussions and theories of habit in its assemblage and detailed analysis of all the important thinkers on the subject, from Augustine, Kant, and Dewey to Deleuze, Foucault, and Malabou, devising what surely must be the new standard account of habit in contemporary Western thought. A tremendous achievement.”
-- Susan Zieger, author of The Mediated Mind: Affect, Ephemera, and Consumerism in the Nineteenth Century
“Tony Bennett, one of our most important cultural critics, reckons with the many meanings of habit in an argument that is both wide-ranging and fine-grained. Delving into its intellectual and political histories, he delivers a trenchant and highly illuminating analysis of habit’s relations to freedom and constraint.”
-- Rita Felski, John Stewart Bryan Professor, University of Virginia
"Bennett has delivered a book that deserves a wide readership among the sociological community and beyond."
-- Gordana Angelichin-Zhura Sociological Research Online
-- Gordana Angelichin-Zhura Sociological Research Online
"If you’re looking for a deep dive into 'the habit archive,' then you’ve come to the right place."
-- Jeffrey Guhin American Journal of Sociology
-- Jeffrey Guhin American Journal of Sociology
Topics
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Frontmatter
i -
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CONTENTS
v -
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Note on the Text
vii -
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Acknowledgments
ix -
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Introduction. Habit—Then and Now
1 -
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1. Powering Habit
19 -
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2. Dead Ends and Nonstarters. Habit, Discipline, Biopower, and the Circulation of Capital
46 -
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3. Unwilled Habits. Descending Pathways
70 -
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4. Pathways to Virtue
97 -
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5. Unfolding Pathways. Habit, Freedom, Becoming
111 -
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6. Exploded Pathways. Plasticity’s Mentors
137 -
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7. Progressive Pathways. The Dynamics of Modernity, Race, and the Unconscious
160 -
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8. Contested Pathways. Habit and the Conduct of Conduct
184 -
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Conclusion. The Arbitrariness of Habit
206 -
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Notes
211 -
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References
225 -
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Index
243
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
October 18, 2023
eBook ISBN:
9781478027331
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook ISBN:
9781478027331
Audience(s) for this book
For an expert adult audience, including professional development and academic research
