Possibilities: essays on hierarchy, rebellion, and desire
Pt. 1. Some thoughts on the origins of our current predicament. Manners, deference, and private property: or, elements for a general theory of hierarchy -- The very idea of consumption: desire, phantasms, and the aesthetics of destruction from medieval times to the present -- Turning modes of production inside-out: or, why capitalism is a transformation fo slavery (short version) -- Fetishism as social creativity: or, fetishes are gods in the process of construction -- pt. 2. Provisional autonomous zone: dilemmas of authority in rural Madagascar. Provisional autonomous zone: or, the ghost-state in Madagascar -- Dancing with corpses resonsidered: an interpretation of Famadihana (in Arivonimamo, Madigascar) -- Love magic and political morality in central Madagascar, 1875-1990 -- Oppression -- pt. 3. Direct action, direct democracy, and social theory. The twilight of vanguardism -- Social theory as science and utopia: or, does the prospect of a general sociological theory still mean anything in an age of globalization? -- There never was a west: or, democracy emerges from the spaces in between -- On the phenomenology of giant puppets: broken windows, imaginary jars of urine, and the cosmological role of the police in American culture