Keith Tester
Biographic Data
| ID | 84080 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Keith Tester |
| GIVEN NAMES | Keith |
| FAMILY NAME | Tester |
| SIGNATURE | TESTER K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Portsmouth |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9906-4770 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 59 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 86 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 57 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1989 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
On the postmodernism debate
The postmodernity debate may have been a "fleeting affair," but in its time it was indispensable. Like many other good intentions, it went astray. The freedom to choose identity, like all freedoms, has its positive and negative aspects. What is celebrated in most postmodernist literature is the positive aspect: freedom to choose at will the difference of one's liking and to "make it stick," however temporarily, come what may. Anthony Elliott atte…
On repetition in the work of Zygmunt Bauman
Some texts appear more than once across the corpus of Zygmunt Bauman's work. This has led to accusations of self-plagiarism and a lack of scholarly rigour. This paper is an explanation of why texts reappear. It pays attention to a number of frequently overlooked texts from the 1970s which are of fundamental importance for any understanding of Bauman's work. It is contended that if: (a) there is an understanding of the stakes and purpose of sociol…
Reflections on Reading Bauman
With his passing, our encounters with Zygmunt Bauman must change. Although many lectures and interviews can still be accessed via the very social media he tended to disdain, it is perhaps now time for us to pay more focused attention to the work itself and to stand against the tide of fame (and its opposite, envy) that was tending to swamp it.When it comes to Bauman, there is something about which all commentators agree. He wrote a very great dea…
Utopia: Social Theory and the Future
In the light of globalization's failure provide the universal panacea expected by some of its more enthusiastic proponents, and the current status of neo-liberalism in Europe, a search has begun for alternative visions of the future; alternatives to the free market and to rampant capitalism. Indeed, although these alternatives may not be conceived of in terms of being a 'perfect order', there does appear to be a trend towards 'utopian thinking', …
Hiroshima: Remembering and forgetting, everything and nothing
Is it possible to remember Hiroshima and, if it is, what exactly is being remembered? This paper uses Resnais's film Hiroshima Mon Amour as a way of asking this question. The problem of remembering is identified as being due to how nuclear explosions are beyond the human capacity to understand. The paper draws on the work of Günther Anders to explore the implications of Hiroshima for the human understanding of human possibilities
Civil Society (RLE Social Theory)
This major study discusses some of the meanings and preconditions of freedom, responsibility and social order. The author argues that these are problems of modernity. The imagination of civil society created a milieu which was at once the location and defence of social self-sufficiency in the world. The book identifies the origins of civil society in the work of Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau and the often forgotten philosophers of the Scottish Enlightn…
The Flaneur (RLE Social Theory)
Media Culture & Morality
First published in 1994. The media report terrible events. But the academic study of the media is increasingly trivial and lacking in moral seriousness. Media, Culture and Morality examines how this paradoxical situation could have emerged. The author seizes upon the disparity between the enormous production of books in the field and the lack of substantive insights generated. He argues that such a mass of self-conscious criticism should have pro…
Panic
Impending environmental catastrophe, threat of terrorism, viruses both biological and virtual, disease: there seem to be so many reasons to panic today. But what is panic and why does it happen? This book uses a range of literature from sociology, cultural studies and popular psychology to develop an original analysis of panic in contemporary social life. Bringing together academic literature from a range of disciplines, films, novels and current…
What Use Is Sociology: Conversations with Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Keith Tester
Preface vii Introduction 1 1 What is sociology? 7 2 Why do sociology? 35 3 How to do sociology? 67 4 What does sociology achieve? 105
Media Culture and Morality
Talking sociology: An interview with Zygmunt Bauman on sociology, celebrity and critique
Zygmunt Bauman has always approached sociology as an imagination, as an ongoing conversation with experience rather than a discipline within tight boundaries. This has enabled his work to move outside of the academy, and over the past decade or so he has become a leading public sociologist. But what does this status mean for the practice and possibilities of sociology? In this conversation Bauman reflects on the role, status and opportunities of …
August in England
In early August 2011, disturbances broke out in a number of English cities. What happened was broadcast globally, and all of a sudden it seemed as if all of the country was about to burst into flames. This short paper is offered by way of a 'letter' from England. It was written in late August 2011 and is an initial attempt to develop an understanding of why the disturbances broke out, what motivated the people who were involved and, indeed, why t…
Introduction to a Special Section: Remembering Janina Bauman
Bauman's Challenge
This unique and original collection by internationally renowned scholars uses critical engagements with Zygmunt Bauman's sociology to understand the challenges that face globalized human societies at
Humanitarianism: The group charisma of postcolonial Britain
This article argues that humanitarianism is a theme in the popular culture and politics of contemporary Britain which repays close analysis. Humanitarianism is identified as a strand of the ‘social imaginary’ through which conceptions of Britishness seek to understand the world and the place of Britain within it. Commitment to the social imaginary is secured through ‘group charisma’ which ties social subjects to it by means of assertions about th…
Telling Stories About Jesus: A Conversation with John Carroll
Since the 1980s the Australian sociologist John Carroll has been engaged in a unique project. Over the course of a number of books he has sought to investigate the fate of authority, values and vocation in the tradition of Western culture. His books are characterised by a deep knowledge of the Western tradition of high culture, especially its art and texts; they are marked by historical sweep and seriousness of purpose. For Carroll, culture is th…
The Terminal Paradox of Globalization
I do not have many memories of my schooldays but for some reason one of the few concerns a ludicrously old atlas that we used. I remember it as one in which the nations of the Commonwealth were all coloured pink, so as to remind us all of Britain’s former glories (and as if to suggest to the children of post-imperial Britain that the Commonwealth was merely the Empire with a different name, all the better to trick the ‘colonials’), but what most …
Eric Rohmer: Film as Theology
Sociology, Nostalgia, Utopia and Mortality: A Conversation with Zygmunt Bauman
Reflections on the Abu Ghraib Photographs
Europe: An Unfinished Adventure
The Holocaust
If it is reasonable to suggest that two of Bauman’s books of the 1970s ( Culture as Praxis and Socialism: The Active Utopia ) have at least one foot in Poland, then it can be contended that Bauman’s post-exile sociological questions took some time to emerge. The process of the emergence can be traced through the essays on actually existing socialism. In terms of books, the first stage of emergence can be seen in Towards a Critical Sociology and H…
The Emergence of an Imagination
A sociological imagination never appears on the stage of history ready-formed and from nowhere. It is the product and expression of a frequently complex — although sometimes perhaps rather obvious — relationship between a number of factors. In particular, the sociological imagination in question emerges out of the circumstances of the relationships, and of the time and place within which the practitioner of the imagination started to think sociol…
Sociology and the Challenge of Globalisation
The aporia of postmodernity confirmed the continued significance of critical sociology as a partner in a conversation that would connect personal troubles to public issues. But as the conversation proceeded and was joined by more and more participants, a question arose about whether the focus on postmodernity was a help or hindrance. It is clear that Bauman started to wonder. As the debate about postmodernity became more widespread, gradually he …
The Social Thought of Zygmunt Bauman
Zygmunt Bauman is one of the most important contemporary social thinkers. He has changed the way we think about the Holocaust, postmodernity and globalisation. This is the first book to discuss all of
Paths in Zygmunt Bauman's Social Thought
This article seeks to explore some of the origins of Zygmunt Bauman's social thought. Using the metaphor of paths from a story by Borges, the article argues that Bauman's work follows paths which were opened up to him by Gramsci, Camus and Levinas. Bauman has acknowledged the importance of Gramsci and Levinas in his intellectual development and, therefore, the identification of a path leading from Camus is offered by way of circumstantial rather …
Media, Culture and Morality
The Problem of Cultural Studies The Culture Industry The Audience The Media and Morality The Silence
Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order
The ideology and current activities of the Animal Liberation Front
The Moral Consequentiality of Television
A relatively under-analysed theme in the sociology of the media is the moral consequentiality for television viewers of representations and reports of the suffering of others. The theme has been broached by Michael Ignatieff, and this article uses an essay by him as an opportunity to develop the thesis that any consideration of the relationship between television and morality must centrally concern itself with the complex exchanges between televi…
Weber's alleged emotivism
This paper seeks to refute Alasdair Maclntyre's contention that the sociology of Max Weber is emotivist. Maclntyre understands emotivism to involve the collapse of all moral judgment into statements of personal preference. It is shown that Weber's sociology analyses this condition and seeks to repudiate it. In no way does Weber embrace emotivism. Maclntyre misses Weber's repudiation because he misreads Weber's sociological project. The paper show…
The Pleasure of the Rich is the Labour of the Poor: Some Comments on Norbert Elias’“An Essay on Sport and Violence”
August in England
In early August 2011, disturbances broke out in a number of English cities. What happened was broadcast globally, and all of a sudden it seemed as if all of the country was about to burst into flames. This short paper is offered by way of a 'letter' from England. It was written in late August 2011 and is an initial attempt to develop an understanding of why the disturbances broke out, what motivated the people who were involved and, indeed, why t…
On repetition in the work of Zygmunt Bauman
Some texts appear more than once across the corpus of Zygmunt Bauman's work. This has led to accusations of self-plagiarism and a lack of scholarly rigour. This paper is an explanation of why texts reappear. It pays attention to a number of frequently overlooked texts from the 1970s which are of fundamental importance for any understanding of Bauman's work. It is contended that if: (a) there is an understanding of the stakes and purpose of sociol…
Reflections on Reading Bauman
With his passing, our encounters with Zygmunt Bauman must change. Although many lectures and interviews can still be accessed via the very social media he tended to disdain, it is perhaps now time for us to pay more focused attention to the work itself and to stand against the tide of fame (and its opposite, envy) that was tending to swamp it.When it comes to Bauman, there is something about which all commentators agree. He wrote a very great dea…
Talking sociology: An interview with Zygmunt Bauman on sociology, celebrity and critique
Zygmunt Bauman has always approached sociology as an imagination, as an ongoing conversation with experience rather than a discipline within tight boundaries. This has enabled his work to move outside of the academy, and over the past decade or so he has become a leading public sociologist. But what does this status mean for the practice and possibilities of sociology? In this conversation Bauman reflects on the role, status and opportunities of …
Between Sociology and Theology: The Spirit of Capitalism Debate
This paper revisits the debate on the Spirit of Capitalism in order to show how this well-known sociological theme might be revitalised through an encounter with themes from theology. The paper seeks to offer some of the resources by which it might be possible to think about the 'moral texture' of the German tradition of sociology. In so doing, it seeks to compare and contrast the general theme of the Spirit of Capitalism in the work of the Prote…
Hiroshima: Remembering and forgetting, everything and nothing
Is it possible to remember Hiroshima and, if it is, what exactly is being remembered? This paper uses Resnais's film Hiroshima Mon Amour as a way of asking this question. The problem of remembering is identified as being due to how nuclear explosions are beyond the human capacity to understand. The paper draws on the work of Günther Anders to explore the implications of Hiroshima for the human understanding of human possibilities
Humanitarianism: The group charisma of postcolonial Britain
This article argues that humanitarianism is a theme in the popular culture and politics of contemporary Britain which repays close analysis. Humanitarianism is identified as a strand of the ‘social imaginary’ through which conceptions of Britishness seek to understand the world and the place of Britain within it. Commitment to the social imaginary is secured through ‘group charisma’ which ties social subjects to it by means of assertions about th…
Sociology, Nostalgia, Utopia and Mortality: A Conversation with Zygmunt Bauman
A theory of indifference
This paper seeks to develop a theoretically based explanation of how it can be that commitments to principles of human rights can co-exist with indifference towards concrete human rights abuses. The paper opens with a discussion of a reflection by Jacques Maritain, one of the French delegates to the congresses which lead to the Universal Declaration. The argument moves on to suggest that indifference is an integral dimension of the human conditio…
Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World
Ethical Conduct in the Present Age: The Case of Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard is widely read in the disciplinary spheres of philosophy and theology. However, the sociological resonance of some of his work has been overlooked. This paper seeks to introduce aspects of Kierkegaard's account of 'the present age' to a sociological audience. Kierkegaard's concerns are explored in the context of themes and issues raised by Max Weber. The paper has two themes. First, the paper uses the example of Kierkegaard to e…
Moral solidarity and the technological reproduction of images
The Pleasure of the Rich is the Labour of the Poor: Some Comments on Norbert Elias’“An Essay on Sport and Violence”
Out of Control
Anthony Giddens The Consequences of Modernity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990), x+186 pp
The Uses of Error: "The Collapse of "Really Existing Socialism
The collapse of East European socialist states is related to the tragic metamorphosis of post-Enlightenment thought. A particular strand of Marx's and Engels' thought, and Lenin's modification thereof, has provided a justification for the projects initiated by East European states and explains their ultimate downfall. There is a link between Marx and Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Marx and Engels thought they had scientifically discovered the secret o…
The two sovereigns: Social contradictions of European modernity
Animals and Society: The Humanity of Animal Rights
Flãaneur
Civil Society
Moral solidarity and the technological reproduction of images
The Flaneur
Media, Culture and Morality
The inhuman condition
In The Inhuman Condition Keith Tester explores whether we are capable of coming to terms with the world we have made. He argues that we are not. We are so confused by the wonders and the sights and sounds around us that we all try to build safe little homes in which we can, for a while, be consoled by love which is doomed to fail as soon as it is thought about and by commodities which leave us unsatisfied. We all try to make sense of our humanity…
Reflexive Modernization: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order
The ideology and current activities of the Animal Liberation Front
Media, Culture and Morality
The Problem of Cultural Studies The Culture Industry The Audience The Media and Morality The Silence
Making moral citizens: On Himmelfarb's de-moralization thesis
One of the most popular and pressing problems in the attempts of contemporary Western social and cultural commentators to understand these times is the question of whether it is possible to identify a worrisome and unstoppable process of de‐moralization. This process is frequently taken to involve the cutting of the ties and identities of citizenship so that individuals are left to wallow in swamps of anomie and disrepute; swamps in which the sup…
Moral Culture
Aura, Armour and the Body
This article identifies the emergence of the problematic of the body as a consequence of the forces of technology and bureaucracy which have run through the 20th century. It explores the hypothesis that the problem of the body has emerged out of the wreckage of the aura of the individual. It is proposed that aura was destroyed in the First World War, but it is also shown that for Benjamin anticipations of the destruction can be found in the techn…
Ethical Conduct in the Present Age: The Case of Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard is widely read in the disciplinary spheres of philosophy and theology. However, the sociological resonance of some of his work has been overlooked. This paper seeks to introduce aspects of Kierkegaard's account of 'the present age' to a sociological audience. Kierkegaard's concerns are explored in the context of themes and issues raised by Max Weber. The paper has two themes. First, the paper uses the example of Kierkegaard to e…
The Moral Consequentiality of Television
A relatively under-analysed theme in the sociology of the media is the moral consequentiality for television viewers of representations and reports of the suffering of others. The theme has been broached by Michael Ignatieff, and this article uses an essay by him as an opportunity to develop the thesis that any consideration of the relationship between television and morality must centrally concern itself with the complex exchanges between televi…
Weber's alleged emotivism
This paper seeks to refute Alasdair Maclntyre's contention that the sociology of Max Weber is emotivist. Maclntyre understands emotivism to involve the collapse of all moral judgment into statements of personal preference. It is shown that Weber's sociology analyses this condition and seeks to repudiate it. In no way does Weber embrace emotivism. Maclntyre misses Weber's repudiation because he misreads Weber's sociological project. The paper show…
Between Sociology and Theology: The Spirit of Capitalism Debate
This paper revisits the debate on the Spirit of Capitalism in order to show how this well-known sociological theme might be revitalised through an encounter with themes from theology. The paper seeks to offer some of the resources by which it might be possible to think about the 'moral texture' of the German tradition of sociology. In so doing, it seeks to compare and contrast the general theme of the Spirit of Capitalism in the work of the Prote…
The Uncertain Sciences
Flaneur
A theory of indifference
This paper seeks to develop a theoretically based explanation of how it can be that commitments to principles of human rights can co-exist with indifference towards concrete human rights abuses. The paper opens with a discussion of a reflection by Jacques Maritain, one of the French delegates to the congresses which lead to the Universal Declaration. The argument moves on to suggest that indifference is an integral dimension of the human conditio…
Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World
Sociology (47 works) · Philosophy (34 works) · Epistemology (28 works) · Political science (27 works) · Law (26 works) · Psychology (18 works) · Philosophy (16 works) · Law (14 works) · Psychoanalysis (13 works) · Aesthetics (12 works)