Call for a New Social Theory: Re-Igniting Radical Imagination
Globalization, Critique and Social Theory: Diagnoses and Challenges
ISBN: 978-1-78560-247-4, eISBN: 978-1-78560-246-7
Publication date: 6 November 2015
Abstract
Purpose
To encourage radical social theory in a time dominated by a sense of cultural despair and the futility of social transformation to reimagine the possibilities for innovation inherent in such end times. Such a time of ending can also by its nature serve to inspire new beginnings.
Methodology/approach
To call social theorists as part of their vocation to look for signs of and cultivate such new beginnings.
Findings
Such an inquiry must pry and probe beneath the surface of cultural expression and political movements in a time of cultural repression to deeper aspirations for change and renewal, in particular in this case, to the culture of fantasy in literature, cinema and other complex and often veiled forms of expression.
Practical implications
To offer ways for theorists and teachers to begin exploring and encouraging wherever possible the release of the transformative imagination. The social implications involve the reanimation and rekindling of a radical social imagination: by generating dialogue and new ways of thinking it serves as one of the precursors of genuine social movements for change and specifically today for conceptualizing a post-industrial, post-liberal society.
Originality/value
As discussed directly, this essay is original not in asserting the profound role of the political, moral, and utopian imagination in spurring movements for change, but in characterizing this period – one of narrow factualism/literalism, instrumentalism, and pragmatism – as one ripe for such a renewal of the imaginative project.
Keywords
Citation
Block, J.E. (2015), "Call for a New Social Theory: Re-Igniting Radical Imagination", Globalization, Critique and Social Theory: Diagnoses and Challenges (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 33), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 201-213. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0278-120420150000033007
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited