Discourse and Ideology: A Critique of the Study of Culture

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Drawing on poststructuralist approaches, Craig Martin outlines a theory of discourse, ideology, and domination that can be used by scholars and students to understand these central elements in the study of culture. The book shows how discourses are used to construct social institutionsoften classist, sexist, or racistand that those social institutions always entail a distribution of resources and capital in ways that capacitate some subject positions over others. Such asymmetrical power relations are often obscured by ideologies that offer demonstrably false accounts of why those asymmetries exist or persist. The author provides a method of reading in order to bring matters into relief, and the last chapter provides a case study that applies his theory and method to racist ideologies in the United States, which systematically function to discourage white Americans from sympathizing with poor African Americans, thereby contributing to reinforcing the latters place at the bottom of a racial hierarchy that has always existed in the US.

Reviews

This book is a gift to students and colleagues who have a passion for theory. Craig Martin has infused his work with rare wit, wisdom, emotion, unique insight, and commitment. * Naomi Goldenberg, Professor of Religious Studies, University of Ottawa, Canada *
In this incredibly impressive work, Craig Martin shows the importance of doing your homework by methodically laying out the philosophical basis for a discursive theory of society. Martin provides a clear path through numerous debates that over-simplistically pit empirical realities against social construction, leading the reader to a far more nuanced and critically viable position. This is a must-read for anyone who considers themselves a scholar of culture. * Leslie Dorrough Smith, Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Director of the Womens and Gender Studies Program, Avila University, USA *
If to study religion is to study how people name and rank their worlds, then it actually studies how power and identity are claimed and contestedand Craig Martin numbers among the best representatives of such a field; Discourse and Ideology makes clear that a critical scholar of religion has much to say about how society works, and why it so often seems to work only for some of its members. * Russell T. McCutcheon, University Research Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies, University of Alabama, USA *
This book succeeds in providing a secure base and guide for scholars to apply a poststructuralist critique of culture, whether focused on religion, politics, gender, race or another category of analysis. * Suzanne Owen, Reader in Religious Studies, Leeds Trinity University, UK *

Author Bio

Craig Martin is Professor of Religious Studies at St. Thomas Aquinas College, USA. He is the author of Capitalizing Religion: Ideology and the Opiate of the Bourgeoisie (Bloomsbury, 2014) and co-editor of Stereotyping Religion: Critiquing Clichs (Bloomsbury, 2017). He is the series editor for Critiquing Religion: Discourse, Culture, Power.