Alienation, Ethnicity, and Postmodernism

The essays in this volume offer the reader a broad, interdisciplinary perspective on the ways in which theories of alienation are influencing current debates in psychology, psychiatry, sociology and social philosophy. The introductory essay discusses how classical notions of alienation have been put to use to describe the dysfunctions within societies that are becoming sharply divided along racial lines and according to the disparities in power described by postmodernism. The essays that follow then take up the problem of alienation, ethnicity and postmodernism in the contexts of increasing economic globalisation and renewed racial hostility in communities in the United States and abroad.