Styling the Self: Ethics and Aesthetics in Absolute Capitalism

This volume examines the turn inwards, toward matters of the self, in an era characterized by suffering, destruction and death resulting from large-scale structural problems, including global pandemics, economic inequality and climate change. As uncertainty on a large scale has begotten attempts at certainty on smaller ones, new social and cultural phenomena have emerged that can be understood and analyzed as new ways of crafting selfhood. With a particular focus on “practices of style” that reflect both aesthetic and ethical qualities, the author considers practices stemming from growing interest in sustainability, the popularity of tidying up and the ideology of minimalism, digital detoxing, discourses around “self-care” and the growing digital communities of menswear, style and wellness. An exploration of the trend toward constant reinvention of the self without the scaffolding scripts of religion and the state, Styling the Self will appeal to scholars of sociology, anthropology and social theory with interests in culture, consumption and lifestyle.

Sam Han is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Bristol and also Honorary Research Fellow at Brunel University of London. He is the author of many books, most recently The Concept of Tragedy: Its Importance for the Social Sciences in Unsettled Times (Routledge).