Enduring Modernity: Depression, Anxiety and Grief in the Age of Voicelessness(The Social Pathologies of Contemporary Civilization)

This book brings together the work of the late Anders Petersen, presenting his exciting and innovative transdisciplinary paradigm that offers insights into anxiety, depression and grief, and the connection between these conditions and the failings of contemporary civilization that give rise to them. With attention to the ways in which neoliberal hegemony and its imperatives of ‘performance’, ‘evaluation’, ‘self-realisation’, ‘resilience’ and ‘flexibility’ lead to self-criticism on the part of those who do not measure up to the prevailing criteria, resulting in ailments of mental health, it challenges the paradigmatic diagnosis of such conditions in terms of individual diseases or neurological malfunctions, to be treated by medication and training in order to return the individual to work and life ‘as normal’. An examination of the wrong-headed approach to what Petersen analysed as contemporary social pathologies, Enduring Modernity: Depression, Anxiety and Grief in the Age of Voicelessness will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory, seeking new understandings aimed at emancipation from social suffering.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgement Anders Petersen – his life and memory The original publication of the chapters Notes on Contributors 1. Introduction: The Work of Anders Petersen Bert van den Bergh, Sabine Flick, Kieran Keohane, Domonkos Sik Part 1: Depression, Anxiety and Happiness 2. Introduction to part 1 Carmen Kuhling 3. Authentic Self-Realization and Depression Anders Petersen 4. Return of the Age of Anxiety: The Embedding of a Late Modern Social Pathology Anders Petersen 5. ‘Clap Along if You Feel Like a Room Without a Roof’: Understanding the Pursuit of Happiness as Ideology Anders Petersen 6. Depression: Emotion and (or) Dis-Connection in Late Modern Society Anders Petersen, Bert van den Bergh Part 2: Liberalism and Disenfranchisement 7. Introduction to part 2 Søren Christian Krogh 8. The Demand for Flexibility as a Process of Disenfranchisement Anders Petersen, Rasmus Willig 9. Evaluations as a Process of Disenfranchisement Anders Petersen, Rasmus Willig Part 3: Grief and Diagnostic Culture 10. Introduction to part 3 Svend Brinkmann 11. Grief: The Painfulness of Permanent Human Absence Anders Petersen, Michael Hviid Jacobsen 12. Grief in an Individualized Society: A Critical Corrective to the Advancement of Diagnostic Culture Anders Petersen, Michael Hviid Jacobsen 13. Outro: Working with Anders Petersen - A Dialogue with Michael Hviid Jacobsen, Søren Christian Krogh and Carmen Kuhling 14. Index

About the Author :
Anders Petersen was Associate Professor of Sociology at Aalborg University, Denmark, and former President of the Danish Sociological Association. Bert van den Bergh teaches cultural philosophy in the Department of European Studies at The Hague University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands. Sabine Flick is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Education, Freiburg, Germany. Kieran Keohane is Professor in the Department of Sociology and Criminology and the School of Society, Politics and Ethics at University College Cork, Ireland. Domonkos Sik is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Eötvös Lorand University, Budapest, Hungary.