The Cultural Career of Coolness
Discourses and Practices of Affect Control in European Antiquity, the United States, and Japan
Contributions by Joel Dinerstein, Sophia Frese, Jens Heise, Michael Kinski, Jim McGuigan, Catherine Newmark, Aviad E. Raz, Paul Roquet, Daniel Selden Edited by Ulla Haselstein, Irmela Hijiya-Kirschnereit Freie Universität Berlin, Catrin Gersdorf, Elena Giannoulis
Publication date:
10 October 2013Length of book:
320 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
236x159mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780739173169
Cool is a word of American English that has been integrated into the vocabulary of numerous languages around the globe. Today it is a term most often used in advertising trendy commodities, or, more generally, in promoting urban lifestyles in our postmodern age. But what is the history of the term “cool?" When has coolness come to be associated with certain modes of contemporary self-fashioning? On what grounds do certain nations claim a privilege to be recognized as “cool?" These are some of the questions that served as a starting-point for a comparative cultural inquiry which brought together specialists from American Studies and Japanese Studies, but also from Classics, Philosophy and Sociology. The conceptual grid of the volume can be described as follows:
(1) Coolness is a metaphorical term for affect-control. It is tied in with cultural discourses on the emotions and the norms of their public display, and with gendered cultural practices of subjectivity.
(2) In the course of the cultural transformations of modernity, the term acquired new importance as a concept referring to practices of individual, ethnic, and national difference.
(3) Depending on cultural context, coolness is defined in terms of aesthetic detachment and self-irony, of withdrawal, dissidence and even latent rebellion.
(4) Coolness often carries undertones of ambivalence. The situational adequacy of cool behavior becomes an issue for contending ethical and aesthetic discourses since an ethical ideal of self-control and a strategy of performing self-control are inextricably intertwined.
(5) In literature and film, coolness as a character trait is portrayed as a personal strength, as a lack of emotion, as an effect of trauma, as a mask for suffering or rage, as precious behavior, or as savvyness. This wide spectrum is significant: artistic productions offer valid insights into contradictions of cultural discourses on affect-control.
(6) American and Japanese cultural productions show that twentieth-century notions of coolness hybridize different cultural traditions of affect-control.
(1) Coolness is a metaphorical term for affect-control. It is tied in with cultural discourses on the emotions and the norms of their public display, and with gendered cultural practices of subjectivity.
(2) In the course of the cultural transformations of modernity, the term acquired new importance as a concept referring to practices of individual, ethnic, and national difference.
(3) Depending on cultural context, coolness is defined in terms of aesthetic detachment and self-irony, of withdrawal, dissidence and even latent rebellion.
(4) Coolness often carries undertones of ambivalence. The situational adequacy of cool behavior becomes an issue for contending ethical and aesthetic discourses since an ethical ideal of self-control and a strategy of performing self-control are inextricably intertwined.
(5) In literature and film, coolness as a character trait is portrayed as a personal strength, as a lack of emotion, as an effect of trauma, as a mask for suffering or rage, as precious behavior, or as savvyness. This wide spectrum is significant: artistic productions offer valid insights into contradictions of cultural discourses on affect-control.
(6) American and Japanese cultural productions show that twentieth-century notions of coolness hybridize different cultural traditions of affect-control.
Brought together by an outstanding group of editors, The Cultural Career of Coolness: Discourses and Practices of Affect Control in EuropeanAntiquity, the United States, and Japan presents a multi-faceted and in-depth look at 'coolness.' Not only does the volume deepen and complicate our common understanding of this cultural phenomenon by incorporating essays on philosophy, sociology, literature, music, and film, it also broadens the field of inquiry to include both Euro-American and Japanese contexts, offering a rich transcultural assessment rare in affect studies…. The Cultural Career of Coolness will appeal to a wide swathe of researchers, academics, students, and informed readers with an interest in affect studies, American studies, and Japanese studies as well as in cultural and literary studies generally. With its broad interdisciplinary focus and careful attention to pertinent questions that engage contemporary global culture, this anthology is certain to inspire further research, particularly in those areas that treat the cross-cultural, transcultural, or transnational.