Antonio L. Rappa – författare

Source: CIA World Factbook, 2005 In this book, our goal is to understand how the language policies of various nation-states in Southeast Asia grapple with the challenge of modernity. Our focus will therefore be on language policies as these are explicitly articulated either in the form of constitutions or public proclamations made by political leaders. We do not RAPPA AND WEE: LANGUAGE POLICY AND MODERNITY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA 2 deny that language policies can be implicit (Spolsky, 2004:s) since ideologies about language are prevalent regardless of whether these lead to overt policy formulations or not. However, our interest is in the attempts by Southeast-Asian nation-states to maintaidlegitimize particular ''nationalist imaginations'' (cf. Anderson, 1991), and such attempts are best seen in the kinds of explicit declarations made by agents of the state. It seems clear that our objective includes the question of how these nation-states manage the spread of the English language, since English is often seen as the language of modernity par excellence (May, 2001).

Source: CIA World Factbook, 2005 In this book, our goal is to understand how the language policies of various nation-states in Southeast Asia grapple with the challenge of modernity. Our focus will therefore be on language policies as these are explicitly articulated either in the form of constitutions or public proclamations made by political leaders. We do not RAPPA AND WEE: LANGUAGE POLICY AND MODERNITY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA 2 deny that language policies can be implicit (Spolsky, 2004:s) since ideologies about language are prevalent regardless of whether these lead to overt policy formulations or not. However, our interest is in the attempts by Southeast-Asian nation-states to maintaidlegitimize particular 'nationalist imaginations' (cf. Anderson, 1991), and such attempts are best seen in the kinds of explicit declarations made by agents of the state. It seems clear that our objective includes the question of how these nation-states manage the spread of the English language, since English is often seen as the language of modernity par excellence (May, 2001).

Source: CIA World Factbook, 2005 In this book, our goal is to understand how the language policies of various nation-states in Southeast Asia grapple with the challenge of modernity. Our focus will therefore be on language policies as these are explicitly articulated either in the form of constitutions or public proclamations made by political leaders. We do not RAPPA AND WEE: LANGUAGE POLICY AND MODERNITY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA 2 deny that language policies can be implicit (Spolsky, 2004:s) since ideologies about language are prevalent regardless of whether these lead to overt policy formulations or not. However, our interest is in the attempts by Southeast-Asian nation-states to maintaidlegitimize particular 'nationalist imaginations' (cf. Anderson, 1991), and such attempts are best seen in the kinds of explicit declarations made by agents of the state. It seems clear that our objective includes the question of how these nation-states manage the spread of the English language, since English is often seen as the language of modernity par excellence (May, 2001).

The Enlightenment theorists involved in the public/private debate exposed the logical fallacies of theology and the philosophical weaknesses of metaphysics but left little room for understanding contemporary modes of consumption. What does it mean to be a consumer in the early 21st century? Do modern markets provide real choices for consumers in neoliberal capitalist democracies? Or are consumers ironically slaves to their own patterns of consumption? Rejecting Habermas' conceptualizations in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1991), Rappa offers an examination of modernity and consumption with a non-Marxist, modernity-Resistance-theoretical frame (mRf). He argues that late modernity — the ethos, experience, and consciousness of global and technological transformation today — is not about the fusion of “public and private” spaces. Rather, modernity and consumption involves the deep penetration of private space by public space to the extent that private space becomes dependent, conditional, and decrepit. The “Private” has become contingent on the “Public”. Decisions about what to consume no longer reflect the mindful choices of private, interest-seeking, and wealth-maximizing individuals but reveal a new kind of public control through foundational images of success, failure, horror, violence, and hope.

The Enlightenment theorists involved in the public/private debate exposed the logical fallacies of theology and the philosophical weaknesses of metaphysics but left little room for understanding contemporary modes of consumption. What does it mean to be a consumer in the early 21st century? Do modern markets provide real choices for consumers in neoliberal capitalist democracies? Or are consumers ironically slaves to their own patterns of consumption? Rejecting Habermas' conceptualizations in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1991), Rappa offers an examination of modernity and consumption with a non-Marxist, modernity-Resistance-theoretical frame (mRf). He argues that late modernity — the ethos, experience, and consciousness of global and technological transformation today — is not about the fusion of “public and private” spaces. Rather, modernity and consumption involves the deep penetration of private space by public space to the extent that private space becomes dependent, conditional, and decrepit. The “Private” has become contingent on the “Public”. Decisions about what to consume no longer reflect the mindful choices of private, interest-seeking, and wealth-maximizing individuals but reveal a new kind of public control through foundational images of success, failure, horror, violence, and hope.

The Village and Its Discontents: Meaning and Criticism in Late Modernity is a hopeful collection of essays about villages in Southeast Asia and across the world. The "village" is an idea, a construct, and a way of organising society. Villages constitute the basic unit of analyses in the arts, humanities and the social sciences, and these issues are presented through the collection of essays featured in this book. The contributors hope to generate interest in studying villages, to understand the meanings that attach themselves to the concept of the village, and to gain greater insights into multidisciplinary knowledge and analyses in today's highly developed global society.

In the first edition, the themes of hope, optimism, and progress of neoliberalism were examined in Asia and America. The second edition, Globalization: Power, Authority, and Legitimacy in Late Modernity, analyses the new pessimism that has descended on the globalised world. The America that was once the bastion of hope, optimism and progress is now showing clear signs of a superpower in decline. The first sign of the American decline since 1941 in Pearl Harbour was the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City on 11 September 2001. The other signs are the Vietnamisation of Iraq, a nuclear stand-off with North Korea, increasing trade imbalances with China and India, a stalemate with terrorists in Afghanistan, the challenge of European protectionism, a belligerent politics in the Middle East, overt American dependence on fossil fuels, and the mushrooming of various subprime crises into an escalating global recession. This second edition incorporates the latest developments in terms of culture, wealth and terrorism around the world and provides possible solutions to salvage the American Dream.