In Life Advice from Below, Eric C. Hendriks offers the first systematic, comparative study of the globalization of American-style self-help culture and the cultural conflicts this creates in different national contexts. The self-help guru is an archetypical American figure associated with individualism, materialism and the American Dream. Nonetheless, the self-help industry is spreading globally, thriving in China and other seemingly unlikely places. Controversy follows in its wake, as the self-help industry, operating outside of formal education and state institutions, outflanks philosophical, religious and political elites who have their own visions of the Good Life. Through a comparison of Germany and China, Hendriks analyzes how the competition between self-help gurus and institutional authorities unfolds under radically different politico-cultural regimes.
Author(s): Eric C. Hendriks
Publisher: Brill
Year: 2017
Language: English
Pages: 236
City: Leiden
Tags: Popular culture, China, self-help, self-help culture, public sphere, knowledge fields
Chapter 1 Introduction
Chapter 2 Cultural Fields in the Public Sphere
Chapter 3 The Persistence of National Regimes
Chapter 4 Global Popular Culture and Self Help
Chapter 5 Lines of Conflict
Chapter 6 Mapping and Comparing Social Space
Chapter 7 The German Self Help Field
Chapter 8 Clashing into Germanys Corporatist Welfare Regime
Chapter 9 The Chinese SelfHelp Field
Chapter 10 Coexisting with Chinas Institutional Authorities
Chapter 11 Conclusion
