Cultures of Darkness

Night is not just about the sun losing its effect, the end of the day, labor-tired bodies barely being dragged home, accounting for the troubles of the day, a pleasant conversation with friends, or a carefree forgetfulness in the arms of sleep; At the same time, it is the end of the order established for the day, the release of the field of imposed obligations, the establishment of the individual's own Dionysian feast in order to find his essence, the domination of the universe by the Bacchaean ritual, and the emergence of the wild creatures of nature and desire to the earth. From the pen of Bryan D. Palmer, we are faced with a book that is as interesting as it is provocative. In "Cultures of Darkness", Palmer presents us with a research that he insistently underlines is not academic, but which skillfully uses the academy to his advantage. Its purpose is to create a historical account of the history of the night, not to take control of the night with a chronological reasoning. Palmer opposes the thesis of a simplified history reduced to a single historical framework, and attempts to write the histories of the night and the cultures of darkness. Therefore, he focuses his research on marginality, which he argues is both an identity and a structure that classical historiography excludes. Combining this clearly Foucauldian claim with Marx's theses on alienation, Palmer puts history back into the narrative mold without disempowering it, but by giving it back its plurality; It reconstructs meta-history as the history of individualities.
"Cultures of Darkness" speaks about what is not talked about through the lens of end-of-century unrest. Instead of being integrated into later movements such as postmodernism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, postfeminism, etc., it attempts a reading of history that rejects both submission and obedience. Rather than reifying marginalities or gathering their differences on a single plane, it brings them together to offer programs that produce new possibilities.



Number of Pages: 624

Year of Printing: 2011


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Details Publications

First Print Year: 2011

Number of Pages: 624

Language Turkish