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The general state of anxiety and anguish that currently prevails in contemporary societies is a breeding ground for all kinds of proposals – such as dystopias – that seek to unravel, question, or simply make sense of the increasingly incomprehensible and indecipherable world in which humanity feels confined. Of all of them, it is probably those who, like the ancient myths of antiquity, use novels and stories to exorcise and conjure up their ghosts, reflecting on and symbolically expressing all that shocks and frightens them as individuals and as members of a society, that contribute most to reappropriating and coming to terms with their fears. This article proposes an in-depth analysis of a type of dystopia that could be described as mythical and whose extremely overwhelming presence in the contemporary political and cultural landscape is clearly indicative of the prevailing climate of fear and mistrust in our societies.

The dwelling always held work activities. However, with the emergence of capital, work spread more and more in the city, abandoning the dwelling due to new dynamics of mass production and accumulation that were no longer suited to the small scale of the house. It resulted in a gradual rethinking of domestic spaces, leading to the definition of the established duality of home/work. Instead, the digital revolution and the advent of capital's 'immaterial work' in western countries placed the domestic space as the potential epicentre of capitalist production. Immaterial work is not bound by spatial constraints and can therefore be carried out anywhere, even and especially at home. The insertion of production dynamics within the domestic sphere is generating numerous spatial-temporal conflicts of traditional places and functions, leading to new everyday life and new spatial needs. The paper therefore analyses the changing dynamics of the home and its spatial possibilities emerging from the potential merge of immaterial productivity with domesticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical sociolinguistics with a qualitative approach seeks to explore the background of language-related social issues. Such issues include, for example, the systems of ideas that shape contemporary public thinking, especially when it comes to language choice in minority contexts. The paper compares three such contexts: the context of a diasporic group (Hungarians in Catalonia, Spain), the young adults of an indigenous minority (Hungarians in Csallóköz, Žitný ostrov, Slovakia), and the media representation of sexual minorities in Hungary. The comparison is based on three separate studies with a qualitative and explorative orientation conducted by one of the authors each. These studies examined the language ideologies of late modernity and global capitalism that the literature identifies as discourses of pride and profit. We argue that speakers’ narratives on their language choice are permeated by the concept of profit in a way that pride is no longer evidently associated with authenticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that the motivations for investing money in gacha games can be a function of the affective embedding of players within the game, and the game within broader circuits of cultural affinity and appeal. While research on gacha games – and the specific role of loot boxes therein – has emphasised their associations with gambling, I contend that affect is another trigger that can motivate seemingly irrational playing behaviours. The affective embeddings of gacha games motivate players to curate aesthetic assemblages of virtual content that enable the mediated expression of the self. Drawing on qualitative data generated among young Singapore-based players of gacha games, I explore how the acquisition of characters, skins and collections can be motivated by the emotional payoff that comes from relationality rather than gambling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general state of anxiety and anguish that currently prevails in contemporary societies is a breeding ground for all kinds of proposals - such as dystopias - that seek to unravel, question, or simply make sense of the increasingly incomprehensible and indecipherable world in which humanity feels confined. Of all of them, it is probably those who, like the ancient myths of antiquity, use novels and stories to exorcise and conjure up their ghosts, reflecting on and symbolically expressing all that shocks and frightens them as individuals and as members of a society, that contribute most to reappropriating and coming to terms with their fears. This article proposes an in-depth analysis of a type of dystopia that could be described as mythical and whose extremely overwhelming presence in the contemporary political and cultural landscape is clearly indicative of the prevailing climate of fear and mistrust in our societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

1970’lerden sonra hem Türkiye’de hem de dünya genelinde dini, spiritüel, metafizik pratik ve söylemler popüler kültürün periferisinden merkezine doğru bir seyirle ilerler. Bu seyrin Türkiye’de hâkim dinin heteredoks yanlarını ve spiritüel öğretileri harekete geçiren bir etkisi de vardır. Bu çalışmada popüler kültürün spiritüel karakterine dair bir tartışmanın tasavvuf üzerinden de yürütülebileceği ön kabulünden hareket ediliyor. Çalışmada 2010’lu yılların Türkiye’sinde bir “pop tasavvuf” alanının nasıl yükselişe geçtiği, onun alternatif bir dini-spiritüel pazar olarak hangi içerik ve biçimlerle dolaşıma girdiği soruşturuluyor. Bu doğrultuda tasavvufi kişisel gelişim kitaplarındaki öznellik kurgularına ve tüketim kanallarında türlü biçimlere dönüşen Mevlana ve Mevlevilik imgesine odaklanılıyor. Bu çerçevede 2010’lu yıllarda tasavvufun popüler kültürdeki yaygın içerik ve biçimlerinin; postmodern-spiritüel; liberal-neoliberal; muhafazakâr-dini yaklaşımların bir uzlaşı alanı olarak dolaşıma girdiği iddia ediliyor. Dinselliğin ötelenmediği mevcut kültürel ve politik bağlam içerisinde bu tavrın, piyasanın akışkanlığı ve canlılığı açısından da onaylanır bir durum olduğunu göstermek amaçlanıyor. Her metne ve dünya görüşüne kolaylıkla eklemlenebilen tasavvuf, geç kapitalizmin postmodern kültürel eğilimleri altında bağlamından ve felsefesinden koparılıyor.

Copyright of Revista Cultura Económica is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Moment Journal: Journal of Cultural Studies is the property of Moment Journal: Journal of Cultural Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article proposes a Debordian reading of Michel Houellebecq's first work Extension du domaine de la lutte that would thrust him into the spotlight as France's most popular and controversial writer. Specifically, this investigation demonstrates that Debord's theories are a useful lens from which to analyze Houellebecq's harsh critique of late capitalism. Owing to a radical paradigm shift in the capitalist paradigm, Debord and Houellebecq posit that we live in a brave new world in which millions of individuals no longer have a frame of reference for distinguishing between commonplace reality and its simulation on a screen. On the informational battlefield where simulations of the good(s) life have proliferated themselves to the brink of replacing the real in the collective imagination of consumer citizens, they illustrate that the timeless search for happiness also seems to be even more fraught with peril in the 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Brasileira de Historia is the property of Associacao Nacional dos Professores Universitarios de Historia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines a new strand of speculative Irish fiction that has emerged in the post-Celtic Tiger era. Focusing on novels by Kevin Barry, Sarah Davis-Goff, Catherine Prasifka and Danny Denton, I analyse how the speculative mode, with its ontological obliquities and temporal distortions, is particularly commensurate to the environmental and socio-economic complexities and predicaments facing Ireland at present. Specifically, these novels centre on problems and crises that have national and regional manifestations, but are ultimately global in scale and extent: ecological degradation, sea-level rise, food scarcity, pandemics, and the social and psychic effects of neoliberalism and surveillance capitalism. In coming to terms with such issues, particularly the hyperobject of climate change, these novels are often at their most effective in moments that de-privilege anthropocentric perspectives by establishing existential intimacies and political affinities with the natural and non-human realms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is proposed as a contribution to the reconstruction of the transformations that have taken place from the 1970s on the basis of the so-called Foucault's anthropological triangle, composed of the surfaces of life, work and language. In this respect, the articulating question is: what anthropological figure can emerge from these profound modifications? For this we will recover a series of recent contributions that will be exposed taking into account three blocks corresponding to the metamorphosis of each of the surfaces: language, work and life. From this, the opening towards a new order that transcends the upper thresholds --the populations-- and the lower --the individual-- of biopolitics resulted as a conclusion; we observe this in the pairing of the surfaces described with a late capitalism, where the utopias of communication give way to surveillance capitalism, the profound transformation of the capital-labour link directs us towards a hyperflexibilization and precarization by way of platforms and the absolute emptiness of the living --reduced to biomolecules-- that opens the way to the biocapital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article proposes a Situationist reading of Le Clézio's novels La Guerre (1970) and Les Géants (1973). Debord and Le Clézio illustrate that it is not by accident that the rise of multinational capitalism coincides with the birth of hyperreality and the post-truth era. Faced with the realistic possibility of losing their power and influence, the masters or the giants shifted their approach in order to survive. Debord and Le Clézio denounce the devastating ripple effects of this structural adaptation that would redefine society and the entirety of social relations through the skillful imposition of commercial simulacra. Even if both authors engage in hyperbolic discourse to underscore their main points, they are cognizant of what is at stake in the age of (dis-) information. Without providing any facile optimism that the road ahead will be easy, Debord and Le Clézio urge the alienated, post-modern subject to revolt. Despite the apparent limitations of the user manuals for contestation that they promote, their counter-hegemonic techniques could be a preliminary blueprint for combatting the commodification of the social, the death of the subject, and the subjugation of the populace through signs in consumer republics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Capitalism in its contemporary, late form does not break away from its constitutive principles - that is the actions aimed at accumulating resources - but significantly changes nature of the key capital. No longer land or labour, but knowledge, information or technology become the elements determining the position of a person on the market. Under these circumstances, the notion of "non-work" emerges, which includes activities seemingly unrelated to capitalist priorities, but still not in the direct opposition to them. One of the areas of such non-work phenomena was the Polish cultural blogosphere. Its representatives are an example of how people operating in the field of culture - especially on the Internet - combined instrumental and existential values in their activities. For this combination to be effective, it requires the collection and interpretation of relevant data that enables us to measure the achievement level of the goals set. In the case of the surveyed bloggers - also due to the specificity of their work - these measures were often not used properly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the commodification of the human experience in late capitalism as depicted in William Gibson’s novel Pattern Recognition and the potential of technology in helping the human subject in evading commodification. The novel shows how the virtual world and the physical world can become mutually supportive in allowing the characters to search for meaning, pattern and wholeness by using technology as an empowering force for the human subject while managing to avoid being consumed by a powerful capitalist market. The novel’s protagonist’s success in using technology as a humanizing force proves that humans can thrive within its sphere without necessarily being absorbed or overwhelmed by it.

Copyright of Tropelías: Revista de Teoría de la Literatura y Literatura Comparada is the property of Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article proposes a Debordian reading of Michel Houellebecq’s first work Extension du domaine de la lutte that would thrust him into the spotlight as France’s most popular and controversial writer. Specifically, this investigation demonstrates that Debord’s theories are a useful lens from which to analyze Houellebecq’s harsh critique of late capitalism. Owing to a radical paradigm shift in the capitalist paradigm, Debord and Houellebecq posit that we live in a brave new world in which millions of individuals no longer have a frame of reference for distinguishing between commonplace reality and its simulation on a screen. On the informational battlefield where simulations of the good(s) life have proliferated themselves to the brink of replacing the real in the collective imagination of consumer citizens, they illustrate that the timeless search for happiness also seems to be even more fraught with peril in the 21st century.

The Heart Goes Last is a dystopic novel set in the United States of America. The book portrays a society in which the whole system is broken, from banking to manufacturing; unemployment, homelessness, and violence have accelerated in such a way that they constitute norms rather than the exception. The story is about a young couple, Charmaine and Stan, who lost their homes and jobs and live in their cars. Their lives are now organized around their bare lives, and they are at the point where they exchange their freedom for security. Dystopias reflect the fear of the era in which they are written, and the society portrayed in the novel is a late capitalist society. Late capitalist societies are characterized by uncertainty, insecurity, and vulnerability. Late capitalist societies exploit the fears and anxieties derived from uncertainty and insecurity, and The Heart Goes Last projects this exploitation, resulting in the loss of freedom. The first part of the study gives the relationship between dystopia and social theory. In the second part, the context of the novel is given. The third part analyzes the late capitalist societies through liquid modernity thesis. Finally, the renunciation of freedom for the sake of security and The Heart Goes Last is a dystopic novel set in the United States of America. The book portrays a society in which the whole system is broken, from banking to manufacturing; unemployment, homelessness, and violence have accelerated in such a way that they constitute norms rather than the exception. The story is about a young couple, Charmaine and Stan, who lost their homes and jobs and live in their cars. Their lives are now organized around their bare lives, and they are at the point where they exchange their freedom for security. Dystopias reflect the fear of the era in which they are written, and the society portrayed in the novel is a late capitalist society. Late capitalist societies are characterized by uncertainty, insecurity, and vulnerability. Late capitalist societies exploit the fears and anxieties derived from uncertainty and insecurity, and The Heart Goes Last projects this exploitation, resulting in the loss of freedom. The first part of the study gives the relationship between dystopia and social theory. In the second part, the context of the novel is given. The third part analyzes the late capitalist societies through liquid modernity thesis. Finally, the renunciation of freedom for the sake of security and stability is analyzed. An emphasis on the contradiction between freedom and security and the cooccurrence of freedom and domination will be given. It is argued that the social structure that exploits fear triggers the need for security, which results in the loss of freedom.

This paper addresses the commodification of the human experience in late capitalism as depicted in William Gibson's novel Pattern Recognition and the potential of technology in helping the human subject in evading commodification. The novel shows how the virtual world and the physical world can become mutually supportive in allowing the characters to search for meaning, pattern and wholeness by using technology as an empowering force for the human subject while managing to avoid being consumed by a powerful capitalist market. The novel's protagonist's success in using technology as a humanizing force proves that humans can thrive within its sphere without necessarily being absorbed or overwhelmed by it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This intervention responds to a series of articles—including one published in Antipode—on what is referred to as "new" state capitalism (NSC) or sometimes, simply, state capitalism. Our overarching argument is that by eliding state and institutionalist theory and, specifically, separating the analysis of state transformation from the power and leverage of social forces under late capitalism, NSC scholars end up offering an inaccurate, inchoate and incoherent conceptualisation and analysis of important phenomena. Our contention is that future work needs to return to socio‐relational analyses of the state, prioritising the power and leverage of social forces operating under patterns of accumulation characterised by more‐integrated‐than‐ever‐before global economic‐market relations and the concentration of productive and financial capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• By making investments in rhetorical exchange, participants produced corporeal capital. • Affective capital is a form of corporeal capital unique to neoliberalism. • Late capitalists habituate subjects, capturing their behavior to extract value. Revising Marxist theories of circulation with affect theory, this article establishes a new model of rhetorical analysis that positions rhetorical exchange as a circulatory infrastructure of late capitalism. By measuring the value produced by rhetors and audiences in rhetorical exchange, we can see how the daily rhetorical activity of neoliberal subjects captures our behavior, positioning us a raw material for late capitalists. This new theory of rhetorical circulation is tested and revised by a qualitative study on the mundane communication of neoliberal subjects, in this case, the group chat of one fantasy football league. Fantasy football communication creates an ambient backdrop for its users, leading to quotidian rhetorical exchanges in clearly defined social networks. The study shows the contours of rhetorical exchange in one league's GroupMe chat. I found that, in exchange, subjects transform their investments into social and cultural capital (Bourdieu's capital forms). Ultimately, subjects can produce what I call affective capital, a uniquely neoliberal capital form. I find that the immense value of affective capital produced by league members in rhetorical exchange points to the reasons why neoliberal subjects repeatedly return to platforms that harvest our data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author characterizes the main stages in the rise of the Post-Soviet School of Critical Marxism (PSSCM) and highlights its most important features, distinguishing it from other tendencies of Marxist thought in Russia. The latter include the orthodox version of Marxism, the social democratic tendency, and the 'Russophile' tendency. In contrast to these trends, the PSSCM is oriented toward elaboration of a dialectical materialist methodology; toward development of creative Soviet and world traditions in the study of social alienation and de-alienation; toward the critical use of Marx and his followers' achievements with the aim of developing the main elements of the 'Capital' of the 21st century; and toward studying the prospects for the future 'realm of freedom' (Marx) as the dialectical sublation not only of capitalism, but also of the entire system of relations of social alienation in the context of facing the contemporary global problems. A feature of the article is its extensive bibliography of works by Russian Marxists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the research on the social and class structure of modern society from the positions of the Post-Soviet School of Critical Marxism. It is shown that late capitalism is characterised by the active formation of inter-class and intra-class layers. The article reveals the contradictions of the 'creative class'. The 'creative class' is divided into (1) the people who are employed in the creatosphere and give rise to the phenomena of culture and the creative qualities of human beings and (2) those who 'creatively' produce useless goods. Then it is further divided into people employed in the (1) public and (2) commercial sectors. The author introduces the term 'the socialiat' to characterise the public-sector workers who comprise a protoclass within the creative class, shows the core and periphery of it, and provide the analysis of the precariat as the alter ego of the socialiat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author shows the changes that the system of commodity relations is undergoing in the early 21st century. These changes are seeing the market take on an all-encompassing character, and we are witnessing a comprehensive manipulation of market actors by corporate capital. The present-day market is limited and undermined not only by state regulation but also by a process of socialisation, which represents the totality of transitional relationships and institutions. Having characterised this new quality of the relations of the market, the author demonstrates the specific nature of these processes in contemporary Russia, where the most modern forms of market relations and the most archaic are being propagated simultaneously. The green shoots of socialisation are characterised by the contradiction between the retention of a number of the achievements of the preceding system, and the development of shadow state regulation and 'manual control'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses how consumption and citizenship can be perceived in a dichotomy established by the crisis of utopias at the end of the 20th century, in which consumption becomes the main characteristic of historiographic production. In this sense, we present a discussion on how presentism and updatism help to think and diagnose practices in which consumption overlaps citizenship and imposes on historiography a demand that prevents the construction of intervention projects in the fairer and more democratic present. We conclude that it is up to historians, as an alternative to this context, to politicize their narratives and adopt an ethical posture that seeks to understand the concept of postmodernity in its broadest way so that the logics established by late capitalism can be unveiled, exposing the historical wounds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the modern socio-philosophical dynamics of late capitalism and its crisis, and considers the new functioning principles of the post-capitalist model of the future. It is emphasized that the main characteristics of the new social post-capitalist model will be automation of labour, reduction of the working week, unconditional basic income, which guarantees a sufficient amount to live on. A special attention is paid to the main human value, namely to be together and overcome the “end of the social”, to the desire to achieve something universally significant; however, capitalism is constantly tightening competition, which makes many people fall into frustration. Thus, the authors aim to search for instrumentalism in the development of a social state, post-capitalist type of society existence. The article focuses on the significant problem of our time: inequality, with “new peasants”, “new lords”, “new global aristocracy”, including not only financial institutions, but also digital platforms. It is noted that the structure of complex networks shows why modern capitalism tends to neo-feudalism. The integrated networks undermine equality and strengthen hierarchy through inclusiveness, free choice and democratic participation. Therefore, the search for new models of coexistence in the global world becomes an urgent scientific problem for the socio-philosophical discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes late capitalism as a historical reality by dialectically searching for connections between various components of social reality. The proposed strategy of studying late capitalism was inspired Pier Paolo Pasolini’s essays, which stemmed from four figures: ideology, infrastructures, right-wing revolution, and fascism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spike Jonze's Her is a dystopian fiction that envisages a world wherein machine sentience has achieved the capacity to replace human experiences thereby leading to an ontological crisis of emotions and the inability to ground one's thoughts in objective reality. While on the surface, the cinema displays the characteristic traits of a melancholic romantic drama with subtle futuristic elements, this article, however, explores the darker side of Jonze's screenplay and the dominant political and philosophical ideas that come with it, thereby deciphering the nuances of what Jonze strives to put forward: a forewarning of the times that are approaching. This article also attempts at characterizing the world of Her by identifying the trajectory of late capitalism, alienation, and the realm of the simulation, all of which are critical themes that must be taken into account so as to make sense of the ethical dilemmas that technologically developed societies will have to face in the future. This research has been carried out through the analysis of articles, journals, interviews, reviews, and other secondary data sources available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a reconstruction of aspects of Theodor Adorno's social theory, this paper aims to analyze his interpretation of the mechanics of fascist seduction in democracies. If Dialectics of Enlightenment had drawn attention to elements of continuity between the Nazi-fascism the immediate post-war period at the core countries of capitalism, Adorno shed light on the objective conditions and subjective assumptions that maintain the fascism as an immanent tendency of the so-called golden age. Rather than a traditional historiography of ideas, my objective is also to highlight contributions that the Frankfurt scholar could bring to the current debate on the rise of contemporary far right leaders and movements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay argues that recent catastrophizings over freedom of speech are symptoms of a conjunctural crisis in the North Atlantic world. They index, in the main, a crisis of profitability and deindustrialization in the Global North, as seen for instance in the lumpenproletariatization of the working and professional classes; increasing domestic resistance by racially minoritized groups to police violence and murder; sustained insurgencies to imperialism abroad; the militarization of borders; and widespread crises occasioned by climate change. The writings of Hannah Arendt, I argue, offer an acute angle into how a celebrated thinker in the Global North advanced influential analytical categories for policing this conjunctural crisis. Ultimately, I argue, apocalyptic discourses about the unsayable ("cancel culture," "wokeness," "de-platforming") seek to make unthinkable ongoing and emergent radical uprisings, insurgencies, and revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Comunicación 'Vivat Academia' is the property of Facultad de Ciencias de las Informacion de la Universidad Complutense (Espana) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Based on the observation of the behavior of local and national governments during the pandemics and the underlying conflicts between different actors and visions, in this contribution I briefly expose some reflections on the necessary triangulation between health, economic and personal rights and the reasons of governments reluctance to implement the measures recommended by sanitary institutions.

This paper grapples with scholarly debates at the intersection of environmental degradation and capitalist accumulation. We review recent literature engaging with nature and value theory to show how a narrow conception of nature perpetuates a capitalist "production bias" that inadequately accounts for the more-than-capitalist relations involved in reconfiguring natures for capitalist value production. We argue for a return to the foundations of green Marxism that cast environmental degradation as a crisis of reproduction and draw connections with critical scholarship on wasting and a corpus of radical Indigenous, Black, and feminist scholarship which understand the value of nature to originate in life-making. We do so in order to consider environmental degradation from the politics and uneven experiences of life-making – a term we use to signal the material reproductive relations capital appropriates; the persistence of these relations in degraded environments; and the existence of these relations independent of capitalism and capitalist value. Bringing these literatures in conversation, we recast environmental degradation as a crisis of life-making, a conceptual move we argue is necessary to properly account for the more-than-capitalist relations that give historical and geographic form to environmental degradation in late capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hong Kong has one of the least affordable housing markets in the world, but little is known about its housing advertisements, which constitute important discourses that shape the cultural ideal of homeownership. In many ways, Hong Kong's property market represents that of other 'global cities', which are important nodes of global culture and capital flows. How do private property developers market housing in this context, where the nature of housing has developed from accommodation to investment/speculation? What can housing advertisements tell us about the nature of housing consumption, the role of the state and housing developers in a global city like Hong Kong? Using both content and textual analyses, this article presents findings from a longitudinal study of Hong Kong's private housing newspaper advertisements between 1961 and 2011 and examines how and why representations of the ideal home have changed. Unlike the existing literature on housing advertisements which are mostly ideological critiques or socio-historical accounts of housing advertisements in consumer capitalism, our analysis utilises insights from Baudrillard's political economy of the sign and Lipovetsky's concept of hypermodernity. Our contextual and longitudinal analysis contributes to the existing literature by integrating temporality with the three modalities of housing consumption, that is, as living space, investment and financial speculation. We argue that from the late 1970s onwards, Hong Kong government policy actively promotes homeownership and a housing hierarchy discourse, as housing advertisements changed from emphasising functionalities and everyday living in 1961–1981, to privatised quality living in 1991–2001, and abstract living and 'hyperindividualistic' political subjectivity in 2011. By demonstrating the increased abstraction of living, the promotion of the hyperreal, and private housing as objects of financial speculation as evidenced in the construction of ideal homes, we illuminate key features of and inequalities associated with housing advertisements in a global city in neoliberal, late capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social and technological revolutions, combined with the recent crises, have again brought attention to the housing issue in the main western urban environments. More and more people are moving to cities, reopening the architectural debate of the Existenzminimum and the Minimum Living Cell to cope with an ever-increasing demand and ever-less available space combined with the desire to provide decent housing solutions for emergent lifestyles. A contemporary living cell that, after the second wave of the feminist movement and digital technologies, often coincides with the bedroom and that is supported by a plethora of shared domestic uses on a more urban scale. It is an emerging and often informal domesticity that has the potential to influence the architecture and perception of the house. It does not necessarily imply that the houses should be smaller or that the bedrooms bigger, but that new domestic hierarchies are emerging and shaping spatial relations and necessities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AMC's TV series Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul both feature protagonists who can be seen as victims of institutions that do not appreciate their talents and abilities. Walter White in Breaking Bad, who once won a Nobel Prize in chemistry, is an under-appreciated and underpaid high school chemistry teacher who must work a second job to support his family. Jimmy McGill, a con artist–turned–lawyer who will eventually change his identity to Saul Goodman in Better Call Saul discovers that because of his earlier criminal exploits and non-traditional legal education, he will never be fully accepted within Albuquerque's legal community. These series exemplify several core concepts from Zygmunt Bauman and Martin Shuster's works, including liquid modernity and late capitalism, the loss of normative authority and deinstitutionalization, the process of individuation and identity formation, and the centrality of family in living and struggling in liquid times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]