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Habit′s Pathways

Repetition, Power, Conduct

Habit′s Pathways cover image Read the Introduction

Book

Pages: 272

Illustrations: 5 illustrations

Published: September 2023

Author: Tony Bennett

Habit has long preoccupied a wide range of theologians, philosophers, sociologists, psychologists, and neuroscientists. In Habit’s Pathways Tony Bennett explores the political consequences of the varied ways in which habit’s repetitions have been acted on to guide or direct conduct. Bennett considers habit’s uses and effects across the monastic regimens of medieval Europe, in plantation slavery and the factory system, through colonial forms of rule, and within a range of medicalized pathologies. He brings these episodes in habit’s political histories to bear on contemporary debates ranging from its role in relation to the politics of white supremacy to the digital harvesting of habits in practices of algorithmic governance. Throughout, Bennett tracks how habit’s repetitions have been articulated differently across divisions of class, race, and gender, demonstrating that although habit serves as an apparatus for achieving success, self-fulfillment, and freedom for the powerful, it has simultaneously served as a means of control over women, racialized peoples, and subordinate classes.

Praise

“Habit’s Pathways makes a valuable contribution to discussions and theories of habit in its assemblage and detailed analysis of all the important thinkers on the subject, from Augustine, Kant, and Dewey to Deleuze, Foucault, and Malabou, devising what surely must be the new standard account of habit in contemporary Western thought. A tremendous achievement.” - Susan Zieger, author of The Mediated Mind: Affect, Ephemera, and Consumerism in the Nineteenth Century

“Tony Bennett, one of our most important cultural critics, reckons with the many meanings of habit in an argument that is both wide-ranging and fine-grained. Delving into its intellectual and political histories, he delivers a trenchant and highly illuminating analysis of habit’s relations to freedom and constraint.” - Rita Felski, John Stewart Bryan Professor, University of Virginia

"Bennett has delivered a book that deserves a wide readership among the sociological community and beyond." - Gordana Angelichin-Zhura, Sociological Research Online

"If you’re looking for a deep dive into 'the habit archive,' then you’ve come to the right place." - Jeffrey Guhin, American Journal of Sociology

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Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Additional Information

Author/Editor Bios

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Tony Bennett is Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Culture and Society at Western Sydney University and Honorary Professor in the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University. Among his many books are Making Culture, Changing Society and, as coauthor, Collecting, Ordering, Governing: Anthropology, Museums, and Liberal Government.

Table Of Contents

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Note on the Text  vii
Acknowledgments  ix
Introduction. Habit—Then and Now  1
1. Powering Habit  19
2. Dead Ends and Nonstarters: Habit, Discipline, Biopower, and the Circulation of Capital  46
3. Unwilled Habits: Descending Pathways  70
4. Pathways to Virtue  97
5. Unfolding Pathways: Habit, Freedom, Becoming  111
6. Exploded Pathways: Plasticity's Mentors  137
7. Progressive Pathways: The Dynamics of Modernity, Race, and the Unconscious  160
8. Contested Pathways: Habit and the Conduct of Conduct  184
Conclusion. The Arbitrariness of Habit  206
Notes  211
References  225
Index  243

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Related Links Paper ISBN: 978-1-4780-2498-9 / Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4780-2039-4 / eISBN: 978-1-4780-2733-1 / DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478027331