In this study Ann Game attempts to redefine the discipline of sociology in light of contemporary cultural and feminist theory. Exploring the immediate experience of daily life, she considers the themes of desire, memory, time, and the body.


The book begins with an essay on current issues in sociology such as relexivity and the relationship between the subject and power. The second section analyses these issues in relation to the writings of Foucault, Freud, Bergson, Irigaray, Hegel, Sartre, Lacan, and Cixous. The third section deals with issues of mediation and immediacy, and time and place. Here Game explores the dialectic of boss-secretary relations, and offers an analysis of the Cronenberg film Dead Ringers.


Game unsettles sociological assumptions and shows that a deconstructive strategy is just as relevant in sociology and in literary, cultural, or philosophical studies.