Sociology of Self-Optimisation

Work more productively, achieve more! Become even fitter, even more beautiful! Self-optimisation is at the centre of current social demands and individual empirical worlds in capitalist societies. But what exactly is meant by self-optimisation? Is it a new phenomenon? What are its individual and social preconditions and consequences? By way of exploring these three questions, Anja Röcke develops a definition of the term that is as clear as it is fundamental, discusses the history of self-optimisation and determines the factors that make self-optimisation both a central and an ambivalent phenomenon of late-modern society.

»Her diligent academic work offers – a sober analysis and not, as is often the case with this topic, a cultural-critical lament – a good overview of the discussion on the social and psychological aspects of self-optimisation.« Gerd Schrader, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

»Anja Röcke places her study [Sociology of Self-Optimisation] on a broad sociological and cultural studies foundation, from Wilhelm von Humboldt to Michel Foucault.« Wolfgang Hellmich, Neue Zürcher Zeitung

»With her recently published, impressive and pleasantly objective Sociology of Self-Optimisation, […] sociologist Anja Röcke works through the debate as a whole and at the same time raises the discussion to a new level of insight.« Eckart Goebel, DIE WELT

»Anja Röcke presents a very clever book that illuminates the phenomenon of self-optimisation in all its facets.« Adrian Lobe, Spektrum