Making the Familiar Strange

Reviews / Votes

"Ryan Gunderson's fusion of critical theory and phenomenology and incisive exploration of reification and defamiliarization provide analytical tools to unmask the neoliberal ideology that 'there is no alternative,' come to terms with the grim social realities exposed by the covid-19 pandemic, and imagine a future that averts plutocracy and ecological catastrophe." - Robert J. Antonio, University of Kansas, USA

"Through a systematic exploration of the topic of 'defamiliarization' in sociology, critical theory and phenomenology are once again brought together. The result is a powerful endorsement of active estrangement that fully brings home Brecht's alienation-effect to social theory. By showing us how to think about the world in a different way, Ryan Gunderson opens the way to social change, at least in theory." - Frederic Vandenberghe, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

"Gunderson's intellectually stimulating study joins the ranks of many important theoretical approaches dedicated to visualizing problematic dimensions of social life that have been normalized via everyday life, and constitutes a most welcome effort to spell out efforts to systematize strategies to counteract mediating processes like alienation and reification, which are detrimental to human agency." - Harry F. Dahms, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, USA