The role of the imagination as a collective property in today's global economy has received much attention. The thesis that modern subjectivity, produced by processes of consumption and constructed in a global cultural economy, is coupled with the expansion of our collective imagination demands qualification. In this article, the author engages in an analysis of themes of gender, religion, and nationalism in discourse produced by participants in an electronic discussion group, to show that the expansion of the imagination under capitalism is inextricably coupled with the centralization of subjectivity. Moreover, this centralization cannot be discussed without reference to corporate interests that mediate it.
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