This book brings together the work of the late Anders Petersen, presenting his exciting and innovative transdisciplinary paradigm that offers insights into anxiety, depression and grief, and the connection between these conditions and the failings of contemporary civilization that give rise to them. With attention to the ways in which neoliberal hegemony and its imperatives of ‘performance’, ‘evaluation’ ‘self‑realisation’, ‘resilience’ and ‘flexibility’ lead to self‑criticism on the part of those who do not measure up to the prevailing criteria, resulting in ailments of mental health, it challenges the paradigmatic diagnosis of such conditions in terms of individual diseases or neurological malfunctions, to be treated by medication and training in order to return the individual to work and life ‘as normal’. An examination of the wrong‑headed approach to what Petersen analysed as contemporary social pathologies, Enduring Modernity: Depression, Anxiety and Grief in the Age of Voicelessness – Selected Essays of Anders Petersen will appeal to scholars of sociology and social theory, seeking new understandings aimed at emancipation from social suffering.

Anders Petersen (born July 30, 1973 in Silkeborg, Denmark, died May 20, 2022) was a Danish sociologist and associate professor at Aalborg University. In his research, he has examined the challenges and paradoxes of late modern existence. He contributed to the debates on social suffering, performance society and diagnostic culture, in both the academic and the public spheres. Anders ended his life at the age of 48. We miss our dear friend and inspired colleague badly. This volume is a first step in our endeavour to continue sharing the work that he so brilliantly and uniquely undertook.

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