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This lively and accessible new book reconsiders the different views as to what 'culture' is, how it operates, and how it relates to other aspects of the human (and non-human) world.
What can Sociology add to our understanding of art? This volume brings together a range of respected scholars in the field who demonstrate the many ways in which sociology can add to our understanding of artistic issues. Covering all the major schools of thought, and dealing with many different art forms, the book offers the reader a comprehensive and accessible guide to an often complex area. It will be an invaluable resource for students seeking to understand sociology's contributions to the study of artistic and aesthetic issues.
Social theory is a crucial resource for the social sciences. It provides rich insights into how human beings think and act and how contemporary social life is constructed. But often the key ideas of social theorists are expressed in highly technical and difficult language that can hide more than it reveals. The new edition of this popular book continues to cut to the core of what social theory is about. Wide-ranging in scope and coverage, it is concise in presentation and free from jargon. Covering key themes and schools of thought from the classical thinkers up to the present, the third edition features a new chapter dedicated to post-colonial sociological theory. With updated literature and examples throughout, the book also includes refreshed pedagogical features to connect theory to readers’ own life experiences. Showing why social theory matters, and why it is of far-reaching social and political importance, the book is ideal for readers seeking a clear, crisp mapping of a complex but very rewarding area.
Confronting Culture offers a clear and accessible discussion and analysis of the complex field of the sociology of culture, and how it compares with approaches developed within cultural studies. An accessible guide to the complex field of the sociological study of culture. Unique in showing how sociological understandings of culture often differ from rival approaches in the discipline of cultural studies. Introduces the various ways of thinking sociologically about culture that have been developed over the last century. Examines the legacy of classical sociology for the sociology of culture, and situates thinking about culture within the historical, cultural and social contexts of the rival schools of thought in the US, UK, France and Germany. Examples of topics under discussion include the rise of postmodernism, the American production of culture approach, and the cultural sociology of Pierre Bourdieu.
The Uses of Sport provides an essential resource for the study of sport within culture and popular culture.
2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title Song dynasty historian Hong Mai (1123–1202) spent a lifetime on a collection of supernatural accounts, contemporary incidents, poems, and riddles, among other genres, which he entitled Record of the Listener (Yijian zhi). His informants included a wide range of his contemporaries, from scholar-officials to concubines, Buddhist monks, and soldiers, who helped Hong Mai leave one of the most vivid portraits of life and the different classes in China during this period. Originally comprising a massive 420 chapters, only a fraction survived the Mongol ravaging of China in the thirteenth century. The present volume is the first book-length consideration of ...
Veils and veiling are controversial topics in social and political life, generating debates across the world. The veil is enmeshed within a complex web of relations encompassing politics, religion and gender, and conflicts over the nature of power, legitimacy, belief, freedom, agency and emancipation. In recent years, the veil has become both a potent and unsettling symbol and a rallying-point for discourse and rhetoric concerning women, Islam and the nature of politics. Early studies in gender, doctrine and politics of veiling appeared in the 1970s following the Islamic revival and ’re-veiling’ trends that were dramatically expressed by 1979’s Iranian Islamic revolution. In the 1990s,...
Cultural sociology - or the sociology of culture - has grown from a minority interest in the 1970s to become one of the largest and most vibrant areas within sociology globally. In The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Sociology, a global range of experts explore the theory, methodology and innovations that make up this ever-expanding field. The Handbook′s 40 original chapters have been organised into five thematic sections: Theoretical Paradigms Major Methodological Perspectives Domains of Inquiry Cultural Sociology in Contexts Cultural Sociology and Other Analytical Approaches Both comprehensive and current, The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Sociology will be an essential reference tool for both advanced students and scholars across sociology, cultural studies and media studies.
Culture is unquestionably a central topic in the contemporary social sciences. In order to understand how people think, feel, value, act and express themselves, it is necessary to examine the cultures they create, and are in turn created by. Here, David Inglis shows how the study of culture can be transformed by focusing in on how cultural forces shape, influence, structure - and occasionally disrupt - the day-to-day activities of individuals. Reconsidering different views on 'culture' - what it is, how it operates, and how it relates to other aspects of the human (and non-human) world - this new book covers key areas such as: high culture versus popular culture modern and postmodern culture...
The Globalization of Wine is a one-stop guide to understanding wine across the world today. Examining a broad range of developments in the wine world, it considers the social, cultural, economic, political and geographical dimensions of wine globalization. It investigates how large-scale changes in production, distribution and consumption are transforming the wine that we drink. Comprehensive background discussion is complemented by vivid case study chapters from a variety of international contributors. Many different countries and regions are covered, including China, the USA and Hong Kong, as are key themes, debates and controversies in contemporary wine worlds. Innovative, up-to-date and interdisciplinary, The Globalization of Wine illustrates the diversity and complexity of wine globalization processes across the planet, both in the past and at the present time. It is essential reading for academics and students in food and drink studies, sociology, anthropology, globalization studies, geography and cultural studies. It also provides a jargon-free resource for wine professionals and connoisseurs.