You may have to Search all our reviewed books and magazines, click the sign up button below to create a free account.
Examines the theory and methods by which social scientists study the human lived experienced.
In a kind of social tour of sympathy, Candace Clark reveals that the emotional experience we call sympathy has a history, logic, and life of its own. Although sympathy may seem to be a natural, reflexive reaction, people are not born knowing when, for whom, and in what circumstances sympathy is appropriate. Rather, they learn elaborate, highly specific rules—different rules for men than for women—that guide when to feel or display sympathy, when to claim it, and how to accept it. Using extensive interviews, cultural artifacts, and "intensive eavesdropping" in public places, such as hospitals and funeral parlors, as well as analyzing charity appeals, blues lyrics, greeting cards, novels, ...
Three couples : happily ever after? -- Is marriage obsolete? -- Enduring is not enough -- 'Til death do us part : the role of commitment -- To love and to honor -- The two become one : dilemma or opportunity? -- Conflict : how to engage in "good fighting"--Nowhere to somewhere : avoiding the ruts -- What is more important?
The book presents papers from leading proponents of realist, relativist, and constructivist positions in epistemology and the philosophy of language and ethics.
Despite the considerable attention given to 'power' by foundational sources such as Machiavelli, Hobbs, Weber, Durkheim, and Marx, and those social theorists who have built on their works, surprisingly little attention has been given to the study of power as an enacted feature of community life. Locating power more directly within a symbolic interactionist framework, Beyond the Power Mystique not only enables scholars to permeate much of the mystique shrouding power but, explicitly viewing power as intersubjective accomplishment, the material presented here fosters a research agenda that is highly attentive to the collectively articulated aspects of power relations. Consideration is given to...
Concepts of totalitarianism have undergone an academic revival in recent years, particularly since the breakdown of communist systems in Europe in 1989-91: the totalitarian paradigm, so it seems to many scholars today, had been discarded prematurely in the heat of the Cold War. The demise of communism as a social system is, however, not only an important cause of the recurring attractiveness of the totalitarian paradigm, but provides at the same time new evidence and, correspondingly, new problems of explanation for all approaches in communist studies and totalitarianism theory in particular. This book contains articles by philosophers, social scientists and historians who reassess the valid...
What is it like to be a black person in America today? The voices of middle class African Americans captured in this book will surprise those who think the era of racial discrimination is past. The Many Costs of Racism is a vivid account of the mental, physical health, and economic effects of everyday racism for Black Americans and of racism's high costs for all Americans. Drawing on well documented studies, it vividly portrays the damage done to individuals, families, and communities by stress from workplace discrimination. It shows the strong connection between discrimination and health problems, describing these as OcostsO above and beyond the economic trials of discrimination. The book is an ideal text, accessible to students in sociology, law, psychology, and medicine."
Racist America is a bold, thoughtful exploration of the ubiquity of race in contemporary life. It develops an antiracist theory rooted not only in the latest empirical data but also in the current reality of racism in the U.S.
Examines a series of theoretical and methodological issues faced by social scientists in interpretive and ethnographic studies of human group life.
The fortieth-anniversary edition of a classic and prescient work on death and dying. Much of today's literature on end-of-life issues overlooks the importance of 1970s social movements in shaping our understanding of death, dying, and the dead body. This anniversary edition of Lyn Lofland's The Craft of Dying begins to repair this omission. Lofland identifies, critiques, and theorizes 1970s death movements, including the Death Acceptance Movement, the Death with Dignity Movement, and the Natural Death movement. All these groups attempted to transform death into a “positive experience,” anticipating much of today's death and dying activism. Lofland turns a sociologist's eye on the era's i...