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The third edition of this popular reader reflects considerable changes. The framework for understanding theory as a set of conversations over time is maintained and deepened, but Volume II now begins with a focus on key transitional theorists who helped reconceive of classical theory in new ways. Extending from the classical tradition, chapters on race, gender, culture, media and globalization show how contemporary theory builds on the past even as it moves in new directions. New contextual and biographical materials surround the primary readings, and each chapter includes a study guide with key terms, discussion questions, and innovative classroom exercises. The result is a fresh and expansive take on social theory that foregrounds a plurality of perspectives and reflects contemporary trends in the field, while being an accessible and manageable teaching tool.
The organization of this popular social theory reader, which pairs classical articles with contemporary theoretical and empirical studies, highlights the historical flow of social theory and demonstrates how disagreements and confrontations shape theory over time. Written in clear, down-to-earth language, the introductions to each selection link theorists to one another, illustrating how theoretical traditions are not rigidly separate but are always in conversation, addressing and challenging each other. Volume II: From Modern To Contemporary Theory uses key transitional theorists to illustrate how contemporary theory emerged from the past. New chapters on race, on culture, and on media, as well as a significantly reworked gender chapter deepen coverage. As well, new contextual and biographical materials surround each reading and each chapter includes a study guide with key terms and innovative discussion questions and classroom exercises. The result is a volume of readings that offers instructors flexibility in how they approach teaching, and students an affordable and accessible introduction to the most important contemporary social theorists.
Volume 2 of Politics, a work in constructive social theory.
Ever since H.L.A. Hart's self-description of The Concept of Law as an 'exercise in descriptive sociology', contemporary legal theorists have been debating the relationship between legal theory and sociology, and between legal theory and social science more generally. There have been some who have insisted on a clear divide between legal theory and the social sciences, citing fundamental methodological differences. Others have attempted to bridge gaps, revealing common challenges and similar objects of inquiry. Collecting the work of authors such as Martin Krygier, David Nelken, Brian Tamanaha, Lewis Kornhauser, Gunther Teubner and Nicola Lacey, this volume - the second in a three volume series - provides an overview of the major developments in the last thirty years. The volume is divided into three sections, each discussing an aspect of the relationship of legal theory and the social sciences: 1) methodological disputes and collaboration; 2) common problems, especially as they concern different modes of explanation of social behaviour; and 3) common objects, including, most prominently, the study of language in its social context and normative pluralism.
The award-winning anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner draws on her longstanding interest in theories of cultural practice to rethink key concepts of culture, agency, and subjectivity.
Historical Developments and Theoretical Approaches in Sociology in two volumes is a component of Encyclopedia of Social Sciences and Humanities in the global Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), which is an integrated compendium of twenty Encyclopedias. Sociology is one of several social science disciplines and smaller bodies of knowledge which seeks to understand the patterns in social life. There is a broad congruence between the objective configurations of social life and the components of the disciplines studying them, the body of sociological knowledge is socially constructed and the pathways to its gaining of knowledge influenced by a variety of factors. Moreover, since social life is ever-changing, sociology often has to scramble to catch-up with the changing social world. This work is built up around four broad topics, the first providing important shared contextual material and then followed by three broad levels of social analysis: with each of these four parts containing a number of chapters with more specific and in-depth information. The theme essay provides a general introduction and overview of the theme as a whole. In total, the work holds 40 contributions written by a selection of many international renowned specialists from 12 countries. It was important to obtain a wide range of viewpoints giving the ways in which social issues arise quite differently in a range of countries. These two volumes are aimed at the following five major target audiences: University and College Students Educators, Professional Practitioners, Research Personnel and Policy Analysts, Managers, and Decision Makers, NGOs and GOs.
This ambitious two-volume handbook of social theory consists of forty original contributions. The researchers take stock of the state of social theory and its relationship to the canon, exploring such topics as the nature, purpose, and meaning of social theory; the significance of the classics; the impact of specific individual and theory schools; and more. Both volumes reflect a mixture of what intellectual historian Morton White distinguished as the 'annalist of ideas' and the 'analyst of ideas,' locating theoretical thought within the larger socio-historical context that shaped it - within the terrain of the sociology of knowledge. Exploring the contemporary relevance of theories in a manner that is historically situated and sensitive, this impressive and comprehensive set will likely stand the test of time.
This book is a detailed and wide-ranging account of the birth of social theory as a distinctive and modern intellectual genre, providing a brilliant account of the "pre-history" of sociology and a vivid portrayal of intellectual culture between the Enlightenment and the age of Romanticism.
This second volume of Niklas Luhmann's two-part final work was first published in German in 1997. The culmination of his thirty-year theoretical project to reconceptualize sociology, it offers a comprehensive description of modern society. Beginning with an account of the fluidity of meaning and the accordingly high improbability of successful communication, Luhmann analyzes a range of communicative media, including language, writing, the printing press, and electronic media, as well as "success media," such as money, power, truth, and love, all of which structure this fluidity and make communication possible. The book asks what gives rise to functionally differentiated social systems, how they evolve, and how social movements, organizations, and patterns of interaction emerge. The advent of the computer and its networks, which triggered potentially far-reaching processes of restructuring, receives particular attention. A concluding chapter on the semantics of modern society's self-description bids farewell to the outdated theoretical approaches of "old Europe"—that is, to ontological, holistic, ethical, and critical interpretations of society—and argues that concepts such as "the nation," "the subject," and "postmodernity" are vastly overrated. In their stead, "society"—long considered a suspicious term by sociologists, one open to all kinds of reification—is defined in purely operational terms. It is the always uncertain answer to the question of what comes next in all areas of communication.
A comprehensive new collection covering the principal traditions and critical contemporary issues of social theory. Builds on the success of The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory, second edition with substantial revisions, entirely new contributions, and a fresh editorial direction Explores contemporary areas such as actor network theory, social constructionism, human rights and cosmopolitanism Includes chapters on demography, science and technology studies, and genetics and social theory Emphasizes key areas of sociology which have had an important impact in shaping the discipline as a whole