Sociological Insights of Great Thinkers

Sociological Insights of Great Thinkers
Author: Christofer R. Edling
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Total Pages: 381
Release: 2010-11-18
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0313384711

In this book, leading sociologists expand the scope of their discipline by revealing the sociological aspects of the works of great philosophers, scientists, and writers. Sociologists have long recognized that sociological insight can be gleaned from creative thinkers outside their formal discipline. Sociological Insights of Great Thinkers: Sociology through Literature, Philosophy, and Science captures and examines those insights in 32 essays that discuss scholars and writers not normally associated with any sociological school of thought. Following a tradition of enriching the sociological toolkit by finding influence in philosophy and literature, the volume's contributors—an international group of renowned scholars—eschew biography to focus solely on sociological interpretations that can be drawn from the work of many of history's preeminent thinkers. Among the book's subjects are philosophers such as Aristotle, Plato, Kant, and Cassirer; scientists such as Darwin and Galileo; and authors such as Kafka, Proust, and Shakespeare. The essays not only allow readers to see such thinkers in a new light, but underscore the fact that sociological questions have lain at the very heart of humanity throughout history.

The Struggle for Development and Democracy

The Struggle for Development and Democracy
Author: Alessandro Olsaretti
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 320
Release: 2021-12-13
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004470522

In The Struggle for Development and Democracy Alessandro Olsaretti proposes a humanist social science as a first step to overcome the flaws of neoliberalism, and to recover a balanced approach that is needed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

The Sociology of Disaster

The Sociology of Disaster
Author: Thomas E. Drabek
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 175
Release: 2019-09-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000651703

In a book as illuminating as it is captivating, Thomas E. Drabek presents an in-depth analysis of the emotional impacts of disaster events and the many ripple effects that follow. Through the technique of storytelling, a series of nine fictional stories where characters experience actual disasters of different types throughout the United States illustrate the vulnerabilities and resilience to enhance the readers understanding of disaster consequences. Designed for classroom use, each story is followed by an "Analysis" section wherein discussion and research paper topics are recommended. These highlight links to published research findings. A "References" section details citations for all works included. Brief commentary in a "Notes" section adds further connections to other disasters and relevant research studies. The Sociology of Disaster is an important innovation in disaster education and will become an invaluable resource within universities and colleges that offer degrees in emergency management at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Multiple Normalities

Multiple Normalities
Author: B. Misztal
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 253
Release: 2015-04-29
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 1137314494

Multiple Normalities enhances sociological understandings of normality by illustrating it with the help of British novels. It demonstrates commonalities and differences between the meanings of normality in these two periods, exemplifying the emergence of the multiple normalities and the transformation of ways in which we give meaning to the world.

Beginning classical social theory

Beginning classical social theory
Author: Marcel Stoetzler
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 443
Release: 2017-07-21
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1526117053

Beginning classical social theory introduces students and educated general readers to thirteen key social theorists by way of examining a single, exemplary text by each author, ranging from Comte to Adorno. It answers the need for a book that helps students develop the skill to critically read theory. Rather than learning how to admire the canonical theorists, readers are alerted to the flow of their arguments and the texts’ contradictions and limitations. Having gotten ‘under the skin’ of one key text by each author will provide readers with a solid starting point for further study. The book will be suitable as the principal textbook in social theory modules as much as alongside a more conventional textbook as a recommended additional tool for self-study. It will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as educated lay readers.

The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Sociology

The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Sociology
Author: Wayne H. Brekhus
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 704
Release: 2019-06-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0190273399

In recent years there has been a growing interest in cognition within sociology and other social sciences. Within sociology this interest cuts across various topical subfields, including culture, social psychology, religion, race, and identity. Scholars within the new subfield of cognitive sociology, also referred to as the sociology of culture and cognition, are contributing to a rapidly developing body of work on how mental and social phenomena are interrelated and often interdependent. In The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Sociology, Wayne H. Brekhus and Gabe Igantow have gathered some of the most influential scholars working in cognitive sociology to present an accessible introduction to key research areas in a diverse field. While classical sociological and newer interdisciplinary approaches have been covered separately by scholars in the past, this volume alternatively presents a broad range of cognitive sociological perspectives. The contributors discuss a range of approaches for theorizing and analyzing the "social mind," including macro-cultural approaches, interactionist approaches, and research that draws on Pierre Bourdieu's major concepts. Each chapter further investigates a variety of cognitive processes within these three approaches, such as attention and inattention, perception, automatic and deliberate cognition, cognition and social action, stereotypes, categorization, classification, judgment, symbolic boundaries, meaning-making, metaphor, embodied cognition, morality and religion, identity construction, time sequencing, and memory. A comprehensive look at cognitive sociology's main contributions and the central debates within the field, the Handbook will serve as a primary resource for social researchers, faculty, and students interested in how cognitive sociology can contribute to research within their substantive areas of focus.

Applying Relational Sociology

Applying Relational Sociology
Author: François Dépelteau
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 323
Release: 2013-12-18
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 113740700X

Edited by François Depelteau and Christopher Powell, this volume and its companion, Conceptualizing Relational Sociology: Ontological and Theoretical Issues, addresses fundamental questions about what relational sociology is and how it works.

The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology

The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology
Author: Jeffrey C. Alexander
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 840
Release: 2012-01-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0190452129

Since sociologists returned to the study of culture in the past several decades, a pursuit all but anathema for a generation, cultural sociology has emerged as a vibrant field. Edited by three leading cultural sociologists, The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology presents the full theoretical and methodological vitality of this critically significant new area.The Handbook gathers together works by authors confronting the crucial choices all cultural sociologists face today: about analytic priorities, methods, topics, epistemologies, ideologies, and even modes of writing. It is a vital collection of preeminent thinkers studying the ways in which culture, society, politics, and economy interact in the world. Organized by empirical areas of study rather than particular theories or competing intellectual strands, the Handbook addresses power, politics, and states; economics and organization; mass media; social movements; religion; aesthetics; knowledge; and health. Allowing the reader to observe tensions as well as convergences, the collection displays the value of cultural sociology not as a niche discipline but as a way to view and understand the many facets of contemporary society. The first of its kind, The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology offers comprehensive and immediate access to the real developments and disagreements taking place in the field, and deftly exemplifies how cultural sociology provides a new way of seeing and modeling social facts. "This groundbreaking, readable handbook [is] the first single volume to attempt to unify its diverse contemporary applications in a wide range of traditional genres of sociology...Valuable for college universities and libraries supporting undergraduate and graduate degree programs in sociology and history."-CHOICE

The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks

The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks
Author: Ryan Light
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 697
Release: 2020-11-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0197520618

While some social scientists may argue that we have always been networked, the increased visibility of networks today across economic, political, and social domains can hardly be disputed. Social networks fundamentally shape our lives and social network analysis has become a vibrant, interdisciplinary field of research. In The Oxford Handbook of Social Networks, Ryan Light and James Moody have gathered forty leading scholars in sociology, archaeology, economics, statistics, and information science, among others, to provide an overview of the theory, methods, and contributions in the field of social networks. Each of the thirty-three chapters in this Handbook moves through the basics of social network analysis aimed at those seeking an introduction to advanced and novel approaches to modeling social networks statistically. They cover both a succinct background to, and future directions for, distinctive approaches to analyzing social networks. The first section of the volume consists of theoretical and methodological approaches to social networks, such as visualization and network analysis, statistical approaches to networks, and network dynamics. Chapters in the second section outline how network perspectives have contributed substantively across numerous fields, including public health, political analysis, and organizational studies. Despite the rapid spread of interest in social network analysis, few volumes capture the state-of-the-art theory, methods, and substantive contributions featured in this volume. This Handbook therefore offers a valuable resource for graduate students and faculty new to networks looking to learn new approaches, scholars interested in an overview of the field, and network analysts looking to expand their skills or substantive areas of research.

Social Networks of Meaning and Communication

Social Networks of Meaning and Communication
Author: Jan Fuhse
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2021
Genre: Science
ISBN: 019027543X

Network research in the social sciences has successfully followed a structuralist approach where social phenomena are studied with regard to the pattern of relations between actors. These patterns of relations - social networks - are seen as the decisive level of social structures. Otherfeatures like formal roles, cultural norms, and values, are treated as secondary. As such, the field of social network research is currently divided between technically sophisticated analyses and complex, elusive theorizing.In Social Networks of Meaning and Communication, Jan Fuhse offers a coherent theory of social structures as networks of relations interwoven with meaning. Drawing upon and extending the cutting-edge work in relational sociology of Harrison White and Charles Tilly, Fuhse takes an important stepforward in establishing a theory of social networks. Using a broad range of classic and contemporary social theory, he reconceptualizes social networks as constituted in patterns of expectations that form, reproduce, and change over the course of communicative events. These events, he argues, arethe basic stuff of the social world. They lead to expectations about the behavior of actors (their identities) and their interaction with others (social relationships) - the meaning structure making for observable regularities of communication in social networks.Laying out this relational and constructivist perspective of social networks, the book highlights a number of implications for social relationships, groups, and collective actors, as well as ethnic categories and cultural differences, roles and institutions, gender and family relations, and methodsof social network analysis. Its framework effectively bridges the gap in social network research between technically sophisticated analyses and complex, elusive theorizing.