The New American Cultural Sociology
The New American Cultural Sociology

Author: Philip Smith

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1998-06-28

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 9780521586344

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American Cultural Sociology presents a serious challenge to British Cultural Studies and European grand theory alike. This exciting volume brings together sixteen seminal papers by leading figures in what is emerging as an important intellectual tradition. It places them in the context of related work in Sociology and other disciplines, exploring the connections between cultural sociology and different approaches, such as comparative and historical research, postmodernism, and symbolic interactionism. The book is divided into three sections: Culture as Text and Code, The Production and Reception of Culture, and Culture in Action. Each section contains edited contributions, both theoretical and empirical, addressing the key debates in cultural sociology, including the autonomy of culture, power and culture, structure and agency and how to conceptualise meaning.

The Promise of Democracy
The Promise of Democracy

Author: Fred Dallmayr

Publisher: State University of New York Press

Published: 2010-01-07

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 143843040X

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Presentation of a new, ethical vision of democracy built around self-rule, civic education, and ethical cultivation.

Logics of History
Logics of History

Author: William H. Sewell Jr.

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-07-27

Total Pages: 425

ISBN-13: 0226749193

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While social scientists and historians have been exchanging ideas for a long time, they have never developed a proper dialogue about social theory. William H. Sewell Jr. observes that on questions of theory the communication has been mostly one way: from social science to history. Logics of History argues that both history and the social sciences have something crucial to offer each other. While historians do not think of themselves as theorists, they know something social scientists do not: how to think about the temporalities of social life. On the other hand, while social scientists’ treatments of temporality are usually clumsy, their theoretical sophistication and penchant for structural accounts of social life could offer much to historians. Renowned for his work at the crossroads of history, sociology, political science, and anthropology, Sewell argues that only by combining a more sophisticated understanding of historical time with a concern for larger theoretical questions can a satisfying social theory emerge. In Logics of History, he reveals the shape such an engagement could take, some of the topics it could illuminate, and how it might affect both sides of the disciplinary divide.

The Marketing Agency Blueprint
The Marketing Agency Blueprint

Author: Paul Roetzer

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2011-11-29

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 111817688X

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Build a disruptive marketing agency for the modern age The marketing services industry is on the cusp of a truly transformational period. The old guard, rooted in tradition and resistant to change, will fall and new leaders will emerge. Hybrid marketing agencies that are more nimble, tech savvy, and collaborative will redefine the industry. Digital services will be engrained into the DNA and blended with traditional methods for integrated campaigns. The depth, versatility, and drive of their talent will be the cornerstones of organizations that pursue a higher purpose. The Marketing Agency Blueprint is a practical and candid guide that presents ten rules for building such a hybrid agency. The new marketing agency model will create and nurture diverse recurring revenue streams through a mix of services, consulting, training, education, publishing, and software sales. It will use efficiency and productivity, not billable hours, as the essential drivers of profitability. Its value and success will be measured by outcomes, not outputs. Its strength and stability will depend on a willingness to be in a perpetual state of change, and an ability to execute and adapt faster than competitors. The Marketing Agency Blueprint demonstrates how to: Generate more qualified leads, win clients with set pricing and service packages, and secure more long-term retainers Develop highly efficient management systems and more effective account teams Deliver greater results and value to clients This is the future of the marketing services industry. A future defined and led by underdogs and innovators. You have the opportunity to be at the forefront of the transformation.

Digital Agency in Higher Education
Digital Agency in Higher Education

Author: Toril Aagaard

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-11-26

Total Pages: 119

ISBN-13: 0429665377

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Exploring how digital resources are being used to engage students in learning and improve educational quality, Digital Agency in Higher Education promotes an awareness of relations and interplay between humans and digital artifacts. Examining the impacts in higher education through experience-based knowledge and a conceptual framework, this book: • provides a detailed analysis of how transformative agency can be identified, enacted, and cultivated, • offers up-to-date cases and a future-orientated perspective on technology and knowledge work, • addresses fundamental assumptions about how teacher education has needed to and needs to continue to develop, • explores issues of epistemology and ethics when facing increasingly ‘intelligent' technologies, and • argues for transformative agency to place a firm focus on human interests. Essential reading for teachers in higher education and educational researchers with an interest in how technologies impact learning and teaching, Digital Agency in Higher Education uses cutting-edge research to bridge the gap between theoretical perspectives and practices.

Sociology Today
Sociology Today

Author: Arnaud Sales

Publisher: SAGE

Published: 2012-08-16

Total Pages: 465

ISBN-13: 1446268926

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We are living in a turbulent world marked by fast, continuous social changes that affect the lives of individuals, families, communities, organizations, businesses, nation-states, and international networks. This fundamentally commits contemporary sociology to being a science of change. This collection effectively mirrors this diversity and variety of transformations underway in today′s societies and transnational spaces. Written by a group of internationally renowned sociologists, it offers a cutting edge understanding of what is happening in our life worlds, work lives and frames of social existence. Bringing up issues such as political turbulence, cultural and artistic dynamics, family changes, gender roles, migration flows and social movements, it is a timely contribution that discusses transformation and globalization and their consequences in both theoretical and substansive terms. Illuminating and comprehensive, this book will be of immense use for sociology students on all levels, as well as lecturers, researchers and others who are interested in social life and the consequences of human action. Arnaud Sales is Emeritus Proessor of Sociology at the University of Montreal, Canada.

Perspectives on Activity Theory
Perspectives on Activity Theory

Author: Yrjö Engeström

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1999-01-13

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 9780521437301

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Activity theory is an interdisciplinary approach to human sciences that originates in the cultural-historical psychology school, initiated by Vygotsky, Leont'ev, and Luria. It takes the object-oriented, artifact-mediated collective activity system as its unit of analysis, thus bridging the gulf between the individual subject and the societal structure. This 1999 volume includes 26 chapters on activity theory by authors from ten countries. In Part I of the book, central theoretical issues are discussed from different points of view. Some topics addressed in this part are epistemology, methodology, and the relationship between biological and cultural factors. Part II is devoted to the acquisition and development of language. This part includes a chapter that analyzes writing activity in Japanese classrooms, and a case study of literacy skills of a man with cerebral palsy. Part III contains chapters on play, learning, and education, and Part IV addresses the meaning of technology and the development of work activities. The final part covers issues of therapy and addiction.

Rising Powers and State Transformation
Rising Powers and State Transformation

Author: Shahar Hameiri

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-07-10

Total Pages: 223

ISBN-13: 1000068420

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Rising Powers and State Transformation advances the concept of ‘state transformation’ as a useful lens through which to examine rising power states’ foreign policymaking and implementation, with chapters dedicated to China, Russia, India, Brazil, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. The volume breaks with the prevalent tendency in International Relations (IR) scholarship to treat rising powers as unitary actors in international politics. Although a neat demarcation of the domestic and international domains, on which the notion of unitary agency is premised, has always been a myth, these states’ uneven integration into the global political economy has eroded this perspective’s empirical purchase considerably. Instead, this volume employs the concept of ‘state transformation’ as a lens through which to examine rising power states’ foreign policymaking and implementation. State transformation refers to the pluralisation of cross-border state agency via contested and uneven processes of fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation of state apparatuses. The volume demonstrates the significance of state transformation processes for explaining some of these states’ key foreign policy agendas, and outlines the implications for the wider field in IR. With chapters dedicated to all of today’s most important rising power states, Rising Powers and State Transformation will be of great interest to scholars of IR, international politics and foreign policy. The chapters were originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

Portals of Power
Portals of Power

Author: Lori M. Campbell

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2010-03-08

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 0786456558

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Fantasy writing, like literature in general, provides a powerful vehicle for challenging the status quo. Via symbolism, imagery and supernaturalism, fantasy constructs secondary-world narratives that both mirror and critique the political paradigms of our own world. This critical work explores the role of the portal in fantasy, investigating the ways in which magical nexus points and movement between worlds are used to illustrate real-world power dynamics, especially those impacting women and children. Through an examination of high and low fantasy, fairy tales, children's literature, the Gothic, and science fiction, the portal is identified as a living being, place or magical object of profound metaphorical and cultural significance.

Digital Agency FastTrack
Digital Agency FastTrack

Author: Niel Malan

Publisher: Independently Published

Published: 2021-03-18

Total Pages: 152

ISBN-13: 9781794114654

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Do you want to build a dream business, but don't know how or even what to do? Owning your own business, and being your own boss, is the only way to break free from the shackles of corporate, pursue the entrepreneurial dream, and live the laptop lifestyle. Imagine having the financial freedom to live and work location free. To work less but earn more. And to spend more time doing the things you really love, with the people you love - without worrying about where the money is coming from. Well, the time for imagining is over, and the time for actually doing has arrived! The secret to financial and location freedom is starting a business that creates recurring income from Day One. A Digital Agency is that business. Ninety-nine percent of businesses need help getting more online leads. That's over 8.5 million small businesses in the United States alone. You can be the help they need. How? By starting a Digital Agency - and this book will show you how. As a Digital Agency owner, you'll find customers for your clients using internet marketing. It's that simple! Do it right, and you can earn $5,000, $10,000, even $100,000 per month, and more. The best part? It's sustainable income. You never have to worry about slogging back to the nine-to-five again. Digital Agency FastTrack will show you how to: Grow a wildly successful business from the ground-up - whether you have marketing clients already, work a corporate job, or stay at home with the kids. Create recurring income in your business from Day One. Avoid the mistakes that keep other Agencies from making the big bucks. Master the 3 strategies (Yes, only 3!) to make serious money for your clients. Scale your Agency so you can cash out. By following the processes in this book, people just like you have built successful, sustainable Digital Agencies from scratch with real, paying clients. Now, it's your turn.