Steven Threadgold’s study represents the first comprehensive engagement of Pierre Bourdieu’s influential sociology with affect theory. With empirical research and examples from sociology, it develops a theory of “Affective Affinities,” deepening our understanding of how everyday moments contribute to the construction and remaking of social class and aspects of inequalities. It identifies new ways to consider the strengths and weaknesses of Bourdieusian principles and their interaction with new developments in social theory. This is a stimulating read for students, researchers and academics across studies in youth, education, labour markets, pop culture, media, consumption and taste.
Steven Threadgold’s study represents the first comprehensive engagement of Pierre Bourdieu’s influential sociology with affect theory. With empirical research and examples from sociology, it develops a theory of “Affective Affinities,” deepening our understanding of how everyday moments contribute to the construction and remaking of social class and aspects of inequalities. It identifies new ways to consider the strengths and weaknesses of Bourdieusian principles and their interaction with new developments in social theory. This is a stimulating read for students, researchers and academics across studies in youth, education, labour markets, pop culture, media, consumption and taste.
In this innovative work on culture and education, Pierre Bourdieu and his associates examine the role of language and linguistic misunderstanding in the teaching contexts of higher education.
Bourdieu's Secret Admirer in the Caucasus is a gripping account of the developmental dynamics involved in the collapse of Soviet socialism. Fusing a narrative of human agency to his critical discussion of structural forces, Georgi M. Derluguian reconstructs from firsthand accounts the life story of Musa Shanib—who from a small town in the Caucasus grew to be a prominent leader in the Chechen revolution. In his examination of Shanib and his keen interest in the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, Derluguian discerns how and why this dissident intellectual became a nationalist warlord. Exploring globalization, democratization, ethnic identity, and international terrorism, Derluguian contextualizes Shanib's personal trajectory from de-Stalinization through the nationalist rebellions of the 1990s, to the recent rise in Islamic militancy. He masterfully reveals not only how external economic and political forces affect the former Soviet republics but how those forces are in turn shaped by the individuals, institutions, ethnicities, and social networks that make up those societies. Drawing on the work of Charles Tilly, Immanuel Wallerstein, and, of course, Bourdieu, Derluguian's explanation of the recent ethnic wars and terrorist acts in Russia succeeds in illuminating the role of human agency in shaping history.
These critical essays bring together prominent scholars in the social sciences to consider the diverse nature of the legacy of Pierre Bourdieu in contemporary social theory. In offering a range of perspectives on the continuing relevance of Bourdieu's sociology, the essays of this volume examine Bourdieu's relationship to both classical and contemporary social theory. This collection constructs an intellectual bridge between French-speaking and English-speaking accounts of Bourdieu's work.
The concept of everyday struggles can enliven our understanding of the lives of young people and how social class is made and remade. This book invokes a Bourdieusian spirit to think about the ways young people are pushed and pulled by the normative demands directed at them from an early age, whilst they reflexively understand that allegedly available incentives for making the ‘right’ choices and working hard – financial and familial security, social status and job satisfaction – are a declining prospect. In Youth, Class and Everyday Struggles, the figures of those classed as 'hipsters' and 'bogans' are used to analyse how representation works to form a symbolic and moral economy that produces and polices fuzzy class boundaries. Further to this, the practices of young people around DIY cultures are analysed to illustrate struggles to create a satisfying and meaningful existence while negotiating between study, work and creative passions. By thinking through different modalities of struggles, which revolve around meaning making and identity, creativity and authenticity, Threadgold brings Bourdieu’s sociological practice together with theories of affect, emotion, morals and values to broaden our understanding of how young people make choices, adapt, strategise, succeed, fail and make do. Youth, Class and Everyday Struggles will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers, of fields including: Youth Studies, Class and Inequality, Work and Careers, Subcultures, Media and Creative Industries, Social Theory and Bourdieusian Theory.
Examines differences in taste between modern French classes, discusses the relationship between culture and politics, and outlines the strategies of pretension.
This book addresses the eclipse of shame in Christian theology by showing how shame emerges in Christian texts and practice in ways that can be neither assimilated into a discourses of guilt nor dissociated from embodiment. Stephanie N. Arel argues that the traditional focus on guilt obscures shame by perpetuating the image of the lonely sinner in guilt. Drawing on recent studies in affect and attachment theories to frame the theological analysis, the text examines the theological anthropological writings of Augustine and Reinhold Niebuhr, the interpretation of empathy by Edith Stein, and moments of touch in Christian praxis. Bringing the affective dynamics of shame to the forefront enables theologians and religious leaders to identify where shame emerges in language and human behavior. The text expands work in trauma theory, providing a multi-layered theological lens for engaging shame and accompanying suffering.
