Providing a broad introduction to sociology, the third edition of Sociology: Making sense of sociology lays the foundations for a theoretically and methodologically robust understanding of the subject area. Key topics encourage critical reflection within a wide social, cultural and historical context. Issues are explored against the backdrop of a UK, European and wider-world context to offer students a balanced view in a globalising age. Topical examples from across the world stimulate student interest and apply the analysis. This Online Course Pack consists of Sociology: Making sense of sociology, ISBN 0582823129, and OneKey online resources (compatible with WebCT systems).
The experience of madness – which might also be referred to more formally as ‘schizophrenia’ or ‘psychosis’ – consists of a complex, confusing and often distressing collection of experiences, such as hearing voices or developing unusual, seemingly unfounded beliefs. Madness, in its various forms and guises, seems to be a ubiquitous feature of being human, yet our ability to make sense of madness, and our knowledge of how to help those who are so troubled, is limited. Making Sense of Madness explores the subjective experiences of madness. Using clients' stories and verbatim descriptions, it argues that the experience of 'madness' is an integral part of what it is to be human, and that greater focus on subjective experiences can contribute to professional understandings and ways of helping those who might be troubled by these experiences. Areas of discussion include: how people who experience psychosis make sense of it themselves scientific/professional understandings of ‘madness' what the public thinks about ‘schizophrenia’ Making Sense of Madness will be essential reading for all mental health professionals as well as being of great interest to people who experience psychosis and their families and friends.
Grounded in the sister disciplines of sociology and anthropology, this textbook is an accessible and critical introduction to contemporary social research. Alex Khasnabish eschews the common disciplinary silos in favour of an integrated approach to understanding and practising critical social research. Situated in the North American context, the text draws on cross-cultural examples to give readers a clear sense of the diversity in human social relations. It is organized thematically in a way that introduces readers to the core areas of social research and social organization and takes an unapologetically radical approach in identifying the relations of oppression and exploitation that give rise to what most corporate textbooks euphemistically identify as “social problems.” Focusing on key dynamics and processes at the heart of so many contemporary issues and public conversations, this text highlights the ways in which critical social research can contribute to exploring, understanding and forging alternatives to an increasingly bankrupt, violent, unstable and unjust status quo.
Who am I? Who are we? How are we to live? This book grapples with these perennial questions, primarily through a dialogue with Cornelius Castoriadis and Charles Taylor, using an interdisciplinary-hermeneutical approach examining issues of meaning, subjectivity and modern society.
In Chris Barker's sequel to Cultural Studies, the author addresses the strengths and weaknesses of the discipline and investigates its practical and academic boundaries. The author also clarifies its underlying themes of study.
Making Sense of Social Theory opens by carefully exploring what it means to follow the scientific method in a field like sociology. The author goes on to analyze sociology as a genuine science with a body of explanatory insights. It does this by (a) considering the major insights of key thinkers (including Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and Mead, among others), (b) distinguishing different analytical frameworks (especially exchange, symbolic interactionism, conflict, and structural-functionalism) in terms of their underlying assumptions, and (c) revealing compelling social science explanatory insights in the form of predictive principles that can be applied in understanding processes of change at work in the social world (from face-to-face encounters to major historical trends). Sociological theory is applied in ways that make its relevance and power apparent. In reading this book, theory no longer stands divorced from real-world research or practice. Making Sense of Social Theory clearly establishes the pertinence of sociology's great theoretical insights for all social science researches and practitioners. Book jacket.
A New York Times New and Noteworthy Book From the bestselling author of Waking Up and The End of Faith, an adaptation of his wildly popular, often controversial podcast “Sam Harris is the most intellectually courageous man I know, unafraid to speak truths out in the open where others keep those very same thoughts buried, fearful of the modish thought police. With his literate intelligence and fluency with words, he brings out the best in his guests, including those with whom he disagrees.” -- Richard Dawkins, author of The Selfish Gene “Civilization rests on a series of successful conversations.” —Sam Harris Sam Harris—neuroscientist, philosopher, and bestselling author—has been exploring some of the most important questions about the human mind, society, and current events on his podcast, Making Sense. With over one million downloads per episode, these discussions have clearly hit a nerve, frequently walking a tightrope where either host or guest—and sometimes both—lose their footing, but always in search of a greater understanding of the world in which we live. For Harris, honest conversation, no matter how difficult or controversial, represents the only path to moral and intellectual progress. This book includes a dozen of the best conversations from Making Sense, including talks with Daniel Kahneman, Timothy Snyder, Nick Bostrom, and Glenn Loury, on topics that range from the nature of consciousness and free will, to politics and extremism, to living ethically. Together they shine a light on what it means to “make sense” in the modern world.
What is reality and how do we make sense of it in everyday life? Why do some realities seem more real than others, and what of seemingly contradictory and multiple realities? This book considers reality as we represent, perceive and experience it. It suggests that the realities we take as ‘real’ are the result of real-time, situated practices that draw on and draw together many things - technologies and objects, people, gestures, meanings and media. Examining these practices illuminates reality (or rather our sense of it) as always ‘virtually real’, that is simplified and artfully produced. This examination also shows us how the sense of reality that we make is nonetheless real in its consequences. Making Sense of Reality offers students and educators a guide to analysing social life. It develops a performance-based perspective (‘doing things with’) that highlights the ever-revised dimension of realities and links this perspective to a focus on object-relations and an ecological model of culture-in-action.
