Vision and Society
Vision and Society

Author: John Clammer

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-03-26

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1317935985

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The sociology of art is now an established sub-discipline of sociology. But little work has been done to explore the implications not of society on art, but of art on the nature and principles of sociology itself. Vision and Society explores the ways in which art (here mainly understood as visual art) structures in fundamental ways the constitution of society, the relations between societies and the ways in which society and culture should be theorized. Building initially on an unfulfilled project by the French sociologist of art Nathalie Heinich to derive a sociology from art, this book pushes this idea in unconventional directions. Rethinking the relationships between the study of art and the study of sociology and anthropology, this book explores how this rethinking might impact sociological theory in general, and certain aspects of it in particular – especially the study of social movements, social change, the urban, the constitution of space and the ways in which human social relationships are mediated and expressed.

Myth, Meaning and Performance
Myth, Meaning and Performance

Author: Ronald Eyerman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-12-03

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1317255755

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The cultural and performative turns in social theory have enlivened sociology. For the first time these new developments are fully integrated into new approaches to the sociology of the arts in this important new book. Building on the established research into art worlds, what is interesting for the new sociology of the arts, understood in the broad sense to include popular culture as well the classical focus on music, painting, and literature, is the relationship between art works and meaning, myth, and performance. Also reflected in these rich essays, which range from Beethoven to John Lennon to Chinese avant garde artists, is the lived experience of the artist and its impact on the process of creation and innovation.

Society and Nature
Society and Nature

Author: Peter Dickens

Publisher: Temple University Press

Published: 1992

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 9780877229681

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In this wide-ranging effort to theorize about the relationships between society and nature, Peter Dickens attempts to reconstruct social theory in a way that enables it to speak to contemporary environmental issues. After reviewing existing sociological traditions, he draws on the early work of Karl Marx to suggest that processes and relations in the workplace are the main source of people's separation from nature. In addition, people's understanding of "nature" tends to mirror their experience of the social world. Redefining the work of Anthony Giddens in an ecological direction, Dickens analyzes developments in biological thinking that seem consistent with this approach. He considers the role of culture, and he critiques the contemporary "deep green" and "deep ecology" movements. Focusing on the alienation of human begins from the natural world and the place of nature in their "deep mental structures," the author works in part from a Marxist perspective but draws a wide variety of social psychological, and biological theories into the discussion. Society and Nature not only addresses a central debate in contemporary social science regarding this interrelationship but also responds to the intellectual challenge presented by natural scientific concepts of environmental problems that oversimplify or ignore their political or social relational dimensions. Author note: Peter Dickens is Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies and Social Policy at the University of Sussex (UK) and the author of Urban Sociology: Society, Locality and Human Nature.

The Rules of Art
The Rules of Art

Author: Pierre Bourdieu

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 9780804726276

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Written with verve and intensity (and a good bit of wordplay), this is the long-awaited study of Flaubert and the modern literary field that constitutes the definitive work on the sociology of art by one of the world’s leading social theorists. Drawing upon the history of literature and art from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, Bourdieu develops an original theory of art conceived as an autonomous value. He argues powerfully against those who refuse to acknowledge the interconnection between art and the structures of social relations within which it is produced and received. As Bourdieu shows, art’s new autonomy is one such structure, which complicates but does not eliminate the interconnection. The literary universe as we know it today took shape in the nineteenth century as a space set apart from the approved academies of the state. No one could any longer dictate what ought to be written or decree the canons of good taste. Recognition and consecration were produced in and through the struggle in which writers, critics, and publishers confronted one another.

Towards the Sociology of Knowledge (RLE Social Theory)
Towards the Sociology of Knowledge (RLE Social Theory)

Author: Gunter Werner Remmling

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2022-03-23

Total Pages: 472

ISBN-13: 100015579X

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The sociology of knowledge is an area of social scientific investigation with major emphasis on the relations between social life and intellectual activity. It is now an area central to most graduate and undergraduate courses in sociology. The present collection of readings explains the origins, systematic development, present state and possible future direction of the discipline. The major statements in the field were developed early in the twentieth century by Durkheim, Scheler and Mannheim, but the sociology of knowledge continues to engage the theoretical and empirical interests of contemporary sociologists who desire to penetrate the surface level of social existence. This book, with its carefully selected contributions and an introduction which relates the selections to the developmental pattern of the discipline, provides guidance and insight for the reader concerned with the topical issues raised by sociologists of knowledge.

Face to Face
Face to Face

Author: Jonathan H. Turner

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0804744173

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Updating classic sociological theory and utilizing the results of recent research in evolutionary and neurphysiological theory, this ambitious work aims to present no less than a unified, general theory of what happens when people interact.

Culture, Development and Social Theory
Culture, Development and Social Theory

Author: John Clammer

Publisher: Zed Books Ltd.

Published: 2013-10-10

Total Pages: 307

ISBN-13: 1780323174

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This important book places culture back at the centre of debates in development studies. It introduces new ways of conceptualizing culture in relation to development by linking development studies to cultural studies, studies of social movements, religion and the notion of 'social suffering'. The author expertly argues that in the current world crises it is necessary to recover a more holistic vision of development that creates a vocabulary linking more technical (and predominantly economic) aspects of development with more humanistic and ecological goals. Any conception of post-capitalist society, he argues, requires cultural, as well as economic and political, dimensions.

Art in Public
Art in Public

Author: Lambert Zuidervaart

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2010-11-15

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 113949175X

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This book examines fundamental questions about funding for the arts: why should governments provide funding for the arts? What do the arts contribute to daily life? Do artists and their publics have a social responsibility? Challenging questionable assumptions about the state, the arts and a democratic society, Lambert Zuidervaart presents a vigorous case for government funding, based on crucial contributions the arts make to civil society. He argues that the arts contribute to democratic communication and a social economy, fostering the critical and creative dialogue that a democratic society needs. Informed by the author's experience leading a non-profit arts organisation as well as his expertise in the arts, humanities and social sciences, this book proposes an entirely new conception of the public role of art with wide-ranging implications for education, politics and cultural policy.