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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > General
Volume 22 of "Studies in Law, Politics and Society" presents a diverse array of articles by an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars. Their work spans the social sciences, humanities, and law, and examines the law's violence, law in literature and film, family life and family policy, and new perspectives in sociolegal theory. Together these articles demonstrate the work being done in interdisciplinary legal scholarship.
Written originally for a special issue of The New Yorker and reissued here with a new forward by the author, Within the Context of No Context is George W. S. Trow's brilliant exposition on the state of American culture and twentieth-century life. Published to widespread acclaim, Within the Context of No Context became an immediate classic and is, to this day, a favorite work of writers and critics alike. Both a chilling commentary on the times in which it was written and an eerie premonition of the future, Trow's work locates and traces, describes and analyzes the components of change in contemporary America -- a culture increasingly determined by the shallow worlds of consumer products, daytime television, and celebrity heroes. "This elegant little book is essential reading for anyone interested in the demise, the terminal silliness, of our culture." -- John Irving, The New York Times Book Review; "In this elegant, poignant essay, written with the grace of a master stylist, George Trow articulates the accelerated impermanence of American culture with a precision that is both flaunting and devastating." -- Rudy Wurlitrer; "Within the Context of No Context is a masterpiece of the century that belongs on a shelf next to Theodore Adorno's Minima Moralia and Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle." -- Michael Tolkin; "Within the Context of No Context may appear to be a book of the mind, for it is suffused with such a keen intelligence, but it is actually a book of the heart -- passionate, brave, and stirring." -- Sue Halpern.
This book concerns the institutionalisation of the physical sciences. The book breaks with the established tradition in the history, philosophy and sociology of sciences by attempting to capture both the cognitive and social dimensions of institutionalisation in one unified analysis. This unifica tion has been achieved through a treatment of research as goal directed social action - a theme which has been developed both theoretically and empirically. The analysis presented is therefore unique in its breadth of focus and shows how the traditional concerns of sociology with generalised macro-structures of meaning and action can be related to the lifeworlds of individual scientists. The sociology of the sciences is still today a relative newcomer to the field of sciences studies which has traditionally been dominated by the history and philosophy of the sciences. I hope that this book reflects the excitement I experienced in being able to respond to the debates and concepts which erupted in that particularly fertile period follOwing the publication of Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962 - a period from which a cogni tively oriented sociology of the sciences was to emerge as a serious challenger to orthodoxies in the history, philosophy and sociology of sciences."
This book is based on the assumption that the development of science has to be understood both as a social and as an intellectual process. The division between internal and external history, between history of ideas and sociology of science, has been harmful not only to our understanding of scientific rationality but also to our understanding of the social processes of scientific development. Just as philosophy of science must be informed by its history, so also must sociology of science be both historically and philosophically informed. Proceeding on this assumption, I examine in detail the contents of linguistic ideas and the changes they underwent, as well as the institutional processes of disciplinary development and school formation. The development of linguistics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has provided me with a convenient locus for a study of the processes of cognitive change and continuity in the context of modern academically institutionalized science. This book examines first the idea system and the institutionalization of historical and comparative linguistics in the first half of the nineteenth century, and then focusses on the for mation and development of three schools of thought: the Neogrammarians, the Neo-Idealists, and the Geneva School of Ferdinand de Saussure."
Brucan, a former Romanian ambassador to the United States and the United Nations, provides the first social history of the remarkable transition from communism to capitalism in Russia and Eastern Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He begins with an examination of the old social structure in communist societies, which used to be cosmetically advertised by the party and officialdom, paying particular attention to the nomenklatura, who have miraculously transformed themselves into big businessmen and bankers. A chapter is devoted to the decline of the working class, whom Brucan shows to be the big loser in the revolution. He then examines the new social stratification, illustrating how the new classes are taking shape under the conditions created by market reform. The symbiosis between capital and power is analyzed in depth, and Ambassador Brucan concludes his study with a look at the direction the social transformations are pushing these societies, particularly the separate paths being followed by Russia and Eastern Europe. This is an important study for researchers, scholars, and policy makers involved with Russia and Eastern Europe.
This series reprints classic works illustrating the cultural and intellectual life of Scotland during one of its most creative and dynamic periods: the second half of the eighteenth century. It was the age of the mature Scottish Enlightenment, when Scotland, to the surprise of most Europeans, became one of the leading cultural and intellectual centres of the western world. Although the writings of some eighteenth-century Scottish thinkers, such as David Hume and Adam Smith, are widely available, many others are scarce. This series will regularly publish groups of thematically connected titles, most of which have not been reprinted for a century or more, many with specially commissioned new introductions.
This book offers a clear and concise account of the key debates in the globalization literature, serving as an accessible introduction to students new to the topic. It deals even-handedly with all the various dimensions of globalization--political, economic, social and cultural--and particularly draws attention to the role of people in processes of globalization. The book's historical dimension and its multicultural focus ensure that globalization is shown neither to be an inexorable process nor one that can be equated simply with Westernization.
What light can sociology shed on art and culture in contemporary
society? What is distinctive about the sociological understanding
of art? In what ways is the sociology of art today developing new
insights into the nature of artistic life? This volume contains
essays by a wide range of authors, each of whom is concerned with
showing the multiple ways in which artistic processes are
profoundly shaped by their social settings. Encompassing a wide
range of artistic fields, including painting, film, ballet and
architecture, the book demonstrates how sociological appreciations
of art and artists provide rich and stimulating alternative
perspectives to conventional art criticism.
"Anatomising Embodiment and Organisation Theory" explores the
relationship between the human body and the development of social
theory about organizations and organizing. The science of anatomy
is taken as a pattern for knowledge both of the human body and/or
organizations, and the twin symbols of dissection--the scalpel and
the mirror--are used to understand the production of knowledge
about organizations.
In this volume, eight essays by well known sociologists explore the personal experiences, of social scientists, their unique ways of doing sociology, and the relationship between sociological theory and its application. In each chapter, the contributors integrate their sociological expertise with their personal lives and prove that sociological understanding and personal experience can and do mesh. Personal Sociology is a novel presentation that truly humanizes the practice and field of sociology.
This study examines the question of which type of desegregation plan most effectively reduces segregation in American public schools. It departs from previous research in that the author does not categorize desegregation plans simply as mandatory or voluntary; rather, he creates a choice-coercion continuum to account for more of the variation between diverse desegregation orders that have been implemented in urban America. The issue of measuring segregation is also addressed in a new way by Fife, who concludes that mandated desegregation techniques reduce the level of segregation to a greater degree than less coercive plans. This work is interdisciplinary and will be useful to scholars in political science, public policy, public administration, sociology, and education. It will also be of interest to education policymakers and administrators as it illustrates how applied public policy analysis can address issues and enhance decision-making processes.
Drawing on original research from social scientists working on twelve countries, this book explores the key issues faced by nations and citizens as they struggle to rediscover, reaffirm or reconstruct their sense of national identities in the face of globalizing forces. Some nations and peoples experience the fragmentation of once certain identities as threatening and likely to generate political and social breakdown. Others encounter globalization as a challenge which brings uncertainties but also opportunities for adaptation, the evolution of hybrid identities or new forms of protest.
There has been an enormous rise in the central state's collection of information on individuals since the sixteenth century. Historians have mined this rich seam for their own ends, but--until now--analysis of the significance of this information gathering has been mainly left to sociologists. Raising questions with immense contemporary relevance, Edward Higgs examines how and why the central state has become ever more involved in the collection and manipulation of personal information for both benign and repressive ends.
Robert Schmuhl's Statecraft and Stagecraft establishes him in a new generation of scholarly journalists and journalistic scholars who are bent on rethinking the paradoxes of politics in an era of high technology. The book focuses on the ways in which the American public mind is being shaped by the communication breakthroughs of our time.
This collection of papers was written for a NATO Advanced Research Workshop held at Harvard University in March 1990. The title, "The Changing University and the Education of Scientists and Engineers: An International Workshop," broad as it is, does not convey the sweep of data, infonnation, opinions, and suggestions for future research and policy choices that were crowded into two-and-a-half days of fonnal presentations, mealtime discussions, and teatime chats. The proposal for the workshop grew out of a research project I had carried out that explored the policies governing the education of foreign science and engineering students (S&Es) in several industrialized countries, and of two countries that send large numbers of S&E students abroad - the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Japan (see chapter 7). In research visits to these countries as well as to France, the United Kingdom, West Gennany, and within the United States, I was struck by the similarity of issues that were raised. One was the concern that there would not be enough well-trained scientists and engineers to meet the constantly increasing demand for them. Government officials, industrialists, and educators repeatedly stressed that a well-educated and -motivated work force was essential for their economies, national security, and for society as a whole. Many of those interviewed mentioned that universities are undergoing rapid, systemic changes as governments and industry are calling on them to provide human resources and intellectual capital.
This volume of "Studies in Law, Politics, and Society" presents a diverse array of articles by an interdisciplinary and international group of scholars. Their work spans the social sciences, humanities, and law and examines new perspectives on legal relationships and events, punishment as a literary and philosophical issue, and custom and experience in law and society. The articles published here illuminate some of the exciting work being done in interdisciplinary legal scholarship.
The emergence of learning policy is traced through a concise history of postwar UK education and training. The 1944 settlement is seen to be replaced by a new settlement marked by the 1988 Education and the 1992 Further and Higher Education Acts. This also signals a change from the classic, postwar welfare state to a postwelfare, workfare or "contracting state". This new state form is illustrated by examining the new system of "Foundation" and "Lifelong Learning" from primary to postgraduate schools.
Imprisoned in English argues that in the present English-dominated world, social sciences and the humanities are locked in a conceptual framework grounded in English and that most scholars in these fields are not aware of the need to break away from this framework to reach a more universal, culture-independent perspective on things human. Indeed they are typically not aware that any problem exists, and resistant to its being pointed out. The book engages with current debates across a range of disciplines, including philosophy, anthropology, sociology, evolutionary science, psychology, and cognitive science, as well as linguistics. The topics include values, emotions, social cognition, intercultural communication, endangered languages, human universals vs. human diversity, the evolution of consciousness, etc. It is a book dedicated to one central idea: the blind spot in contemporary social sciences and the prevailing global discourse on values, the human condition, human relations, and so on, which results from the "invisibility " of English as an increasingly globalized way of thinking and talking.
Over the past twenty years, one of the most bitter debates within the social sciences has centered on Arthur Jensen's contention that American blacks are, on average, less intelligent than whites and that this alleged difference is genetic in origin. Aby's selective, annotated bibliography offers scholars a concise guide to the storm of argument and counterargument over Jensen's suggestion and to the scientific, legal, educational, philosophic, and social issues it has raised. Aby has catalogued and described more than 400 books, book chapters, professional journal articles, newspaper and magazine articles, source documents, media materials, and reference sources relating to the controversy. He begins with an overview of the IQ debate, its history, and the principal participants. He then arranges bibliographic entries in chapters according to the type of source; each entry includes descriptive annotations of up to 300 words. A glossary explains technical terms that are used in the annotations and in the debate itself. This bibliography will be an important addition to collections in education, sociology, and psychology, as well as a resource for courses on educational testing and measurement, racism, sociology of education, and black education.
This book is about the degree to which people take pleasure in life: in short 'happiness'. It tries to identify conditions that favor a positive appreciation of life. Thus it hopes to shed more light on a longstanding and intriguing ques tion and, possibly, to guide attempts to improve the human lot. During the preceding decades a growing number of investigations have dealt with this issue. As a result there is now a sizable body of data. Yet it is quite difficult to make sense of it. There is a muddle of theories, concepts and indicators, and many of the findings seem to be contradictory. This book attempts to bring some order into the field. The study draws on an inventory of empirical investigations which involved valid indicators of happiness; 245 studies are involved, which together yield some 4000 observations: for the main part correlational ones. These results are presented in full detail in the simultaneously published 'Databook of Happiness' (Veenhoven 1984). The present volume distils conclusions from that wealth of data. It tries to assess the reality value of the findings and the degree to which correlations reflect the conditions of happiness rather than the consequences of it. It then attempts to place the scattered findings in context. As such, this work is not a typical study of literature on happiness."
Medicine and tourism have become separated in contemporary popular consciousness. The former implies anything but a pleasurable experience and the latter presumes a healthy disposition for participation. We argue that this popular conception of the separation of tourism and medicine ignores an historical continuity of lineage from the 18th century pursuit of a 'cure' at resorts and spas, to 20th century notions of holidays as worker welfare through to global patient mobility in the quest for cutting-edge medical interventions in so-called 'untreatable' conditions. Disciplinary divisions within the academy have reinforced the separation between medicine and tourism in popular culture, but there is now an emergent challenge to re-think the medicine/tourism nexus. Under the influence of transnational health care consumption, two very contrasting traditions of Western thought are now confronting one another. This book provides a comprehensive landscape of diverse research communities' attempts to capture its implications for existing bodies of knowledge in selected aspects of medicine, medical ethics, health policy and management, and tourism studies.
These essays deal with various aspects of a new, rising field, socio economics. The field is seeking to combine the variables studied by neoclassical economists with those typically studied by other social sciences. The combination is expected to provide a better understanding of economic behavior and the economy as well as society; make more reliable predictions; and be more in line with normative values we seek to uphold. The new field, though, may be less elegant mathematically and possibly less parsimonious than neoclassical economics. Some of my ideas on this subject are included in a previously published book, The Moral Dimension: TowardA New Economics (New York: The Free Press, 1988). They also led to a formation of an international society of several thousand scholars who are interested in the field, the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics. The essays at hand are in effect grouped. The first two, previously published respectively in the Journal of Economic Psychology and Business Ethics Quarterly, reflect my most recent thinking. They both have a utopian streak that may stand out especially in these days when unfeathered capitalism is the rage. The first points to people, who far from making consuming ever more their life's project, seek a less affiuent way oflife. It examines the psychological foundations and the social consequences of such an approach."
This is a study of the social construction and the impression management of the public forms of worship of Catholicism and Anglicanism. Interest centres on the dilemmas of the liturgical actors in handling a transaction riddled with ambiguities and potential misunderstandings. Simmel, Berger and Goffman are used in an original manner to understand these rites which pose as much of a problem for sociology as for their practitioners.;These rites are treated as forms of play and hermeneutics is linked to a negative theology to understand their performative basis. The study is an effort to link sociology to theology in a way that serves to focus on an issue of social praxis. |
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