Contemporary Sociology is an introductory textbook with angles and arguments. Responding to the need for a different kind of introductory textbook, it provides more focused, in-depth explorations of the most exciting and contemporary aspects of sociology. The 21 chapters, written by leading experts in each field, offer a thought-provoking portrait of sociology. Each chapter tackles key issues at the centre of contemporary sociological research in an exceptionally clear, engaging and relevant way, focusing on critical approaches and analyses. The book includes: * A strong focus on making sociological thinking relevant to the contemporary world * Illustrative examples and analysis of recent real-world events * Coverage of all major sociological topics of continuing or emerging interest, from class, ethnicity and global social change to human rights, the environment, and science and technology * Carefully thought-out questions and further readings to probe understanding and encourage critical thinking * Additional, regularly updated online resources Contemporary Sociology is a serious yet accessible text and should be required reading for both new and more advanced undergraduates. It will fire students imaginations to explore the latest dynamics driving the study of our social world.

The Court and the Country (1969) offers a fresh view and synthesis of the English revolution of 1640. It describes the origin and development of the revolution, and gives an account of the various factors - political, social and religious - that produced the revolution and conditioned its course. It explains the revolution primarily as a result of the breakdown of the unity of the governing class around the monarchy into the contending sides of the Court and the Country. A principal theme is the formation within the governing class of an opposition movement to the Crown. The role of Puritanism and of the towns is examined, and the resistance to Charles I is considered in relation to other European revolutions of the period.

Exploring Instagram’s public pedagogy at scale, this book uses innovative digital methods to trace and analyze how publics reinforce and resist settler colonialism as they engage with the Trans Mountain pipeline controversy online. The book traces opposition to the Trans Mountain pipeline in so-called Canada, where overlapping networks of concerned citizens, Indigenous land protectors, and environmental activists have used Instagram to document pipeline construction, policing, and land degradation; teach using infographics; and express solidarity through artwork and re-shared posts. These expressions constitute a form of “public pedagogy,� where social media takes on an educative force, influencing publics whether or not they set foot in the classroom.

Cromwell and Communism (1930) examines the English revolution against the absolute monarchy of Charles I. It looks at the economic and social conditions prevailing at the time, the first beginnings of dissent and the religious and political aims of the Parliamentarian side in the revolution and subsequent civil war. The various sects are examined, including the Levellers and their democratic, atheistic and communistic ideals.

The Cultural Politics of Food, Taste, and Identity examines the social, cultural, and political processes that shape the experience of taste. The book positions flavor as involving all the senses, and describes the multiple ways in which taste becomes tied to local, translocal, glocal, and cosmopolitan politics of identity. Global case studies are included from Japan, China, India, Belize, Chile, Guatemala, the United States, France, Italy, Poland and Spain. Chapters examine local responses to industrialized food and the heritage industry, and look at how professional culinary practice has become foundational for local identities. The book also discusses the unfolding construction of "local taste" in the context of sociocultural developments, and addresses how cultural political divides are created between meat consumption and vegetarianism, innovation and tradition, heritage and social class, popular food and authenticity, and street and restaurant food. In addition, contributors discuss how different food products-such as kimchi, quinoa, and Soylent-have entered the international market of industrial and heritage foods, connecting different places and shaping taste and political identities.

"Thoughtful and often moving." Gaby Hinsliff, The Guardian Female Masculinities and the Gender Wars provides important theoretical background and context to the 'gender wars' or 'TERF wars' - the fracture at the forefront of the LGBTQ international conversation. Using queer and female masculinities as a lens, Finn Mackay investigates the current generational shift that is refusing the previous assumed fixity of sex, gender and sexual identity. Transgender and trans rights movements are currently experiencing political backlash from within certain lesbian and lesbian feminist groups, resulting in a situation in which these two minority communities are frequently pitted against one another or perceived as diametrically opposed. Uniquely, Finn Mackay approaches this debate through the context of female masculinity, butch and transmasculine lesbian masculinities. There has been increasing interest in the study of masculinity, influenced by a popular discourse around so-called 'toxic masculinity', the rise of men's rights activism and theory and critical work on Trump's America and the MeToo movement. An increasingly important topic in political science and sociological academia, this book aims to break new ground in the discussion of the politics of gender and identity.

Commentators have long debated 'the moral' in ideas about moral panic, moral regulation and moral discourse. This byte teases out some of the fundamental moral questions that continue to perplex us, about life and death, good and evil, and sex and the body. With an appraisal of the work of one of the chief architects of moral panic ideas, Jock Young, it asks whether these ideas may help or hinder our understanding of these complex issues.

"Reader in Religion and Popular Culture" is the classroom resource the field has been waiting for. It provides key readings as well as new approaches and cutting-edge work, encouraging a broader methodological and historical understanding. It is the first anthology to a trace broader themes of religion and popular culture across time and across very different types of media. With a combined teaching experience of over 30 years dedicated to teaching undergraduates, Lisle Dalton and Eric Mazur have ensured that the pedagogical features and structure of the volume are valuable to both students and their professors: - Divided into a number of units based on common semester syllabi- Provides a blend of materials focussed on method with materials focussed on subject- Each unit contains an introduction to the texts - Each unit is followed by questions designed to encourage or enhance post-reading reflection and classroom discussion- A glossary of terms from the unit's readings is provided, as well as suggestions for further reading and investigation- Online resource provides guidance on accessing some of the most useful interesting resources available onlineThe Reader is suitable as the foundational textbook for any undergraduate course on religion and popular culture.

Childhood and youth have often been the targets of moral panic rhetoric. This Byte explores a series of pressing concerns about young people: child abuse, child pornography, child sexual exploitation, child trafficking and the concept of childhood. With an appraisal of the work of the influential thinker, Geoffrey Pearson, who wrote on deviance and young people, it draws attention to the moralising within these discourses and asks how we might do things differently.

Cybercartography in a Reconciliation Community: Engaging Intersecting Perspectives, Volume Eight gathers perspectives on issues related to reconciliation-primarily in a residential / boarding school context-and demonstrates the unifying power of Cybercartography by identifying intersections among different knowledge perspectives. Concerned with understanding approaches toward reconciliation and education, preference is given to reflexivity in research and knowledge dissemination. The positionality aspect of reflexivity is reflected in the chapter contributions concerning various aspects of cybercartographic atlas design and development research, and related activities. In this regard, the book offers theoretical and practical knowledge of collaborative transdisciplinary research through its reflexive assessment of the relationships, processes and knowledge involved in cybercartographic research. Using, most specifically, the Residential Schools Land Memory Mapping Project for context, Cybercartography in a Reconciliation Community provides a high speed tour through the project's innovative collaborative approach to mapping institutional material and volunteered geographic information. Exploring Cybercartography through the lens of this atlas project provides for a comprehensive understanding of both Cybercartography and transdisciplinary research, while informing the reader of education and reconciliation initiatives in Canada, the U.S., the U.K. and Italy.

Volume II of Africa's Radicalisms and Conservatisms continues the broad themes of radicalisms and conservatisms that were examined in volume I. Like volume I, the essays examine why the two "isms" of radicalisms and conservatisms should not be viewed as mere irreconcilable conceptual tools with which to categorize or structure knowledge. The volume demonstrates that these concepts are intertwined, have multiple and diverse meanings as perceived and understood from different disciplinary vantage points, hence, the deliberate pluralization of the terms. The twenty-two essays in the volume show what happens when one juxtaposes the two concepts and when different peoples' lived experiences of politics, pop culture, democracy, liberalism, the environment, colonialism, migration, identities, and knowledge, etc. across the length and breadth of Africa are brought to bear on our understandings of these two particularisms. Contributors are: Adesoji Oni, Admire M. Nyamwanza, Akin Tella, Akinpelu Ayokunnu Oyekunle, Bamidele Omotunde Alabi, Charles Nkem Okolie, Craig Calhoun, Diana Ekor Ofana, Edwin Etieyibo, Folusho Ayodeji, Gabriel Akinbode, Godwin Oboh, Joseph C. A. Agbakoba, Julius Niringiyimana, Lucky Uchenna Ogbonnaya, Maxwell Mudhara, Muchaparara Musemwa, Nathan Osareme Odiase, Obvious Katsaura, Okpowhoavotu Dan Ekere, Olaniran Olakunle Lateef, Omolara V. Akinyemi, Owen Mafongoya, Paramu Mafongoya, Philip Onyekachukwu Egbule, Rutanga Murindwa, Sandra Bhatasara, Takesure Taringana, Tunde A. Abioro, Victor Clement Nweke, William Muhumuza, and Zainab M. Olaitan.

This unique and insightful book provides a comprehensive examination of contemporary cultural policy and its discourses, influences, and consequences. It examines the factors that have led to a narrowing of cultural policy and suggests new ways of thinking about cultural policy beyond economics by reconnecting it with the practices of work, value, and the social. With a particular focus on Australia and the UK, and with reference to transnational bodies including UNESCO, this book identifies and examines influential national and international factors that have shaped cultural policy, including its implementation of an economic agenda. Deborah Stevenson retraces the foundations of contemporary cultural policy, with chapters exploring the hierarchies of legitimacy that form the basis of value and excellence, the increased hegemony of the economy within the art world complex, and the notions of class and gender as two key factors of social inequality that shape access to the arts. Analysing cultural value, work, and the social as important points of tension and potential disruption within contemporary cultural policy, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of arts and cultural management, cultural policy studies, cultural sociology, economics, and leisure and urban studies. It will also be of interest to students, scholars, and practitioners across the humanities and the social sciences.

Many of the individual and social problems that are characterised as moral panics are, in reality, illustrations of a breakdown in the legitimacy of the state. This Byte picks up a number of case-study examples - internet pornography; internet radicalisation; 'chavs'; the Tottenham riots; patient safety - and explores each through the lens of moral panic ideas, with an appraisal of the work of Stuart Hall, one of the key thinkers in moral panics.

Volume 1 of Theater(s) and Public Sphere in a Global and Digital Society inquires the fundamental contribution that artistic and cultural forms bring to social dynamics and how these can consolidate cohabitation and create meaningfulness, in addition to fulfilling economic and regulatory needs. As symbolic forms of collective social practices, artistic and cultural forms weave the meaning of a territory, a context, and a people, but also of the generations who traverse these same cultures. These forms of meaning interact with the social imagery, mediate marginalization, transform barriers into bridges, and are the indispensable tools for any social coexistence and its continuous rethinking in everyday life. The various epistemic approaches present here, refer to sociology, theatre studies, cultural studies, psychology, economy of culture, and social statistics which observe theatre as a social phenomenon. Contributors are: Claudio Bernardi, Marco Bernardi, Massimo Bertoldi, Martina Guerinoni, Mara Nerbano, Chiara Pasanisi, Benedetta Pratelli, Roberto Prestigiacomo, Ilaria Riccioni, Daniela Salinas Frigerio, Eleonora Sparano, Emanuele Stochino, Matteo Tamborrino, Tiziana Tesauro, Katia Trifiro, Alessandro Tolomelli, and Andrea Zardi.

In Acquiring Modernity, Paul B. Paolucci, updating classical theory, examines the nature of modern society. Investigated from a sociological perspective but written in accessible everyday language, this book provides a multifaceted account of what makes modern society what it is, from its historical roots to its current conditions. Neither traditional classroom text nor a work of detailed erudition for the specialist few, Acquiring Modernity draws on material from known historical events, scholarly research, and recent global developments to tell modernity's story through topics such as the modern classes, religious practice, relations of gender and race, politics, environmental issues, and economic crises. Valuable reading for anyone interested in understanding contemporary life and society.

The study of Roman society and social relations blossomed in the 1970s. By now, we possess a very large literature on the individuals and groups that constituted the Roman community, and the various ways in which members of that community interacted. There simply is, however, no overview that takes into account the multifarious progress that has been made in the past thirty-odd years. The purpose of this handbook is twofold. On the one hand, it synthesizes what has heretofore been accomplished in this field. On the other hand, it attempts to configure the examination of Roman social relations in some new ways, and thereby indicates directions in which the discipline might now proceed.
The book opens with a substantial general introduction that portrays the current state of the field, indicates some avenues for further study, and provides the background necessary for the following chapters. It lays out what is now known about the historical development of Roman society and the essential structures of that community. In a second introductory article, Clifford Ando explains the chronological parameters of the handbook. The main body of the book is divided into the following six sections: 1) Mechanisms of Socialization (primary education, rhetorical education, family, law), 2) Mechanisms of Communication and Interaction, 3) Communal Contexts for Social Interaction, 4) Modes of Interpersonal Relations (friendship, patronage, hospitality, dining, funerals, benefactions, honor), 5) Societies Within the Roman Community (collegia, cults, Judaism, Christianity, the army), and 6) Marginalized Persons (slaves, women, children, prostitutes, actors and gladiators, bandits). The result is a unique, up-to-date, and comprehensive survey of ancient Roman society.

Growth and Change in Neoliberal Capitalism brings together selected essays written by Alfredo Saad-Filho, one of the most prominent Marxist political economists today. This book offers a rich analysis of long-term economic development in the current stage of capitalism, the new relations of dependence between countries, the prospects for poor countries, and the progressive alternatives to neoliberalism. The volume also provides a detailed set of studies of the political economy of Brazil, tracking its achievements, tragedies, contradictions and limitations.