Arguing against the postmodern claim that systematic theory is unable to account for difference, "Difference in Time: A Critical Theory of Culture" adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of cultural judgement and social change. With music as her model for theory, Hanrahan explores the role of time, the creation of meaning, the identification of difference, and the basis for judgements in cultural life, and in doing so provides a foundation for the critique of cultural objects and practices that avoids both the elitism of traditional aesthetics and the unwavering relativism of so much contemporary cultural analysis. A broad-ranging and deeply philosophical work building on the scholarship of the Frankfurt School, "Difference in Time: A Critical Theory of Culture "drives home the need for critique in the evaluation and revision of the social knowledge and institutions of democratic civic life.

In Hanrahan's analysis, the dualism of critique--that of universal judgement and relative standpoint--is false when critique is understood as a dynamic process in which both judgement and standpoint are emergent and contingent. Differences are not given or static but are articulated in time; therefore, both the categories of critique and of social theory in general must be temporalized. Hanrahan's musical model draws attention to the fundamental temporality of social life and social structure, and integrates that understanding into the structure of a new dynamic in which difference is compatible with both system and structure. Thus, Hanrahan demonstrates that it is possible to construct critical categories that do not become orthodoxies.

This book focuses on the transmission of ethnic identity across three generations of Italian-Australians, specifically Italian-Australians of Calabrian descent in the Adelaide region of Australia. Simone Marino analyzes ethnographic data collected over a three-year period to consider individual, familial and community cultural practices, as well as societal influences on ethnic identity transmission, in order to present generational differences in the understandings of Italian-Australian identity. Among other factors, the role of community events, community networks, and cultural practices associated with being Italian-Australian are examined. The transmission of ethnic identity is analysed through the lens of sociological theories, including Sayad's concept of double absence and Bourdieu's ideas of habitus and cultural capital, and is considered at the macro, meso, and micro spheres of social life. Ultimately, Marino's study reveals clear generational differences amongst Italian-Australians: the first generation, those who arrived from Italy, manifest a condition of feeling absent, the second generation present a condition of 'in-between-ness', between the world of their immigrant parents and that of Australians, and the third generation experience a sense of ethnic revival.

Social justice and the market economy often seem to be on a collision course. Human dignity and equal treatment are of little commodity value. More and more, however, labour law theorists are insisting that, without more serious attention to human rights in the workplace, the dominance of market-driven economics will continue to engender grave and potentially explosive social problems. This collection of essays -- composed in honour of the leading labour law and social security jurist Ruth Ben-Israel -- offers incisive perspectives on this vital aspect of today's post-industrial society. Featuring the most recent views of a virtual who's who of major labour law authorities, the book includes in-depth analyses of such important aspects of the field as the following: + workplace representation; + safety and health at work; + labour conflicts; + labour courts; + the ILO supervisory system; + right to strike; + employee privacy; + enterprise reorganisation; and + treatment of blue collar vs. white collar workers. All issues are treated from a comparative legal viewpoint, with valuable contributions from Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Israel, and Japan. Ruth Ben-Israel is notable for her commitment -- as teacher, writer, and international advisor - to the continuity and expansion of social justice as the welfare state has increasingly succumbed to the pressure of the corporate-driven global economic model. Her extensive body of work emphasizes collective bargaining, strikes and lockouts, workers' participation, equal employment opportunity (especially for women), and unfair dismissal. Labour Law, Human Rights and Social Justice is a faithful and fitting tribute from her colleagues to her determination and eloquence in pursuing this most worthy of goals.

This book argues for a modern version of liberal arts education, exploring first principles within the divine comedy of educational logic. By reforming the three philosophies of metaphysics, nature and ethics upon which liberal arts education is based, Tubbs offers a profound transatlantic philosophical and educational challenge to the subject.

At the end of the 19th century, two famous predictions were advanced for the coming 20th century: while Le Bon prophesied that the coming century would have been the age of crowds, Tarde replied that the new century would have been the age of publics. Even in retrospect, it is not easy to tell who was right. This book proposes a historical-conceptual journey into the cluttered social formations that have remained outside of mainstream sociology. In particular, it reviews urban crowds, mediated publics, global masses, population, the sovereign people and the multitude. By doing so, it questions the image of the individual and addresses the question: 'What is the building block of the social?'. Imitation, contagion, suggestion and other phenomena of circulation within multiplicities put the idea of the individual as the building block of the social under strain. The notions of transformation and phase transition are explored as possible alternative views.

An influential sociologist revives materialist explanations of class, while accommodating the best of rival cultural theory. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, analysis of class and other basic structures of capitalism was sidelined by theorists who argued that social and economic life is reducible to culture-that our choices reflect interpretations of the world around us rather than the limitations imposed by basic material facts. Today, capitalism is back on the agenda, as gross inequalities in wealth and power have pushed scholars to reopen materialist lines of inquiry. But it would be a mistake to pretend that the cultural turn never happened. Vivek Chibber instead engages cultural theory seriously, proposing a fusion of materialism and the most useful insights of its rival. Chibber shows that it is possible to accommodate the main arguments from the cultural turn within a robust materialist framework: one can agree that the making of meaning plays an important role in social agency, while still recognizing the fundamental power of class structure and class formation. Chibber vindicates classical materialism by demonstrating that it in fact accounts for phenomena cultural theorists thought it was powerless to explain. But he also shows that aspects of class are indeed centrally affected by cultural factors. The Class Matrix does not seek to displace culture from the analysis of modern capitalism. Rather, in prose of exemplary clarity, Chibber gives culture its due alongside what Marx called "the dull compulsion of economic relations."

Freedom in the Anthropocene illuminates the Anthropocene from the perspective of critical theory. The authors contextualize our current ecological predicament by focusing on the issues of history and freedom and how they relate to our present inability to render environmental threats and degradation recognizable and surmountable.

This book outlines and systematises findings from a growing body of research that examines the different rationales, dimensions and dynamics of risk-taking in current societies; providing insight into the different motivations and social roots of risk-taking to advance scholarly debates and improve social regulation. Conceptually, the book goes beyond common approaches which problematise socially undesirable risk-taking, or highlight the alluring character of risk-taking. Instead, it follows a broadly interpretivist approach and engages in examining motives, control, routinisation, reflexivity, skills, resources, the role of identity in risk-taking and how these are rooted in and framed by different social forces. Zinn draws on qualitative studies from different theoretical and conceptual backgrounds such as phenomenology, hermeneutics, pragmatism, feminism, class analysis, theory of practice and discourse analysis among others, to outline key distinctions and concepts central to the understanding of risk-taking. It will be a key resource for everyone who is concerned with the understanding and management of risk-taking in all kinds of social domains, such as immigration, youth, leisure sports, crime, health, finance, and social policy.

More-than-Human Sociology is a call for a bolder, more creative sociology. Olli Pyyhtinen argues that to make sociology responsive to life in the 21st century we need a new sociological imagination, one that addresses connectivity, understands the world in which we live as both a human and non-human world, and is sensitive to the multiple scales on which things exist. A fresh and innovative take on the promise of sociology, this book will appeal to scholars and students both within sociology and the social sciences more broadly.

"Philosophically challenging. . . . Hazelrigg's thesis seems to catch everyone short."--Steve Fuller, executive editor, Social Epistemology "A quality piece of work; the central problematic is clearly articulated and important; the theoretical analyses are sophisticated and subtle; and the narrative is well crafted. . . . The focus of this work is at the heart of core issues now being discussed by much larger circles of interdisciplinary social theorists and cultural studies scholars."--Robert Antonio, University of Kansas Lawrence Hazelrigg's thesis, argued in this concluding work of his trilogy, is that "nature, under any description whatsoever, is thoroughly a humanly made existence." Nature is a cultural production, he says, and any distinction between nature and culture is drawn from the relations of power that characterize a particular culture. In this innovative vision of the very foundation of social theory, he sets out some of the terms and relationships of the nature-culture polarity and offers a map of the "circuits and relays" that exist between "that which counts as knowledge and that which counts as power." He extends the mapping to issues of philosophical anthropology and the "production" of human nature (and the Marxian roots of this production) and then examines three situations in which the circuits and relays operate in European and Euroamerican cultures: the sixteenth-century invention of culture; modern inventions of primitiveness; and "a long sequence of practices of sexing nature's body." In conclusion, he addresses the question of an ecologism that begins to glimpse the artificiality of nature (the new "crisis of nature") and which must work anew to understand what counts as knowledge. This work will be an important source for students in the growing area of sociology of culture as well as for scholars in philosophy, social and political theory, ethnography, and feminism and others interested in the social construction of nature and the politics of environmentalism. Lawrence Hazelrigg is professor of sociology at Florida State University. He is the author of A Wilderness of Mirrors and Claims of Knowledge (both UPF, 1989), the first two books of this trilogy, and of Class, Conflict, and Mobility and Prison within Society. "

Citizenship is increasingly the core concept by which human belonging is defined but do we really understand what it is? This book develops an evolutionist argument to challenge accepted ideas about citizenship and question how well it fits between political prescriptions for sociality and human nature.

What is economics fundamentally about? Some say 'money'. But that only applies, at a stretch, to macroeconomics. Others say 'incentivised choices'. Through a review of the history and methodology of economics, with special concentration on the past 60 years, the book shows why the second answer is more accurate. But this leads straight into another problem: psychologists study choices too. So how is economics different from psychology? The book explains this, by showing how economics is really about groups or populations of people. In clearly distinguishing economics from psychology, the book criticizes the current popular wave of behavioural economics, showing how many studies under that label confuse economics with psychology. But if economics is about structures of group response, then how is it different from sociology? The book shows how and why economics and sociology are currently converging, perhaps ultimately to form a single unified discipline fed by two distinct historical tributaries.

Under present social conditions, neither social theorists nor political scientists can afford to ignore one another. This book is a clear, structured account of the relationship between politics and social theory, examining both the political content of social theory, and how social theory has illuminated our understanding of politics.

This book extends current understandings of the effects of using locative social media on spatiality, the experience of time and identity. This is a pertinent and timely topic given the increase in opportunities people now have to explicitly and implicitly share their location through digital and mobile technologies. There is a growing body of research on locative media, much of this literature has concentrated on spatial issues. Research here has explored how locative media and location-based social media (LBSN) are used to communicate and coordinate social interactions in public space, affecting how people approach their surroundings, turning ordinary life "into a game", and altering how mobile media is involved in understanding the world. This book offers a critical analysis of the effect of usage of locative social media on identity through an engagement with the current literature on spatiality, a novel critical investigation of the temporal effects of LBSN use and a view of identity as influenced by the spatio-temporal effects of interacting with place through LBSN. Drawing on phenomenology, post-phenomenology and critical theory on social and locative media, alongside established sociological frameworks for approaching spatiality and the city, it presents a comprehensive account of the effects of LBSN and locative media use.

This volume features forty-two essays written in honor of Joseph Agassi. It explores the work and legacy of this influential philosopher, an exciting and challenging advocate of critical rationalism. Throughout six decades of stupendous intellectual activity, Agassi called attention to rationality as the very starting point of every notable philosophical way of life. The essays present Agassi's own views on critical rationalism. They also develop and expand upon his work in new and provocative ways. The authors include Agassi's most notable pupils, friends, and colleagues. Overall, their contributions challenge the received view on a variety of issues concerning science, religion, and education. Readers will find well-reasoned arguments on such topics as the secular problem of evil, religion and critical thinking, liberal democratic educational communities, democracy and constitutionalism, and capitalism at a crossroad.

This book brings together philosophical, social-theoretical and empirically oriented contributions on the philosophical and socio-theoretical debate on migration and integration, using the instruments of recognition as a normative and social-scientific category. Furthermore, the theoretical and practical implications of recognition theory are reflected through the case of migration. Migration movements, refugees and the associated tensions are phenomena that have become the focus of scientific, political and public debate in recent years. Migrants, in particular refugees, face many injustices and are especially vulnerable, but the right-wing political discourse presents them as threats to social order and stability. This book shows what a critical theory of recognition can contribute to the debate. The book is suitable for researchers in philosophy, social theory and migration research. "A profound examination of how states and societies struggle to recognize migrants as fellow human beings in all their fullness. The contributions are exceptional for combining astute philosophy and social theory with a discussion of actual politics and real lives." Dr. Hugo Slim (Senior Research Fellow at the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford and formerly Head of Policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross) "This impressive and timely volume offers an innovative way of understanding the issues of migration and integration by using a critical theory of recognition. Recognition theory has rich potential for effectively responding to the issues of autonomy, identity, integration, and empowerment that are at the core of the current public debates on mass migration, displacement, and the refugee crisis. By examining the normative and policy implications of recognition as they apply to migration, the book offers a pathbreaking look at the human dimension of the debate." Dr. Helle Porsdam (Professor of Law and Humanities and UNESCO Chair in Cultural Rights University of Copenhagen)

Poststructuralism and After provides a comprehensive, innovative and lucid account of contemporary poststructuralist theory, which probes its limits, explores rival theoretical approaches, and elaborates new concepts and logics. The book distils and articulates the basic philosophical assumptions and theoretical concepts of poststructuralism, but by building upon the work of Derrida, Foucault, Heidegger, Lacan, Laclau, Levi-Strauss, Marx, Saussure and Zižek it also provides a distinctive version of the poststructuralist project.The philosophy and theory of poststructuralism is presented through a critical engagement with the central problems of social and political theory. Such problems include the structure/agency dilemma; the problem of social order; the ongoing debates between positivists, interpretivists and realists about the role and character of social science; the relationship between the economy, the state and society; the complexities of identity/difference; and the role of power, domination and ideology. Empirical illustrations and case studies of selected social phenomena further illuminate the theoretical arguments displayed in this book.

This book explains and theorises the ways in which family policy instruments come to shape the routine care arrangements of young children. Drawing on interviews with close to a hundred parents from very different walks of life in urban and rural Romania, the book provides a rich account of the care arrangement transitions these parents experience during their children's first five years of life. The influence of family policies emerges as complex and uneven, affecting childcare decisions both directly and indirectly by contributing to the reproduction and legitimation of age-related hierarchies of care ideals. These cultural artefacts, reflective of both longstanding institutional legacies and recent policy innovations between 2006 and 2015, are the prism through which mothers and fathers from diverse backgrounds view and make decisions about their children's care. This unique volume will be of interest and value to students and scholars of childcare, its organisation and family policy, specifically in post-socialist contexts.

What can 'assemblage thinking' contribute to international theory? Assemblages have been invoked in several disciplines to make sense of the heterogeneity of the elements of society and the ways in which these are politically intertwined. Can parallel developments be prompted in IR?Reassembling International Theory investigates how the contemporary debates on assemblages in social theory can contribute to generating critical considerations on the connections and dissociation of political agency, physical world and international dynamics. It draws on a variety of international relations experiences and on conversations with key 'assemblage' theorists to tease out the theoretical and methodological implications, ontological and material dynamics, as well as the politics of assemblage thinking.Including contributions from Rita Abrahamsen, Roland Bleiker, Antoine Bousquet, Christian Bueger, David Chandler, Stephen Collier, Olaf Corry, Xavier Guillaume, Graham Harman, Debbie Lisle, Maximilian Mayer, Aihwa Ong, Mark Salter, Saskia Sassen, Peer Schouten, Nick Srnicek and Michael Williams, this text will appeal to scholars in International Relations, Political Sociology and Human Geography.

Jackie Phamotse digs deep into the climate of law and policy in the social media landscape.

After a David and Goliath social media legal battle that saw many take note tweeting about her, the result is a brace, thought-provoking and remarkably detailed social media guide and personal narrative. A first-hand approach on beating public humiliation and cyber victimization, Phamotse combines personal anecdotes, hard data and compelling research to cut through an unjust system governed by the rich and famous. The author directly addresses the question of power and obsession related to social media influencers.

Written with equal doses of humor, compassion and wisdom, I Tweet What I Like is an inspiring call to action, celebrating diversity and human potential. I Tweet What I Like will inspire you!

Stanford University psychology professor Geoffrey L. Cohen has used science to show that when people don't have a sense of belonging, negative consequences often follow: diminished performance at school and work, poorer health, increased levels of hostility and more divisive politics. This book offers concrete steps that we can all take to foster belonging. Cohen is known for major studies revealing practical actions ("wise interventions") that creatively reduce conflict in all areas of life. Something as simple as affirming your core values before a test can markedly increase your score. Helping others in even small matters can improve health and happiness. Signaling respect and common cause by making subtle adjustments in the language we use can improve politics and policing. Working for a shared goal can moderate the views of the most bitter enemies. With Cohen's insights, we can all learn "situation-crafting" to reverse the myriad ways in which people are excluded because of race, class, gender and other differences. This essential book empowers educators, parents, managers, administrators, caregivers and everyone who wants those around them to thrive.

There was a time when it was clear what risks social security policy was meant to protect: unemployment, sickness, and occupational disability. For many decades-although true equity remained elusive - a focus on these 'external' risks seemed to be enough. It is to the credit of more recent policy that such previously 'hidden' but all-important matters as excluded minorities, inadequate income, and obstacles to personal development are now on the agenda. Yet, with the globalization of the economy, new and unprecedented risks proliferate, most of them being of the 'manufactured' kind that stem from technological and economic factors that are largely independent of time and place and that do not lend themselves easily to regulation. Social Security in Transition surveys and analyses the forces affecting social security policy today as understood by twenty-one, mainly European, authorities in the field. Although each author focuses on specific issues (such as poverty, migration, retirement schemes, access to health care), a consensus emerges that social security can no longer be viewed as a distinct theoretical entity, but that it must be considered in a broad context of social policy that encompasses employment, education, and health care. That the state will remain the last resort for the resolution of dangerous social disparities seems inevitable; yet some transnational standards of fairness (including concerted action for the prevention of and combating the worst evils, such as poverty and social exclusion of migrants) are crucial if we are to develop meaningful state and collective arrangements - arrangement that will not only support all individuals as they take responsibilities inlife, enhance their opportunities, and make meaningful choices, but also safeguard the necessary level of social cohesion in society. Social Security in Transition builds on papers that were originally presented at a June 2001 symposium in The Hague to mark the centenary of the Dutch Occupational Accidents Act 1901 and at the same time of Dutch social security. The symposium was an initiative of the Social Security 2001 Foundation, which was set up by a group of Dutch ministries, administrations and supervisory agencies, and social partners.

Examining the subtle forms of aggression, violence, and harassment that occur in our society and manifest in institutions and places of work, the expert contributors collected here describe the experience of social marginalization and expose how vulnerable individuals work to navigate exclusionary climates. This volume explores how bodies disrupt the status quo in multiple contexts and locations; provides insights into how institutions are structured and how practices that may cause harm are maintained; and, finally, considers progressive and proactive alternatives. This book will be a key resource for academics and professionals in education, sociology, nursing, law, business and political science, as well as organizations and policymakers grappling with aggression in the workplace.

Challenging the view that managerialism is a form of capitalism and that capitalism has eclipsed socialism, Pena shows that the managerial or new class is an exploiting class. The work of Thorstein Veblen, James Burnham, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Kevin Phillips, he suggests, forms a little-known century-long tradition of reflection on the managerial revolution as well as on the conflux of values and socioeconomic practices that Pena dubs economic barbarism. Building on the work of these thinkers, he argues that industrial barbarism and the managerial revolution led to the decline of U.S. capitalism and its replacement by managerialism, a form of nationalistic socialism in which educated white-collar personnel employed by the state and corporate bureaucracies have become a new exploiting class that receives the bulk of the national wealth. Thus managerialism replaced industrial barbarism with a new form of economic barbarism.

This managerial barbarism has fostered an unequal distribution of wealth that has penalized the middle and lower classes with stagnant or declining incomes, growing job insecurity, unemployment, and underemployment. Unless managerialism can find a way out of persistent poverty and declining living-wage job opportunities, these problems are likely to continue afflicting a sizable portion of the population. If managers put an end to economic barbarism, they have a chance to create a society characterized by generalized prosperity, leisure, and opportunity. It is more likely, however, that economic barbarism will continue to be an integral part of managerialism and, consequently, managerialism will face a sudden social upheaval or a gradual decline.

The United States is known as a "melting pot" yet this mix tends to be volatile and contributes to a long history of oppression, racism, and bigotry.

Emerging Intersections, an anthology of ten previously unpublished essays, looks at the problems of inequality and oppression from new angles and promotes intersectionality as an interpretive tool that can be utilized to better understand the ways in which race, class, gender, ethnicity, and other dimensions of difference shape our lives today. The book showcases innovative contributions that expand our understanding of how inequality affects people of color, demonstrates the ways public policies reinforce existing systems of inequality, and shows how research and teaching using an intersectional perspective compels scholars to become agents of change within institutions. By offering practical applications for using intersectional knowledge, Emerging Intersections will help bring us one step closer to achieving positive institutional change and social justice.