This book examines the utopian dimension of contemporary social and political thought. Arguing for a utopian optic for the human sciences, el-Ojeili claims that major transformations of the utopian constellation have occurred since the end of the twentieth century. Following a survey of major utopian shifts in the modern period, el-Ojeili focuses on three spaces within today's utopian constellation. At the liberal centre, we see a splintering effect, particularly after the global financial crisis of 2008: a contingent neo-liberalism, a neo-Keynesian turn, and a liberalism of fear. At the far-Right margin, we see the consolidation of post-fascism, a combination of "the future in the past", elements of the post-modern present, and appeals to a novel future. Finally, at the far-Left, a new communism has emerged, with novel positions on resistance, maps of power, and a contemporary variant of the Left's artistic critique. The Utopian Constellation will be of interest to scholars and students across the human sciences with an interest in utopian studies, ideological and discourse analysis, the sociology of knowledge, and the study of political culture.

This book provides the history and genealogy of an increasingly important subject: liminality. Coming to the fore in recent years in social and political theory and extending beyond is original use as developed within anthropology, liminality has come to denote spaces and moments in which the taken-for-granted order of the world ceases to exist and novel forms emerge, often in unpredictable ways. Liminality and the Modern offers a comprehensive introduction to this concept, discussing its development and laying out a conceptual and experiential framework for thinking about change in terms of liminality. Applying this framework to questions surrounding the implosion of 'non-spaces', the analysis of major historical periods and the study of political revolution, the book also explores its possible uses in social science research and its implications for our understanding of the uncertainty and contingency of the liquid structures of modern society. Shedding new light on a concept central to social thought, as well as its capacity for pushing social and political theory in new directions, this book will be of interest to scholars across the social sciences and philosophy working in fields such as social, political and anthropological theory, cultural studies, social and cultural geography, and historical anthropology and sociology.

In this detailed investigation of masculine gendered identity, first published in 1990, David Jackson uses his own personal history to look at the specific ways in which men become masculine . In doing so he examines, but also offers some positive challenges to, the assumed qualities and values of growing up manly . Jackson looks closely at the psychological and social forces active in his own development: relations with his father, violence at school, male banter and joking, sporting activities, boys comics, and sexual relations. The title is a deliberate blend between life story and critical commentary that makes use of some areas of post-structuralist theory to make visible the social and emotional processes that contribute to one man s life history. With an innovative theoretical approach, this reissue will be of particular value to those interested in the social, psychological and cultural forces that have gone into the historical shaping of men and masculinities. "

America today is a hypersexual society. Sexual discourse, erotica, and pornography are pervasive in the culture. Sexual materials, many times extending into erotica and pornography, are found in the consumer world, academia, sex therapy, the publishing world, mass media (especially radio, television and movies) and the Internet. The sexual materials found in all these areas of American society provoke relentless opposition by groups and individuals who want to repress or censor sexual materials. The combined effects of those who promote and produce sexual materials, and those who try to supress them, add up to a cacophony of sexual discourse.

New media, especially in relation to video gaming, now occupies a dominant position within popular culture. The book offers new and critical perspectives on computer game culture. It illustrates key debates in game studies and is a guide to complexity and diversity of the phenomenon.It maintains its originality in bringing together international experts from among social scientists, game designers, artists and literature scholars. Internationally renowned media and literature scholars, social scientists, game designers and artists explore the cultural potential of computer games in this rich anthology, which introduces the latest approaches in the central fields of game studies and provides an extensive survey of contemporary game culture.

Political sociology has often left the discussion of collective political behavior to those working within a social movement framework. The politics of inequality and social division invoke important questions for political sociology. Many argue that at the heart of political sociology is the study of power differences and social inequality. This volume focuses upon how politics influences the patterns of social stratification and how the various inequalities in society affect politics. Inequalities of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation are included at local, regional, national, and transnational levels. Several studies consider "hate groups" and victims of hate.
This collection of research serves as an example of aspects of social status, social class, and ideology connected to contemporary questions about "who wins" in struggles for civic, economic, and individual citizenship. Inequalities of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation are studied at local, regional, national and transnational levels. Several articles consider "hate groups" and victims of hate. The politics of inequality are discussed in enduring theoretical frameworks and emerging literatures related to political groups and associations, the order of law and the state, social movements, and terrorism and violence. The authors hope that this volume will stimulate further work in the political sociology of social inequality.

This text provides an overview of the sociology of change and transition, exploring how global transformation processes impact on everyday life by examining a number of 'hot spots' of change in contemporary society: the city, the workplace, patterns of consumption, politics, broader areas and the environment. It engages with a range of theories and concepts, in order to investigate the interplay of continuity and change in contemporary society, and assesses their usefulness. It also speculates on the shape of emerging social orders.

First published in 1985, this book provides a comprehensive reappraisal of the diverse Communist development strategies that shaped the twentieth century. Robert Bideleux emphasises the appalling human and economic costs of the most widely adopted 'Stalinist' strategies of forced industrialisation and rural collectivisation. He also reconsiders the powerful arguments in favour of the most feasible and cost-effective alternatives to Stalinism, including 'village communisms' and 'market socialisms'. A highly readable and challenging study, this reissue will be of particular value to students with research interests in Development Studies, East European History and Politics.

We are at war. Human cultures are divided into two basic types, two antagonistic forces, one based on symbolic exchange, which is dual and reciprocal, and one based on money and sign exchange, which is totalising. Non-western societies can create genuinely symbolic, durable cultures. But the western world-system, based on a logic of empire, is designed to create an integrated and sealed reality, to snap tight around the world and its image. If the first is indestructible and the second is irresistible, who can win and what will victory look like? The answer may lie in the capacity for violence in the world-system itself, threatening that system from within with the purest of symbolic forms, the challenge of resistance. The Intelligence of Evil or the Lucidity Pact is the summation of Baudrillard's work over twenty years. It is the essential analysis of the fundamental conflict of our time.

The field of political demography - the politics of population change - is dramatically underrepresented in political science. At a time when demographic changes - aging in the rich world, youth bulges in the developing world, ethnic and religious shifts, migration, and urbanization - are waxing as never before, this neglect is especially glaring and starkly contrasts with the enormous interest coming from policymakers and the media.
"Ten years ago, demography] was hardly on the radar screen," remarks Richard Jackson and Neil Howe of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, two contributors to this volume. "Today," they continue, "it dominates almost any discussion of America's long-term fiscal, economic, or foreign-policy direction."
Demography is the most predictable of the social sciences: children born in the last five years will be the new workers, voters, soldiers, and potential insurgents of 2025 and the political elites of the 2050s. Whether in the West or the developing world, political scientists urgently need to understand the tectonics of demography in order to grasp the full context of today's political developments. This book begins to fill the gap from a global and historical perspective and with the hope that scholars and policymakers will take its insights on board to develop enlightened policies for our collective future.

Technology and Touch addresses the development of a range of new touch technologies, both technologies that we reach out to touch (like iPhones and iPads) and technologies that touch us (such as new prosthetics, smart clothing and robots). Cranny-Francis explores how this development helps us to connect with and understand our world, and ourselves. This everyday practice, or biopolitics of touch, is exemplified in a range of art works that deploy touch and allow us to examine the nature of being and of meaning. Cranny-Francis also refers the biopolitics of touch to the study of new touch technologies, exploring their capacity to have us reflect on old fears and prejudices, as well as challenging our incorporation into technologies and networks that may be unethical or deeply compromised.

This four volume work, originally published in the 1980s and out of print for some years, represents a major attempt to redirect the course of contemporary sociological thought. Jeffrey Alexander analyses the most general and fundamental elements of sociological thinking about action and order and their ramifications for empirical study. He insists that sociological thought need not choose between voluntary action and social constraint. The four volumes can be read independently of one another as each presents a distinctive theoretical argument in its own right. The first volume is directed at contemporary problems and controversies, not only in 'theory' but in the philosophy and sociology of science. The last three volumes make interpretations, confronting the individual theorists, and the secondary literature, on their own terms.

This book discloses a largely unnoticed dialogue between Muslim and Western social thought on the search for meaning and transcendence in the human sciences. The disclosure is accomplished by a comparative reading of contemporary Muslim debates on secular knowledge on the one hand, and of a foundational Western debate on the demise of metaphysics in the human sciences on the other hand. The comparative reading is grounded in a dialogical hermeneutic approach; that is, a hermeneutic approach to texts and cultural traditions that draws upon the work of Hans Georg Gadamer and also upon the insights of inter-religious dialogue.

The overall aim of this book, an outcome of the European FP7 FET Open NESS project, is to contribute to the ongoing effort to put the quantitative social sciences on a proper footing for the 21st century. A key focus is economics, and its implications on policy making, where the still dominant traditional approach increasingly struggles to capture the economic realities we observe in the world today - with vested interests getting too often in the way of real advances. Insights into behavioral economics and modern computing techniques have made possible both the integration of larger information sets and the exploration of disequilibrium behavior. The domain-based chapters of this work illustrate how economic theory is the only branch of social sciences which still holds to its old paradigm of an equilibrium science - an assumption that has already been relaxed in all related fields of research in the light of recent advances in complex and dynamical systems theory and related data mining. The other chapters give various takes on policy and decision making in this context. Written in nontechnical style throughout, with a mix of tutorial and essay-like contributions, this book will benefit all researchers, scientists, professionals and practitioners interested in learning about the 'thinking in complexity' to understand how socio-economic systems really work.

Disasters are part of the modern condition, a source of physical anxiety and existential angst, and they are increasing in frequency, cost and severity. Drawing on both disaster research and social theory, this book offers a critical examination of their causes, consequences and future avoidance.

Welcome to Social Theory is exactly what students want: a lucid and engaging introduction to social theory that carefully uses images, examples and quotations to illustrate new ways of examining contemporary social life. Tom Brock's comprehensive and accessible style produces an indispensable guide to social theory that examine the major theoretical traditions from Marxism through to poststructuralism, and from feminism through to postcolonial theory, new materialism and posthumanism. Welcome to Social Theory gives careful appraisal of classical ideas and debates in social theory and traces their impact on major contemporary theorists - including Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, Margaret Archer, Judith Butler, bell hooks, Kimberle Crenshaw, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Bruno Latour, Gilles Deleuze and Rosi Braidotti. Social theory matters and this book shows why through relevant and compelling examples, including the gig economy, everyday sexism, digital black feminism, animal and environmental activism, stigma and discrimination against migrants, the need to decolonise the sociology curriculum and many more. Chapters include boxed case studies, summaries, review questions, further reading and a glossary to help embed learning. Welcome to Social theory is an indispensable text for undergraduate students who are new to social theory. Dr. Tom Brock is a Senior Lecturer of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Since the legalisation of off-course cash betting in 1960, and the rise of varying forms of gambling, the British have come to be known as a nation of gamblers. Until this study was published in 1976, barely any evidence existed against which to assess the claim that gambling had become a major social problem. The authors present data drawn from area surveys carried out in Swansea, Sheffield, Wanstead and Woodford, and explore how well previous sociological theories of gambling agree with their findings, particular in connection with certain aspects of work and leisure. Examining different forms of gambling, including betting, bingo and gaming machines, the chapters consider how gambling choices vary between different social groups, and how much time and money is spent on them. With the internet making it easier than ever before to place bets, this title is especially relevant, and provides a systematic basis for an explanation of gambling in relation to social structure.

This festschrift commemorates the legacy of UK-based Portuguese sociologist Herminio Martins (1934-2015). It introduces Martins' wide-ranging contributions to the social sciences, encompassing seminal works in the fields of philosophy and social theory, historical and political sociology, studies of science and technology, and Luso-Brazilian studies, among others. The book features an in-depth interview with Martins, short memoirs, and twelve chapters addressing topics that were central to his intellectual and political interests. Among those that stand out are his critique of Thomas Kuhn's theory of scientific revolutions, his work on the significance of time in social theory and the interweaving of techno-scientific developments and socio-cultural transformations, including the impact of communication and digital technologies, and of market-led eugenics. Other themes covered are Martins' work on patrimonialism and social development in Portugal and Brazil, and his analysis of the state of the social sciences in Portugal, which reflects his highly critical appraisal of the ongoing marketization andneoliberalization of academic life and institutions worldwide.

On April 1, 1946, shortly after sunrise, the town of Hilo on the island of Hawai'i was devastated by a series of giant waves. Traveling 2,300 miles from the Aleutian Islands in less than five hours, the waves struck without warning and claimed 159 lives. Fourteen years later, on May 22, 1960, a massive earthquake occurred off of the coast of Chile. The earthquake generated giant waves that sped across the Pacific at 442 miles per hour, reaching Hilo in just fifteen hours. The first wave to hit the town was a modest four feet higher than normal, the second nine feet. Before the third wave could arrive, a tidal phenomenon known as a bore smashed into the Hilo bayfront, with thirty-five foot waves that wrenched buildings off their foundations. That day several city blocks were swept clean of all structures and 61 people died. The first edition of Tsunami!, published in 1988, provided readers with a complete examination of the tsunami phenomenon in Hawai'i. This second edition adds many eyewitness accounts of the tsunamis of 1946 and 1960 and expands its coverage to include major tsunamis in the Mediterranean and off the coasts of Japan, Chile, Indonesia, Fiji, Alaska, California, Newfoundland, and the Caribbean, as well as the 1998 devastation in Papua New Guinea. Dramatic photographs and accounts of experiencing a tsunami firsthand are placed within the framework of the how and why of tsunamis, our scientific understanding of these phenomena, and the current status of the Tsunami Warning System, which is widely used to forecast and measure tsunamis and prepare coastal areas for potentially deadly tsunami strikes.

This book, first published in 1973, explores the manner in which conceptions of deviancy arise and shows how the attitudes of non-deviants, of society and of authority, are as instrumental in forming these conceptions as the actions of the deviants themselves. Chapters include discussions on the definition of deviants and deviancy and the enforcement of the law, alongside a detailed introduction. This title will be of particular value to students and scholars with an interest in criminology and the sociology and psychology of deviancy.

An outstanding feature of this book is the broad range of the contributors, drawn from Europe, the Middle East and North America, testifying both to the range of Professor Agassi's interests and the geographical spread of his influence. Most contributors use Agassi's ideas as a springboard to engage in debate on issues, or offer a contribution in an area that interests him. In this volume contributors consider such questions as Agassi's philosophy of education, in practice as well as in theory; the impact of psychologism in philosophy; the origins of critical rationalism in the Bible; the debates in economics stimulated by the work of Popper and Agassi, and many other topics. Besides the special topics, the reader gains some sense of the fruitfulness of critical rationalism in the hands of Agassi's friends and colleagues.

This book considers the experience of enchantment in art. Considering the essential characteristics, dynamics and conditions of the experience of enchantment in relation to art, including liminality, it offers studies of different kinds of artistic experience and activity, including painting, music, fiction and poetry, before exploring the possibility of a life oriented to enchantment as the activity of art itself. With attention to the complex relationship between wonder in art and the programmatic disenchantment to which it is often subject, the author draws on the thought of a diverse range of philosophers, sociological theorists and artists, to offer an understanding of art through the idea of enchantment, and enchantment through art. An accessible study, richly illustrated with experience - both that of the author and others - Art and Enchantment will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, anthropology, philosophy, and anyone with interests in the nature of aesthetic experience.

First Published in 1988, this volume works towards a new understanding and exploration of the rise and development of modern society, taking its lead from two classical theorists, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber. The key concept of this approach is the 'interpenetration' of different spheres of action. Richard Munch begins with an exploration of the points of convergence and divergence in the works of Durkheim and Weber. He then builds, from Durkheim, a new theory of social order as a complex set of ordering, dynamizing, identity-producing and goal-setting factors. Munch also constructs a new theory of personality development, based on Durkheim's view of the duality of human nature. He concludes by assessing weber's contribution to our understanding of how modern social order emerged, showing that the unique features of modern society emerged from the 'interpenetration' of cultural, political, communal and economic spheres in action.

Originally published in 1915, this pioneer study has long occupied an important place in the literature of sociology. An exercise in the statistical correlation of the economic and social institutions of the working classes of the early twentieth century, the book is an important link between contemporary sociology, with a focus on the problems of social development, and the classical social liberalism on which L. T. Hobhouse left his mark. The reissue includes the introduction written by Morris Ginsberg in the 1965 reprint, where he explains what he and his colleagues set out to achieve and responds to the criticism faced by the study. This is a classic work which is still of great value to sociologists and anthropologists today.