The human body is not a given fact; it is not, as Descartes believed, a "machine made up of flesh and bones." The body is acquired, achieved, and learned. It is thus full of mimetic and mnemonic implications. The body remembers, and it does so in collectively relevant ways. Gestures, corporeal and phonetic rhythms, affective idioms, and emotional styles - perceptual, sensorial, motoric, and affective schemata - are all largely learned in shared social contexts. These aspects of the embodied experience are often consigned to habit, to bodily automatisms, and to corporeal memories that reflect aspects of culture. But if the body reflects certain aspects of culture that press to become naturalized and organically attached to social actors, it also resists these kinds of cultural pressures. These adaptive and resistive dynamics, as this book shows, are not without consequences for individuals and groups. These processes can result in both advantages and disadvantages for social actors. They can take us toward certain futures while foreclosing others. It is therefore necessary to understand how, why, and to what extent corporeal memories are constructed but also resisted, modified, or created anew.

Reading the World: An Introduction to Sociological Critique and Analysis helps students see that the normal, familiar aspects of their everyday life frequently have unexpected and even startling dimensions. Students learn to uncover layers of meaning that are hard to spontaneously perceive in things, behaviors, and events in the world around them. The book helps readers understand how and why the familiar can be deceptive. It shows that the sciences, sociology included, help us see things otherwise blurred by our own habits of thought, obscured by unexamined mental routines that limit what we can perceive, think, and imagine. The text also helps students understand how individuals and societies develop a sense of curiosity about the way the world works, and a related readiness for the new, the unexpected, and the strange. It shows that this kind of reflective attitude has changed history, liberated us from our own unexamined perceptions, and bettered the human experience. Reading the World is designed for courses in the social sciences, particularly those that emphasize social constructionism as well as critique and analysis of ideology, including introductory courses in sociology, social psychology, and social theory. The second edition features expanded content and more robust discussions of key topics throughout. It has been revised, updated, and reorganized to present the information in 13 chapters rather than 16.