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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.
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