1,720,975 research outputs found
The Sociology of Conventions and Testing
No full textJörg Potthast (2017) In: Claudio E. Benzecry, Monika Krause, and Isaac Ariail Reed (eds.), Social theory now. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 359-384. EXTRACT "How does justification work? Consider a quarrel over train seats unfolding between a father accompanied by two small children and passengers holding reservations (Thévenot 2006, 23ff.). Are they right to blame him for an act of “occupation”? Does it make a difference when one of the children is sleeping? Or is it inadequate ..
Resenha analítica
No full textIsaac Ariail Reed, professor de Sociologia na Universidade da Virgínia, debruça-se sobre desafios enfrentados na definição e análise da cultura a partir da sociologia cultural, incluindo suas interações complexas com o comportamento humano e com a economia, no capítulo "On the Very Idea of Cultural Sociology" da obra "Social Theory Now". Reed distingue cultura de economia e indivíduos, discutindo a mediação cultural e a importância das interpretações de significados na vida social e na compreensão das desigualdades
Power and the French Revolution: Toward a Sociology of Sovereignty
No full textIn what sense was the French Revolution exceptional – a moment of potential liberation both unique and uncertain? “Exceptionality” has a specific meaning in political philosophy, and, using this meaning as a departure point, this paper develops a specifically sociological typology of states of exception – enunciative, reciprocal, and structural – grounded in a Hegelian sociology of power. The schema is useful for parsing and interpreting several of Robespierre’s most important speeches during the Revolution. This analysis leads to retheorization of modernity in the French Revolution, with specific attention to the interpretation, in Paris, of the revolution in Saint Domingue
Deep culture in action: resignification, synecdoche, and metanarrative in the moral panic of the Salem Witch Trials
No full textMaximal Interpretation in Clifford Geertz and the Strong Program in Cultural Sociology: Toward a New Epistemology
No full text
Cultural Sociology as Research Program: Post-Positivism, Meaning, and Causality
No full textThis article examines cultural sociology as a research program from an epistemological standpoint within the larger context of “post-positivist” social science. It first outlines an understanding of what sociological knowledge is and does before discussing the problematic status of cultural interpretations, with particular emphasis on the distinction between minimal and maximal interpretations. A minimal interpretation is a report upon some social actions that happened, whereas a maximal interpretation is a synthesis of abstract theoretical terms with one or more minimal interpretations. The article proceeds with an analysis of post-positivism and the debate over maximal interpretations and concludes by exploring three presuppositions that describe how the cultural sociologist is able to make explanatory knowledge claims about social life: reasons are causes; cultural theory is nominalist; and the sociohistorical world is metaphysically pluralist.</p
Chains of Power and Their Representation
No full textPower is the ability to send and bind someone else to act on one’s behalf, a relation that depends upon habits of interpretation. For persons attempting to complete projects, power involves communicating with, recruiting, and controlling subordinates and confronting those who are not in such a relationship of recruitment. This leads to a basic theoretical vocabulary about power players and their projects—a model of rector, actor, and other. As multiple relations of sending and binding become mutually implicated, chains of power—understood as simultaneously social and symbolic—emerge. The vocabulary presented for analyzing power is developed with reference to a series of instances, including the exploitation of labor and police violence. Finally, the paper analyzes a case study of an imperial encounter on the American frontier and examines therein a shift in how political power was represented, with implications for the sociology of transitions to modernity.</jats:p
- …
