The Meanings of Social Life

A Cultural Sociology
Erscheinungsjahr 2005
ISBN: 978-0-19-530640-8
Verlag: Oxford University Press

Buch, Englisch, 312 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 474 g

In The Meanings of Social Life, Jeffrey Alexander presents a new approach to how culture works in contemporary societies. Exposing our everyday myths and narratives in a series of empirical studies that range from Watergate to the Holocaust, he shows how these unseen yet potent cultural structures translate into concrete actions and institutions. Only when these deep patterns of meaning are revealed, Alexander argues, can we understand the stubborn staying power of violence and degradation, but also the steady persistence of hope. By understanding the darker structures that restrict our imagination, we can seek to transform them. By recognizing the culture structures that sustain hope, we can allow our idealistic imaginations to gain more traction in the world. A work that will transform the way that sociologists think about culture and the social world, this book confirms Jeffrey Alexander's reputation as one of the major social theorists of our day.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Alexander, Jeffrey C.

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Religionsethnologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Politische Ethnologie, Recht, Organisation, Identität
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Materielle Kultur, Wirtschaftsethnologie
• Sozialwissenschaften Psychologie Allgemeine Psychologie Sozialpsychologie Kulturpsychologie, Ethnopsychologie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaft und Gesellschaft | Kulturwissenschaften Kulturwissenschaften
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Kultur- und Sozialethnologie: Allgemeines
• Sozialwissenschaften Ethnologie | Volkskunde Ethnologie Umwelt und Kultur, Kulturökologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction: The Meanings of (Social) Life: On the Origins of a Cultural Sociology

- 1: The Strong Program in Cultural Sociology: Elements of a Structural Hermeneutics (with Phillip Smith)

- 2: On the Social Construction of Moral Universals: The "Holocaust" from War Crime to Trauma Drama

- 3: Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity

- 4: A Cultural Sociology of Evil

- 5: The Discourse of American Civil Society (with Phillip Smith)

- 6: Watergate as Democratic Ritual

- 7: The Sacred and Profane Information Machine

- 8: Modern, Anti, Post, and Neo: How Intellectuals Explain "Our Time"

- Notes

- References

- Index

Über Autor(innen)

Jeffrey C. Alexander is Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology at Yale University, and co-Director of the Center for Cultural Sociology.