ABSTRACT

Culture has become a touchstone of interdisciplinary conversation. For readers interested in sociology, the social sciences and the humanities, this book maps major classical and contemporary analyses and cultural controversies in relation to social processes, everyday life, and axes of ordering and difference - such as race, class and gender. Hall, Neitz, and Battani discuss:

  • self and identity
  • stratification
  • the Other
  • the cultural histories of modernity and postmodernity
  • production of culture
  • the problem of the audience
  • action, social movements, and change. 

The authors advocate cultivating the sociological imagination by engaging myriad languages and perspectives of the social sciences and humanities, while cultivating cultural studies by developing the sociological imagination.  Paying little respect to boundaries, and incorporating fascinating examples, this book draws on diverse intellectual perspectives and a variety of topics from various historical periods and regions of the world.

chapter 1|15 pages

Introduction

part 1|50 pages

Culture and society

chapter 2|24 pages

Culture, self, and society

chapter 3|24 pages

Social Stratification and Culture

part 2|97 pages

Cultural structurations and modernity

chapter 4|24 pages

Cultural Constructions of “the Other”

chapter 6|22 pages

Industrialism and Mass Culture

chapter 7|24 pages

Deconstructing the Postmodern

part 3|95 pages

Cultural forms, processes, and change

chapter 8|23 pages

Power and Culture

chapter 9|24 pages

The Production of Culture

chapter 10|22 pages

Cultural Objects, Audiences, and Meaning

chapter 11|24 pages

Culture, Action, and Change