ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book shows that sociology needs to move beyond the study of society as a set of bounded institutions. It focuses on the social imaginary dimensions of practical action, a creative medium through which social power is produced and history reproduced. The book examines a series of attempts to develop a multidimensional social theory and explores new sociological imaginings. It focuses on contemporary thinkers or numerous new sociologies proposing alternative cultural visions as well as programmatic suggestions for engagement with the clash of private and public turmoils of postmodern society. The book traces interventions in contemporary social thought by prominent sociologists, philosophers, psychoanalysts, and the like, as well as detailing key social-theoretical issues as analyzed from poststructuralist interpretative strategies and in feminist and postmodernist discourse.
