ABSTRACT

A collection of original essays advancing the study of culture from a sociological perspective. Exploring and extending recent studies of culture with both qualitative and quantitative analysis, this book focuses on the ways in which contemporary cultural products function as vocabularies of public life. The contributors cover a wide range of topics; these include the symbolic structure of religion, science and the arts. The book is unified with a common concern - the concrete manifestations of culture and the importance of understanding its internal structure. This book should be of interest to students and lecturers in the sociology of culture, religion and the arts.

chapter |16 pages

Introduction

New directions in the empirical study of cultural codes

part |91 pages

Vocabularies of Conviction: The Symbolic Construction of Religious and Scientific Discourse

chapter |20 pages

The restriction of meaning in religious discourse

Centripetal devices in a fundamentalist Christian sermon

chapter |18 pages

The gospel of giving

The narrative construction of a sacrificial economy

chapter |18 pages

When scientists saw ghosts and why they stopped

American spiritualism in history

part |73 pages

Vocabularies of Expression: Decoding the Symbolic Structure of Music, Art, and Dance

chapter |19 pages

Putting it together

Measuring the syntax of aural and visual symbols

part |80 pages

Vocabularies of Persuasion: Rationality, Rhetoric, and Social Reality in Policy, Legal, and Public Discourse

chapter |22 pages

Metaphors of industrial rationality

The social construction of electronics policy in the United States and France