Summary: | This book examines the independent debates and modes of thought that have developed in the field of cultural sociology. It describes a variety of pathways for engaging in cultural sociology, all of which offer a template for elucidating the ways that meaning shapes social life. It offers an account of the origins of cultural sociology and how it has grown into the maturity it enjoys today, focusing on the so-called "cultural turn"-an epochal transformation in the human sciences-and the need to reflect on what could be learned from adjacent disciplines about cultural analysis. It also explores the major differences and disagreements between a "cultural sociology" and a "sociology of culture," the impact of cultural sociology on other academic disciplines of inquiry, the tensions within the field, and a cultural sociological approach to power and solidarity
|