Author: Michel Freitag
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000756084
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
From Society to System presents sociologist Michel Freitag’s (1935-2009) distinctive, multifaceted and interdisciplinary work. Elaborated within the grand sociological tradition, his dialectical sociology redefines sociality as the realm of the symbolic to pinpoint its ontological frailty. Such a perspective expands the borders within sociology to rejoin classical philosophical preoccupations, revisiting social ontology as a radical critique of contemporary society where not only life and planet earth is at stake as a result of capitalism but reflexivity as well. This collection of essays touches on topics that have been of central concern for social theory since the end of the 20th century: the discussion about holism versus individualism and the dissolution of transcendental identity; the current state of the social sciences, both epistemologically and practically; the end-of-20th century debate over the nature of society along with its future in the context of globalisation. These essays show how Freitag’s sociology is part of a larger unified framework that integrates ontology, epistemology, anthropology and philosophy into a coherent vision of the world – testifying to the distinctiveness of Freitag’s social theory, standing next to other great social theorists such as Margaret Archer, Jürgen Habermas, Murray Bookchin and Ulrich Beck.
Author: Alejandro Colas
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520965523
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287
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Book Description
Food and drink has been a focal point of modern social theory since the inception of agrarian capitalism and the industrial revolution. From Adam Smith to Mary Douglas, major thinkers have used key concepts such as identity, exchange, culture, and class to explain the modern food system. Food, Politics, and Society offers a historical and sociological survey of how these various ideas and the practices that accompany them have shaped our understanding and organization of the production, processing, preparation, serving, and consumption of food and drink in modern societies. Divided into twelve chapters and drawing on a wide range of historical and empirical illustrations, this book provides a concise, informed, and accessible survey of the interaction between social theory and food and drink. It is perfect for courses in a wide range of disciplines.
Author: Stephen F. Cotgrove
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780043000540
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316
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Book Description
Author: Daniel Rigney
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 1461644801
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 254
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Book Description
This book introduces the novice reader to modern social theory through the creative exploration of eight major metaphors that have shaped Western understandings of human society. Rigney vividly yet concisely examines each major theoretical perspective in sociology, including functionalism, conflict theory, rational choice, and symbolic interactionism. He shows how each of these theories is rooted in a particular metaphorical tradition. Over decades and centuries, Rigney argues, social theorists have variously likened societies to organisms and living systems, to machines, battlefields, legal systems, marketplaces, games, theatrical productions, and discourses. Most interestingly, Rigney deftly shows how nearly all Western social theories fit with one or more of the metaphors. He emphasizes a humanistic understanding of society with an emphasis on the creative agency of social actors and communities. The book offers students a rich understanding of social theory, yet it is simultaneously concise and broad ranging, allowing instructors to further pursue detailed exploration of any perspectives they choose.
Author: Thomas B. Whalen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351717766
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296
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Book Description
This book develops and presents a general social theory explaining social, cultural and economic ontology and, as a by-product, the ontology of other social institutions and structures. This theory is called social transaction theory. Using the framework of the complex adaptive systems model, this transdisciplinary social theory proposes that society, culture and economy are emergent from social and environmental transaction and negotiation. Each transaction contains an element of negotiation. With each transaction, there is continual renegotiation, however small or large. Even if the result is no change, renegotiation takes place. Thus, there is a constant emergence of social constructions and a continuous reconstruction of society in the ‘specious present.’ Practices, beliefs, explanations, and traditions become part of the accepted canon of a group through continual social transaction. Deviations from canon and expected outcomes are managed through narrative. Narrative can be either rejected or accepted into the social canon of a group or society. This social theory applied Bhaskar’s critical realism to refine the several theoretical works that were utilized. These include complex adaptive systems, Mead’s social theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Strauss’s negotiated order theory, game theory, Bruner’s narrative and folk psychology, Giddens's structuration theory and Ricoeur’s interpretation theory. A transdisciplinary account of the emergence of society and culture and the role of narrative, Complexity, Society and Social Transactions will appeal to scholars and practitioners of social theory and sociology.
Author: Bryan S Turner
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1446245500
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 298
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Book Description
"This truly deserves to be considered a classic and I strongly encourage my students to read it from cover to cover. Turner′s work on the body needs to be considered in its own right within courses on the sociology of the body." - Dr Robert Meadows, Surrey University "Remains the foundational text for courses in the sociology of the body, replete with insights and a depth of analysis that has largely inspired an entire new area of studies across the social sciences." - Dr Michael Drake, Hull University "This is THE contemporary text for both academics and students exploring the sociology of the body." - Jessica Clark, University Campus Suffolk This is a fully revised edition of a book that may fairly claim to have re-opened the sociology of the body as a legitimate area of enquiry. Providing an unparalleled guide to all aspects of the subject, each chapter has been revised and updated while the book contains new material that reflects both recent changes in the field and Turner′s developing position on the centrality of vulnerability. Assured and innovative, this book provides the most authoritative statement of work on the sociology of the body by one of the leading writers in the field.
Author: Niklas Luhmann
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 9780804771597
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
This second volume of Niklas Luhmann's two-part final work was first published in German in 1997. The culmination of his thirty-year theoretical project to reconceptualize sociology, it offers a comprehensive description of modern society. Beginning with an account of the fluidity of meaning and the accordingly high improbability of successful communication, Luhmann analyzes a range of communicative media, including language, writing, the printing press, and electronic media, as well as "success media," such as money, power, truth, and love, all of which structure this fluidity and make communication possible. The book asks what gives rise to functionally differentiated social systems, how they evolve, and how social movements, organizations, and patterns of interaction emerge. The advent of the computer and its networks, which triggered potentially far-reaching processes of restructuring, receives particular attention. A concluding chapter on the semantics of modern society's self-description bids farewell to the outdated theoretical approaches of "old Europe"—that is, to ontological, holistic, ethical, and critical interpretations of society—and argues that concepts such as "the nation," "the subject," and "postmodernity" are vastly overrated. In their stead, "society"—long considered a suspicious term by sociologists, one open to all kinds of reification—is defined in purely operational terms. It is the always uncertain answer to the question of what comes next in all areas of communication.
Author: Harry F. Dahms
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
ISBN: 1802622438
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 276
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Book Description
Society in Flux: Two Centuries of Social Theory traces how modern tensions and modes of analyzing them have changed over the course of the last 200 years or so, through three modes of theorizing: critical theory, classical theory, and systems theory.
Author: Christian Fuchs
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135898820
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 406
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Book Description
By outlining a social theory of the internet and the information society, this book demonstrates how the ecological, economic, political and cultural systems of contemporary society have been transformed by new information and communication technologies.
Author: Tadeusz Marek
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1466572868
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 1182
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Book Description
During the last 60 years the discipline of human factors (HF) has evolved alongside progress in engineering, technology, and business. Contemporary HF is clearly shifting towards addressing the human-centered design paradigm for much larger and complex societal systems, the effectiveness of which is affected by recent advances in engineering, science, and education. Human Factors of a Global Society: A System of Systems Perspective explores the future challenges and potential contributions of the human factors discipline in the Conceptual Age of human creativity and social responsibility. Written by a team of experts and pioneers, this book examines the human aspects related to contemporary societal developments in science, engineering, and higher education in the context of unprecedented progress in those areas. It also discusses new paradigms for higher education, including education delivery, and administration from a systems of systems perspective. It then examines the future challenges and potential contributions of the human factors discipline. While there are other books that focus on systems engineering or on a specific area of human factors, this book unifies these different perspectives into a holistic point of view. It gives you an understanding of human factors as it relates to the global enterprise system and its newly emerging characteristics such as quality, system complexity, evolving management system and its role in social and behavioral changes. By exploring the human aspects related to actual societal developments in science, the book opens a new horizon for the HF community.
