Social Theory Roots and Branches

by Kivisto, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780199937127
• ISBN10: 0199937125
• Edition: 5th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-11-15
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Edited by Peter Kivisto, this acclaimed collection of accessible primary source readings enables students to experience "firsthand" a wide range of perspectives that are shaping current sociological theory. Now in its fifth edition,Social Theory: Roots and Branchescovers both classical theory (the roots) and contemporary theory (the branches) and shows how they are linked. Part One features work from such well-known classical theorists as Marx, Durkheim, Weber, and Simmel. It also presents selections by theorists outside of the discipline and from writers who are often overlooked in competing collections, including W. E. B. Du Bois, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and Harriet Martineau. Part Two offers readings that illustrate major contemporary theoretical approaches, ending with a section on cutting-edge directions in theoretical discourse. Now featuring a revised and expanded introductory chapter, this fifth edition offers seventeen new readings, including eight by theorists who are new to this collection.

Author Biography

Peter Kivisto is Richard A. Swanson Professor of Social Thought and Chair of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Welfare at Augustana College and the Finland Distinguished Professor at the University of Turku, Finland.

Table of Contents

* = New to this edition

Preface
Social Theory: Classical Foundations and Contemporary Developments, Peter Kivisto

Part One: The Roots-Classical Social Theory

I. Karl Marx
1. Alienated Labor
2. The German Ideology (with Friedrich Engels)
3. Manifesto of the Communist Party (with Friedrich Engels)
4. Commodities
5. The General Formula for Capital

II. Émile Durkheim
6. On Mechanical and Organic Solidarity
7. What Is a Social Fact?
8. Anomic Suicide
* 9. Note on the Notion of Civilization (with Marcel Mauss)
Durkheim and Mauss make a case for a level of sociological analysis that operates at the civilizational level and takes into account intercivilizational encounters.
10. The Human Meaning of Religion

III. Max Weber
11. "Objectivity" in Social Science and Social Policy
12. The Spirit of Capitalism
13. Bureaucracy
14. The Sociology of Charismatic Authority
15. Class, Status, Party

IV. Georg Simmel
16. Fashion
* 17. The Adventurer
The adventurer is the social type that seeks to exit from the routinized and rationalized world of everyday life, not temporarily--as is the case with most people--but be seeking to create a life that is in its totality an adventure.
* 18. The Metropolis and Mental Life
Modern industrial society is seen most starkly in urban settings, and in this classic essay Simmel links the themes of interdependency and rationalization specifically to metropolitan spaces.
19. The Stranger
20. The Philosophy of Money

V. Other Foundational Voices
* 21. On Marriage, Harriet Martineau
Martineau surveys the institution of marriage cross-culturally, and notes that everywhere women are treated unequally, seen most starkly in their limited occupational opportunities.
* 22. On Individualism, Alexis de Tocqueville
Making use of the recently coined term "individualism," Tocqueville locates this phenomenon in relation to democratic societies, depicting America as the lead society in this regard.
23. The Conservation of the Races, W.E.B. DuBois
24. The Dependence of Women, Charlotte Perkins Gilman
* 25. Conspicuous Consumption, Thorstein Veblen
Veblen's skills as an acerbic social critic are on display in his discussion of "conspicuous consumption," which he depicts as a characteristic means by which the leisure class makes status claims.
26. Utilization of Women in City Government, Jane Addams
* 27. Social and Individual Aspects of Mind, Charles Horton Cooley
Cooley takes issue with the Cartesian claim, "I think, hence I am," countering it by advancing the idea that self and society are intricately intertwined.

VI. Voices Outside the Discipline
28. The Madman, Friedrich Nietzsche
29. What Pragmatism Needs, William James
30. The Eclipse of the Public, John Dewey
31. Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud
32. The Fusion of the "I" and the "Me" in Social Activities, George Herbert Mead

Part Two: The Branches-Contemporary Social Theory

VII. Functionalism and Systems Theory
33. The Unanticipated Consequences of Social Action, Robert K. Merton
34. The Subsystems of Society, Talcott Parsons
35. The Functions of Social Conflict, Lewis Coser
36. Functional Differentiation, Niklas Luhmann

VIII. Conflict Theories
37. Culture and Politics, C. Wright Mills
38. Conflict Groups and Group Conflicts, Ralf Dahrendorf
39. The Basics of Conflict Theory, Randall Collins
* 40. War Making and State Making as Organized Crime, Charles Tilly
As the title suggests, Tilly draws a parallel between the way that nation
states and organized crime syndicates function, both creating protection
rackets to enhance their own positions.

IX. Symbolic Interaction, Phenomenology, and Ethnomethodology
41. Society as Symbolic Interaction, Herbert Blumer
42. Performances, Erving Goffman
43. Indirect Social Relationships, Alfred Schutz
44. Rules of Conversational Sequence, Harvey Sacks
45. Studies of the Routine Grounds of Everyday Activities, Harold Garfinkel

X. Exchange Theory and Rational Choice Theory
46. Social Behavior as Exchange, George Homans
47. Power-Dependence Relations, Richard M. Emerson
48. Human Capital and Social Capital, James S. Coleman
* 49. The Emergence of Cooperative Social Institutions, Michael Hechter
From a rational choice perspective, Hechter offers an account of how cooperative social institutions arise, in the process addressing the steps they can take to remedy the free rider problem.
50. Formulation of Exchange Theory, Peter Blau

XI. Feminist Theory
51. Doing Gender, Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman
* 52. Difference and Dominance: On Sex Discrimination, Catharine MacKinnon
MacKinnon takes issue with what she calls the sameness/difference theory of sex inequality and then sketches out her alternative dominance approach.
53. Toward an Afrocentric Feminist Epistemology, Patricia Hill Collins
54. Sociology from Women's Experience: A Reaffirmation, Dorothy E. Smith
55. Femininity and Masculinity, Raewyn Connell

XII. Theories of Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism
56. The Theoretical Status of the Concept of Race, Michael Omi and Howard Winant
57. Between Camps: Race and Culture in Postmodernity, Paul Gilroy
* 58. The Rise and Fall of Multiculturalism, Will Kymlicka
Responding to critics who have concluded that multiculturalism has failed and is on the wane, Kymlicka offers a concise account of what multiculturalism actually is before indicating how the critics are off the mark.
59. Ethnicity without Groups, Rogers Brubaker
60. Nationalism and the Cultures of Democracy, Craig Calhoun

XIII. Critical Theory
61. Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin
62. One-Dimensional Man, Herbert Marcuse
63. Traditional and Critical Theory, Max Horkheimer
64. Three Normative Models of Democracy, Jürgen Habermas
65. Personal Identity and Disrespect, Axel Honneth

XIV. Contemporary Theories of Modernity
66. Shame and Repugnance, Norbert Elias
67. Spectacular Time, Guy Debord
68. The Reflexivity of Modernity, Anthony Giddens
69. Redistribution, Bruno Latour
* 70. The Politicization of Life, Giorgio Agamben
Modern politics, Agamben contends, is increasingly defined in terms of bare life, to bodies subject to various technologies of power in contrast to political beings defined as citizens.

XV. Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and Postmodernity
71. The Correspondence between Goods Production and Taste Production, Pierre Bourdieu
72. Advertising, Jean Baudrillard
73. Panopticism, Michel Foucault
74. On Living in a Liquid Modern World, Zygmunt Bauman
* 75. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Jean-François Lyotard
Lyotard's classic statement on postmodernity links this cultural shift to the economic shift resulting in postindustrial societies, going on to argue that postmodern culture undermines totalizing accounts of social change.

XVI. World Systems and Globalization Theory
76. The Three Instances of Hegemony in the History of the Capitalist World-Economy, Immanuel Wallerstein
* 77. The Cosmopolitan Condition: Why Methodological Nationalism Fails, Ulrich Beck
Taking aim at methodological nationalism, Beck seeks to link a cosmopolitan alternative to both modernity and globalization.
78. Disjunction and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy, Arjun Appadurai
79. Theorizing Globalization, Douglas Kellner

XVII. Further New Directions in Contemporary Social Theory
80. The Subject and Societal Movements, Alain Touraine
* 81. Real Civil Societies: Dilemmas of Institutionalization, Jeffrey C. Alexander
Alexander distinguishes three different versions of civil society theory, with the third representing his own position. Central to his version, the civil sphere is the social space wherein solidarity and justice are promoted.
82. Interaction Ritual Theory, Randall Collins
* 83. Queer-ing Sociology, Sociologizing Queer Theory, Steven Seidman
A key proponent of queer theory, Seidman makes use of Foucault's work on sexuality in his attempt to bring queer theory and sociology into mutually rewarding contact.
84. Materials for an Exploratory Theory of the Network Society, Manuel Castells
85. Mobile Sociology, John Urry