Talk of love surrounds us, and romance is a constant concern of popular culture. Ann Swidler's Talk of Love is an attempt to discover how people find and sustain real love in the midst of that talk, and how that culture of love shapes their expectations and behavior in the process. To this end, Swidler conducted extensive interviews with Middle Americans and wound up offering us something more than an insightful exploration of love: Talk of Love is also a compelling study of how much culture affects even the most personal of our everyday experiences.
THE GOOD SOCIETY examines how many of our institutions- from the family to the government itself- fell from grace, and offers concrete proposals for revitalizing them.
In the wake of the AIDS pandemic, legions of organizations and compassionate individuals from faraway places descended on Africa to offer help and save lives. Ann Swidler and Susan Cotts Watkins vividly describe the often mismatched expectations and fantasies of altruists who dream of transforming lives, of the villagers who desperately seek help, and of the brokers on whom both Western altruists and impoverished villagers must rely. Based on years of fieldwork in the heavily AIDS-affected country of Malawi, this incisive, irreverent book digs into the sprawling AIDS enterprise and unravels the paradoxes of policy and practice. All who want to do good—from idealistic volunteers to world-weary development professionals—depend on brokers as guides, fixers, and cultural translators. The mutual misunderstandings among these players create all the drama of a romance: longing, exhilaration, disappointment, heartache, and sometimes an enduring connection. A Fraught Embrace unveils the tangled relations of those involved in the collective struggle to contain an epidemic.
As debate rages over the widening and destructive gap between the rich and the rest of Americans, Claude Fischer and his colleagues present a comprehensive new treatment of inequality in America. They challenge arguments that expanding inequality is the natural, perhaps necessary, accompaniment of economic growth. They refute the claims of the incendiary bestseller The Bell Curve (1994) through a clear, rigorous re-analysis of the very data its authors, Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, used to contend that inherited differences in intelligence explain inequality. Inequality by Design offers a powerful alternative explanation, stressing that economic fortune depends more on social circumstances than on IQ, which is itself a product of society. More critical yet, patterns of inequality must be explained by looking beyond the attributes of individuals to the structure of society. Social policies set the "rules of the game" within which individual abilities and efforts matter. And recent policies have, on the whole, widened the gap between the rich and the rest of Americans since the 1970s. Not only does the wealth of individuals' parents shape their chances for a good life, so do national policies ranging from labor laws to investments in education to tax deductions. The authors explore the ways that America--the most economically unequal society in the industrialized world--unevenly distributes rewards through regulation of the market, taxes, and government spending. It attacks the myth that inequality fosters economic growth, that reducing economic inequality requires enormous welfare expenditures, and that there is little we can do to alter the extent of inequality. It also attacks the injurious myth of innate racial inequality, presenting powerful evidence that racial differences in achievement are the consequences, not the causes, of social inequality. By refusing to blame inequality on an unchangeable human nature and an inexorable market--an excuse that leads to resignation and passivity--Inequality by Design shows how we can advance policies that widen opportunity for all.
First published in 1985, Habits of the Heart continues to be one of the most discussed interpretations of modern American society, a quest for a democratic community that draws on our diverse civic and religious traditions. In a new preface the authors relate the arguments of the book both to the current realities of American society and to the growing debate about the country's future. With this new edition one of the most influential books of recent times takes on a new immediacy.
First published in 1985, Habits of the Heart continues to be one of the most discussed interpretations of modern American society, a quest for a democratic community that draws on our diverse civic and religious traditions. In a new preface the authors relate the arguments of the book both to the current realities of American society and to the growing debate about the country's future. With this new edition one of the most influential books of recent times takes on a new immediacy.
In the wake of the AIDS pandemic, legions of organizations and compassionate individuals from faraway places descended on Africa to offer help and save lives. Ann Swidler and Susan Cotts Watkins vividly describe the often mismatched expectations and fantasies of altruists who dream of transforming lives, of the villagers who desperately seek help, and of the brokers on whom both Western altruists and impoverished villagers must rely. Based on years of fieldwork in the heavily AIDS-affected country of Malawi, this incisive, irreverent book digs into the sprawling AIDS enterprise and unravels the paradoxes of policy and practice. All who want to do good—from idealistic volunteers to world-weary development professionals—depend on brokers as guides, fixers, and cultural translators. The mutual misunderstandings among these players create all the drama of a romance: longing, exhilaration, disappointment, heartache, and sometimes an enduring connection. A Fraught Embrace unveils the tangled relations of those involved in the collective struggle to contain an epidemic.
Genealogies of Emotions, Intimacies and Desire excavates epistemologies which attempt to explain changes in emotional regimes from medieval society to late modernity. Key in this debate is the concept of intimacy. The book shows that different historical periods are characterized by emotional regimes where intimacy in the form of desire, sex, passion, and sex largely exist outside marriage, and that marriage and traditional normative values and structures are fundamentally incompatible with the expression of intimacy in the history of emotional regimes. The book draws on the work of a number of theorists who assess change in emotional regimes by drawing on intimacy including Michel Foucault, Eva Illouz, Lauren Berlant, Anthony Giddens, Laura Ann Stoler, Anne McClintock, Niklas Luhmann and David Shumway. Some of the areas covered by the book include: Foucault, sex and sexuality; romantic and courtly love; intimacy in late modernity; Imperial power, gender and intimacy, intimacy and feminist interventions; and the commercialization of intimacy. This book will appeal to students and scholars in the social sciences and humanities, including sociology, gender studies, cultural studies, and literary studies.
Social scientists seek to develop systematic ways to understand how people make meaning and how the meanings they make shape them and the world in which they live. But how do we measure such processes? Measuring Culture is an essential point of entry for both those new to the field and those who are deeply immersed in the measurement of meaning. Written collectively by a team of leading qualitative and quantitative sociologists of culture, the book considers three common subjects of measurement—people, objects, and relationships—and then discusses how to pivot effectively between subjects and methods. Measuring Culture takes the reader on a tour of the state of the art in measuring meaning, from discussions of neuroscience to computational social science. It provides both the definitive introduction to the sociological literature on culture as well as a critical set of case studies for methods courses across the social sciences.
This updated second edition of At Risk in America provides a detailed analysis of those key population groups most vulnerable to disease and injury in the United States today-including homeless persons, refugees and immigrants, people living with AIDS, alcohol and substance abusers, high-risk mothers and infants, victims of family or other violence, and the chronically or mentally ill. Lu Ann Aday reviews the major theories and knowledge concerning these at-risk groups and offers new approaches and methodologies for tracing the social determinants and societal influences on health. She examines the specific health needs and risks faced by these groups, their experience in the health care system, the current policies and programs that serve them, and the research and policy initiatives that might be undertaken to help reduce their vulnerability.
1. Big projects in a time of uncertainty : facing the future in a contemporary urban development -- 2. Five images of a suburb : competing perspectives on the economy, environment, and family life -- 3. Visual rhetorics in growth debates : Sydney's future as a Los Angeles, Toronto, or Canberra -- 4. Formal planning process : the privileged language of professional planning -- 5. Hard and soft privitization : unequal impacts of government withdrawal -- 6. Urban development and the power of ideas.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Brazil struggled to rebuild its democracy after twenty years of military dictatorship, experiencing financial crises, corruption scandals, political protest, and intense electoral contention. In the midst of this turmoil, Ann Mische argues in this remarkable book, youth activists of various stripes played a vital and unrecognized role, contributing new forms of political talk and action to Brazil's emerging democracy. Drawing upon extensive and rich ethnography as well as formal network analysis, Mische tracks the lives of young activists through intersecting political networks, including student movements, church-based activism, political parties, nongovernmental organizations, and business and professional organizations. She probes the problems and possibilities they encountered in combining partisan activism with other kinds of civic involvement. In documenting activists' struggles to develop cross-partisan publics of various kinds, Mische explores the distinct styles of communication and leadership that emerged across organizations and among individuals. Drawing on the ideas of Habermas, Gramsci, Dewey, and Machiavelli, Partisan Publics highlights political communication styles and the forms of mediation and leadership they give rise to--for democratic politics in Brazil and elsewhere. Insightful in its discussion of culture, methodology, and theory, Partisan Publics argues that partisanship can play a significant role in civic life, helping to build relations and institutions in an emerging democracy.
This Element provides an overview of cultural entrepreneurship scholarship and seeks to lay the foundation for a broader and more integrative research agenda at the interface of organization theory and entrepreneurship. Its scholarly agenda includes a range of phenomena from the legitimation of new ventures, to the construction of novel or alternative organizational or collective identities, and, at even more macro levels, to the emergence of new entrepreneurial possibilities and market categories. Michael Lounsbury and Mary Ann Glynn develop novel theoretical arguments and discuss the implications for mainstream entrepreneurship research, focusing on the study of entrepreneurial processes and possibilities.
Love and Intimacy in Contemporary Society reflects on relationships in contemporary society and the role of love and intimacy in framing lives. The book draws on sociological perspectives, cultural sociology and gender theory perspectives. It looks at how love and intimacy is experienced differently and intersected by gender, ethnicity, race and sexuality. This book aims to encourage people to understand theories of intimacy, emotions and desire by examining these concepts contemporaneously and cross-culturally. It also explores how love and intimacy is experienced by young people and how it is impacted by age. It looks at its representation in the media and film and focuses on how gender, ethnicity and sexuality offer different perspectives on love and intimacy. The book shows how relationships are impacted by social networking and new technologies and the opportunities and challenges posed by these new platforms for building relationships. Finally, the book examines how intimacy has become commercialised in late capitalism and how that acts to change relationships. The book is written in an accessible way and explores a range of theoretical debates and contemporary research around emotions, which can be useful for undergraduate, postgraduate and doctoral study.
Women of Bible Lands is an anthology of biblical and early stories about and by Jewish, Christian, and some Muslim women from the 19th century B.C.E. to the 9th century C.E., and a guide noting sites of Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Sinai, Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Greece, and the Mediterranean Islands with which the women are associated. Book jacket.
Examines how religious leaders use premarital counseling to influence how we view intimacy It is well-known that the institution of marriage has changed dramatically in the past few decades. However, very little research has focused on the role of religious institutions in helping couples form and maintain their relationships. Guiding God’s Marriage offers an examination of Christian marriage preparation programs, exploring their efforts to stabilize the institution of marriage and highlighting the tension between individualism and community in people’s relational lives. Marriage preparation programs offer a useful lens through which to trace shifts in both religious and family institutions because they set out clear and intentional articulations of marriage ideologies and gendered relationship scripts by faith communities. By documenting the changes in content and practices of Christian premarital education along with its advice regarding what makes a good marriage, the book charts the ways that religious communities have been transformed by and have helped to contribute to the individualization of faith and relationships. Featuring archival research as well as first hand observations of four marriage preparation courses—two Protestant and two Catholic—along with seventy interviews with participating couples and leaders of these and other programs, the book offers a rare view of visions about how to realize a successful and faith-filled relationship. This examination of marriage classes offers key insight into how religious communities have responded to cultural changes in marriage, gender, sexuality, and intimacy.
Film festivals around the world are in the business of making experiences for audiences, elites, industry, professionals, and even future cultural workers. Cinema and the Festivalization of Capitalism explains why these non-profit organizations work as they do: by attracting people who work for free, while appealing to businesses and policymakers as a cheap means to illuminate the creative city and draw attention to film art. Ann Vogel’s unprecedented systematic sociological analysis thus provides firm evidence for the ‘festival effect’, which situates the festival as a key intermediary in cinema value chains, yet also demonstrates the impact of such event culture on cultural workers’ lives. By probing the various resources and institutional pillars ensuring that the festivalization of capitalism is here to stay, Vogel urges us to think critically about publicly displayed benevolence in the context of cinema—and beyond.
2011 Educator's Award. Delta Kappa Gamma Society International2011 Outstanding Publication in Postsecondary Education, American Educational Research Association, Division J Degrees of Inequality reveals the powerful patterns of social inequality in American higher education by analyzing how the social background of students shapes nearly every facet of the college experience. Even as the most prestigious institutions claim to open their doors to students from diverse backgrounds, class disparities remain. Just two miles apart stand two institutions that represent the stark class contrast in American higher education. Yale, an elite Ivy League university, boasts accomplished alumni, including national and world leaders in business and politics. Southern Connecticut State University graduates mostly commuter students seeking credential degrees in fields with good job prospects. Ann L. Mullen interviewed students from both universities and found that their college choices and experiences were strongly linked to social background and gender. Yale students, most having generations of family members with college degrees, are encouraged to approach their college years as an opportunity for intellectual and personal enrichment. Southern students, however, perceive a college degree as a path to a better career, and many work full- or part-time jobs to help fund their education. Moving interviews with 100 students at the two institutions highlight how American higher education reinforces the same inequities it has been aiming to transcend.
This book is a collaboration between a biblical scholar (Mary Ann Beavis) and a practical theologian (HyeRan Kim-Cragg) who are concerned with the way that the Bible is portrayed and interpreted in popular culture, including but not limited to the movies. This concern points to a need for a conversation, examining what the Bible actually says, in order to uncover transformations and distortions of the biblical stories in the wider culture--including Christian culture. Our conversation is counter-cultural, not in an oppositional way, but taking an alternative posture that aims to provide different insights by drawing from and closely looking at the Bible. The chapters take a Christian canonical approach, articulating "what the Bible says" (and doesn't say) with regard to culturally pervasive themes such as sin and salvation, Christ and Antichrist, heaven and hell, in contrast to popular understandings as disseminated in (primarily) film, advertising, television, etc. We hope that together we will open up fertile academic, ecclesial, and secular space for disclosing loaded cultural and ideological views towards offering positive and intriguing insights embedded in the Bible.
Islam and Human Rights is a probing examination of how the Islamic tradition has been exploited for political ends by regimes and institutions seeking to legitimize policies inimical to human rights. Ann Elizabeth Mayer critically appraises Islamic human rights schemes that dilute the human rights afforded by international law, comparing them with the complex Islamic legal heritage and international human rights law. Challenging stereotypes about a supposedly monolithic Islam inherently incompatible with human rights, Mayer dissects the political motives behind the selective deployment of elements of the Islamic tradition by conservative forces seeking to delegitimize demands for democracy and human rights. The fifth edition provides an updated consideration of government policies on Islam and human rights activism and how they are affecting developments in several Middle Eastern countries, and features a new chapter on the resistance of human rights for sexual minorities by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) project to co-opt international human rights law to criminalize 'defamation of Islam' occurring in the West. The new edition also analyzes the other most recent and important issues of the region, including: The burgeoning pressures in the Middle East for human rights leading up to the Arab Spring; The ambitious campaign of the (OIC) to influence the UN human rights system by forging alliances with non-Muslim states hostile to human rights; The concerted efforts by this cross-cultural alliance to subvert international human rights law under pretenses of supporting human rights; The intensifying controversies over issues of sexual orientation and gender identity in the Middle East; The Danish Cartoons controversy and the OIC project to co-opt international human rights law to criminalize 'defamation of Islam' occurring in the West.
A compilation of policy-relevant research by a multidisciplinary group of scholars on the state of families in rural America in the twenty-first century. Examines the impact of economic restructuring on rural Americans and provides policy recommendations for addressing the challenges they face"--Provided by publisher.
Despite the persistence of the fraternal form of association in guilds, trade unions, and political associations, as well as in fraternal social organizations, scholars have often ignored its importance as a cultural and social theme. This provocative volume helps to redress that neglect. Tracing the development of fraternalism from early modern western Europe through eighteenth-century Britain to nineteenth-century America, Mary Ann Clawson shows how white males came to use fraternal organizations to resolve troubling questions about relations between the sexes and between classes: American fraternalism in the 1800s created bonds of loyalty across class lines and made gender and race primary categories of collective identity. British men had symbolically become stone masons to express their commitment to the emerging market economy and to the social value of craft labor. Clawson points out that American fraternalism fulfilled similar purposes, as fraternal organizations reconciled individualism and mutuality for many who were discomfited by the conflict of egalitarian principles and capitalist industrial development. Fraternalism's extraordinary appeal rested also on the assertion of masculine solidarity in the face of feminine claims to moral leadership. Nevertheless, visions of solidarity were contradicted when fraternal organizations became increasingly entrepreneurial, seeking to maximize their own growth through systematic marketing of membership. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
What do Americans think "race" means? What determines one’s race—appearance, ancestry, genes, or culture? How do education, government, and business influence our views on race? To unravel these complex questions, Ann Morning takes a close look at how scientists are influencing ideas about race through teaching and textbooks. Drawing from in-depth interviews with biologists, anthropologists, and undergraduates, Morning explores different conceptions of race—finding for example, that while many sociologists now assume that race is a social invention or "construct," anthropologists and biologists are far from such a consensus. She discusses powerful new genetic accounts of race, and considers how corporations and the government use scientific research—for example, in designing DNA ancestry tests or census questionnaires—in ways that often reinforce the idea that race is biologically determined. Widening the debate about race beyond the pages of scholarly journals, The Nature of Race dissects competing definitions in straightforward language to reveal the logic and assumptions underpinning today’s claims about human difference.
The broad impact of Paul Tillich on present-day philosophical-theological thoughtforms--especially of Protestant Christianity--continues unbated into the new century. "Dialogues of Paul Tillich presents Tillich's "conversations with past religious thinkers" basic to Tillich's thought, but also carries the dialogue beyond Tillich's own formulations into conversations with current issues regarding feminism, liberation theology, fundamentalism, world religions, and Christian realism. The essays in "Dialogues of Paul Tillich reflect and contribute to that conversation.
From Mesopotamian merchants and the fairs of mediaeval Europe to marble palace department stores and the Internet, social, cultural, economic and moral forces have shaped our shopping. This volume traces the history of shopping and considers its meaning and significance.
What is interviewing and when is this method useful? What does it mean to select rather than sample interviewees? Once the researcher has found people to interview, how does she build a working relationship with her interviewees? What should the dynamics of talking and listening in interviews be? How do researchers begin to analyze the narrative data generated through interviews? Lee Ann Fujii explores the answers to these inquiries in Interviewing in Social Science Research, the latest entry in the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. This short, highly readable book explores an interpretive approach to interviewing for purposes of social science research. Using an interpretive methodology, the book examines interviewing as a relational enterprise. As a relational undertaking, interviewing is more akin to a two-way dialogue than a one-way interrogation. Fujii examines the methodological foundations for a relational approach to interviewing, while at the same time covering many of the practical nuts and bolts of relational interviewing. Examples come from the author’s experiences conducting interviews in Bosnia, Rwanda, and the United States, and from relevant literatures across a variety of social scientific disciplines. Appendices to the book contain specific tips and suggestions for relational interviewing in addition to interview excerpts that give readers a sense of how relational interviews unfold. This book will be of great value to graduate students and researchers from across the social sciences who are considering or planning to use interviews in their research, and can be easily used by academics for teaching courses or workshops in social science methods.
While the field of science has made incredible advances in the past century, and more and more scientists have gone to great lengths to make these developments accessible to the public, we still rarely hear ministers and communities of faith discussing the implications of these developments for the life of faith. Quantum Shift explores recent developments in science from relativity to quantum mechanics to cosmology and then suggests ways in which people of faith might engage these scientific developments to foster their understanding of God and what it means to be part of the world we believe God created. Heidi Ann Russell demonstrates how these scientific developments offer us new and exciting images that spark our theological imaginations and reinvigorate our spiritual lives. Includes Illustrations
This book is about two subjects which have been discussed extensively and these are abortion and divorce. The Author shows both side of argument, demand for abortion and no abortion at all.
The Northern Athabascan peoples of the Alaskan interior and the Yukon have survived centuries of contact and attempted domination by outsiders. Their lives today are rich in meaning and tradition yet are also complicated by numerous challenges such as poverty, alcoholism, domestic violence, suicide, and troubled leadership. Combining scholarly analysis, first-person accounts, and her own experiences and insights as a Koyukon Athabascan artist and anthropologist, Phyllis Ann Fast illuminates the modern Athabascan world. Her conversations with Athabascan women offer revealing glimpses of their personal lives and a probing assessment of their professional opportunities and limitations. Also showcased is the crucial but ambiguous role of Athabascan leaders, who are needed to champion reform and social healing but are often undermined by conflicting notions of decision making, personhood, and leadership in Athabascan society. A troubling observation of this study is the vast extent to which addiction—manifested as both substance abuse and economic dependency—pervades Northern Athabascan society and threatens to curtail its cohesion and aspirations. But Northern Athabascans are far from victims. As Fast discovers, Northern Athabascan men and women are well aware of these widespread social problems, and many have undertaken initiatives to deal with and heal them. Rigorous and compassionate, Northern Athabascan Survival provides an uncompromising view of a remarkable and troubled world.
Organization Theory offers a clear and comprehensive introduction to the study of organizations and organizing processes. It encourages an even-handed appreciation of the main perspectives defining our knowledge of organizations and challenges readers to broaden their intellectual reach. Organization Theory is presented in three parts: Part I introduces the reader to theorizing using the multi-perspective approach. Part II presents different core concepts useful for analysing and understanding organizations - as entities within an environment, as social structures, technologies, cultures and physical structures, and as the products of power and political processes. Part III explores applications of organization theory to the practical matters of organizational design and change, and introduces the latest ideas, including organizational identity theory, process and practice theories, and aesthetics. An Online Resource Centre accompanies this text and includes: For students: Multiple Choice Questions For registered adopters: Lecturer's guide PowerPoint slides Figures and tables from the book
With increasing numbers of the population living into old age, we need a better understanding of the nature and experience of ageing in all its aspects. Up to now, very few texts have considered this in any depth, but 'Ageing and Development', a new volume in the Texts in Developmental Psychology series, provides a detailed and comprehensive overview of the theories and research in adult development into old age. The classic early accounts of theorists such as Jung and Erikson are considered, as well as their present day successors. Particular attention is given to theories of adjustment to loss, and to the threat of loss, which dominate current gerontological research. A notable feature of the book is the separate section devoted to the psychology of advanced old age, to life in states of physical and/or mental frailty, and to the survival of the self in these circumstances. There is a strong emphasis throughout on up-to-date empirical research and illustrative case examples. The reader is constantly encouraged to take a critical perspective, to understand the strengths and limitations of different studies, and to think about the issues raised in terms of their own lives.
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