[PDF] The Meanings Of Social Life eBook

Author : Jeffrey C. Alexander
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 324 pages
File Size : 26,80 MB
Release : 2003-09-18
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780198036463

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In The Meanings of Social Life , Jeffrey Alexander presents a new approach to how culture works in contemporary societies. Exposing our everyday myths and narratives in a series of empirical studies that range from Watergate to the Holocaust, he shows how these unseen yet potent cultural structures translate into concrete actions and institutions. Only when these deep patterns of meaning are revealed, Alexander argues, can we understand the stubborn staying power of violence and degradation, but also the steady persistence of hope. By understanding the darker structures that restrict our imagination, we can seek to transform them. By recognizing the culture structures that sustain hope, we can allow our idealistic imaginations to gain more traction in the world. A work that will transform the way that sociologists think about culture and the social world, this book confirms Jeffrey Alexander's reputation as one of the major social theorists of our day.

Author : Roy F. Baumeister
Publisher : Guilford Press
Page : 450 pages
File Size : 19,64 MB
Release : 1991-01-01
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9780898625318

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Who among us has not at some point asked, what is the meaning of life?' In this extraordinary book, an eminent social scientist looks at the big picture and explores what empirical studies from diverse fields tell us about the human condition. MEANINGS OF LIFE draws together evidence from psychology, history, anthropology, and sociology, integrating copious research findings into a clear and conclusive discussion of how people attempt to make sense of their lives. In a lively and accessible style, emphasizing facts over theories, Baumeister explores why people desire meaning in their lives, how these meanings function, what forms they take, and what happens when life loses meaning. It is the most comprehensive examination of the topic to date.

Author : John R. Wagner
Publisher : Berghahn Books
Page : 325 pages
File Size : 47,19 MB
Release : 2013-08-01
Category : Nature
ISBN : 0857459678

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Everywhere in the world communities and nations organize themselves in relation to water. We divert water from rivers, lakes, and aquifers to our homes, workplaces, irrigation canals, and hydro-generating stations. We use it for bathing, swimming, recreation, and it functions as a symbol of purity in ritual performances. In order to facilitate and manage our relationship with water, we develop institutions, technologies, and cultural practices entirely devoted to its appropriation and distribution, and through these institutions we construct relations of class, gender, ethnicity, and nationality. Relying on first-hand ethnographic research, the contributors to this volume examine the social life of water in diverse settings and explore the impacts of commodification, urbanization, and technology on the availability and quality of water supplies. Each case study speaks to a local set of issues, but the overall perspective is global, with representation from all continents.

Author : Abigail Williams
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 374 pages
File Size : 36,40 MB
Release : 2017-06-27
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0300228104

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“A lively survey…her research and insights make us conscious of how we, today, use books.”—John Sutherland, The New York Times Book Review Two centuries before the advent of radio, television, and motion pictures, books were a cherished form of popular entertainment and an integral component of domestic social life. In this fascinating and vivid history, Abigail Williams explores the ways in which shared reading shaped the lives and literary culture of the eighteenth century, offering new perspectives on how books have been used by their readers, and the part they have played in middle-class homes and families. Drawing on marginalia, letters and diaries, library catalogues, elocution manuals, subscription lists, and more, Williams offers fresh and fascinating insights into reading, performance, and the history of middle-class home life. “Williams’s charming pageant of anecdotes…conjures a world strikingly different from our own but surprisingly similar in many ways, a time when reading was on the rise and whole worlds sprang up around it.”—TheWashington Post

Author : Jeffrey C. Alexander
Publisher :
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 35,40 MB
Release : 2003
Category : Culture
ISBN : 9780199944156

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Jeffrey Alexander argues for a cultural sociology that will bring unconscious cultural structures into the broad light of day. Exposing our everyday myths and narratives in a series of empirical studies that range from Watergate to the Holocaust, he shows how these unseen yet potent cultural structures translate into concrete actions and institutions.

Author : J. Alexander
Publisher : Springer
Page : 507 pages
File Size : 28,72 MB
Release : 2012-01-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1137012862

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A collection of original articles that explore social aspects of the phenomenon of icon. Having experienced the benefits and realized the limitations of so called 'linguistic turn', sociology has recently acknowledged a need to further expand its horizons.

Author : Susie Scott
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 208 pages
File Size : 32,7 MB
Release : 2019-06-03
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1351581503

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Nothing really matters. All the things that we do not do, have or become in our lives can be important in shaping self-identity. From jobs turned down to great loves lost, secrets kept and truths untold, people missed and souls unborn, we understand ourselves through other, unlived lives that are imaginatively possible. This book explores the realm of negative social phenomena – no-things, no-bodies, non-events and no-where places – that lies behind the mirror of experience. Taking a symbolic interactionist perspective, the author argues that these objects are socially produced, emerging from and negotiated through our relationships with others. Nothing is interactively accomplished in two ways, through social acts of commission and omission. Existentialism and phenomenology encourage us to understand more deeply the subjective experience of nothing; this can be pursued through conscious meaning-making and reflexive self-awareness. The Social Life of Nothing is a thought-provoking book that will appeal to scholars across the social sciences, arts and humanities, but its message also resonates with the interested general reader.

Author : Jeffrey C. Alexander
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 180 pages
File Size : 15,45 MB
Release : 2017-09-05
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 1509518142

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In this book Jeffrey Alexander develops the view that cultural sociology and “cultural pragmatics” are vital for understanding the structural turbulence and political possibilities of contemporary social life. Central to Alexander’s approach is a new model of social performance that combines elements from both the theatrical avant-garde and modern social theory. He uses this model to shed new light on a wide range of social actors, movements, and events, demonstrating through striking empirical examples the drama of social life. Producing successful dramas determines the outcome of social movements and provides the keys to political power. Modernity has neither eliminated aura nor suppressed authenticity; on the contrary, they are available to social actors who can perform them in compelling ways. This volume further consolidates Alexander’s reputation as one of the most original social thinkers of our time. It will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology and cultural studies as well as throughout the social sciences and humanities.

Author : Bruce G. Carruthers
Publisher : Pine Forge Press
Page : 268 pages
File Size : 12,70 MB
Release : 2000
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780761986416

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Economy/Society provides an introduction to the ways in which economic exchanges are embedded in social relationships. It offers insights into advertising, consumer behaviour, conflicts in the work place, social inequality and other issues.