ABSTRACT
If today students of social theory read Jurgen Habermas, Michel Foucault and Anthony Giddens, then proper regard to the question of culture means that they should also read Raymond Williams, Stuart Hall and Slavoj Zizek. The Routledge Handbook of Social and Cultural Theory offers a concise, comprehensive overview of the convergences and divergences of social and cultural theory, and in so doing offers a novel agenda for social and cultural research in the twenty-first century.
This Handbook, edited by Anthony Elliott, develops a powerful argument for bringing together social and cultural theory more systematically than ever before. Key social and cultural theories, ranging from classical approaches to postmodern, psychoanalytic and post-feminist approaches, are drawn together and critically appraised. There are substantive chapters looking at – among others – structuralism and post-structuralism, critical theory, network analysis, feminist cultural thought, cultural theory and cultural sociology. Throughout the Handbook there is a strong emphasis on interdisciplinarity, with chapters drawing from research in sociology, cultural studies, psychology, politics, anthropology, women’s studies, literature and history.
Written in a clear and direct style, this Handbook will appeal to a wide undergraduate and postgraduate audience across the social sciences and humanities.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |2 pages
PART I Contemporary social theory
chapter |17 pages
The trajectories of social and cultural theory
chapter |19 pages
Critical theory of the Frankfurt School
chapter |17 pages
Structuralism and post-structuralism
chapter |18 pages
Structuration theories: Giddens and Bourdieu
chapter |23 pages
Feminist and post- feminist theories
chapter |16 pages
Zygmunt Bauman and social theory
chapter |24 pages
Ideology and social and cultural theory
chapter |20 pages
Psychoanalytic social theory
chapter |18 pages
Social theories of risk
chapter |17 pages
Networks
chapter |15 pages
Globalization
part |2 pages
PART II Contemporary cultural theory