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What is Cultural Sociology?

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( 17 ratings, 3 reviews)
Book Hero Magic crafted this summary to help describe this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Summary
What is Cultural Sociology? by Lyn Spillman offers a clear and concise exploration of cultural sociology, focusing on how people create meaning within social life. The book provides an accessible analytical framework that covers key approaches in the field, such as analysing symbolic forms, meaning-making in interaction, and organised cultural production. Through vivid examples, Spillman demystifies the role of culture, cultural difference, and conflict across society.
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Format: Paperback / softback
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Book Hero Magic created this recommendation. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! IS THIS YOUR NEXT READ?

This book is ideal for students, researchers, and professionals in sociology seeking a foundational yet sophisticated understanding of cultural sociology. It serves as a useful reference for those interested in cultural processes, meaning-making, and social theory.

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"Offering a concise answer to the question "What is Cultural Sociology?," this book provides an overview of what you need to know to do cultural sociology. Spillman demonstrates many of the conceptual tools cultural sociologists use to help understand how people make meaning, with vivid examples from this rich and ubiquitous feature of our lives"--

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

Culture, cultural difference, and cultural conflict always surround us. Cultural sociologists aim to understand their role across all aspects of social life by examining processes of meaning-making.

In this crisp and accessible book, Lyn Spillman demonstrates many of the conceptual tools cultural sociologists use to explore how people make meaning. Drawing on vivid examples, she offers a compelling analytical framework within which to view the entire field of cultural sociology. In each chapter, she introduces a different angle of vision, with distinct but compatible approaches for explaining culture and its role in social life: analyzing symbolic forms, meaning-making in interaction, and organized production.

This book both offers a concise answer to the question of what cultural sociology is and provides an overview of the fundamental approaches in the field.

Series: What is Sociology?

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  • What is Political Sociology?
    With an entire discipline devoted to political science, what is distinctive about political sociology? This concise book explains what a sociological perspective brings to our understanding of the emergence, reproduction, and transformation of different forms of political order. Crucially, political sociology expands the field of view to the politics that happen in other social settings – in the family, at...
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    The rise of digital technology is transforming the world in which we live. Our digitalised societies demand new ways of thinking about the social, and this short book introduces readers to an approach that can deliver this: digital sociology. Neil Selwyn examines the concepts, tools and practices that sociologists are developing to analyse the intersections of the social and the...
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  • What is a Social Movement?
    Social movements play a central role in the scope and direction of social change. They were instrumental in the creation of the modern state and, today, are major forces in politics and culture. Environmentalism, gay rights, alterglobalisation, and Islamic fundamentalism are all movements with far-reaching impacts on contemporary society. What is a Social Movement? traces how the study of movements...
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  • What is Cultural Sociology?
    Culture, cultural difference, and cultural conflict always surround us. Cultural sociologists aim to understand their role across all aspects of social life by examining processes of meaning-making. In this crisp and accessible book, Lyn Spillman demonstrates many of the conceptual tools cultural sociologists use to explore how people make meaning. Drawing on vivid examples, she offers a compelling analytical framework...
    Paperback
    $3599
    Available
    Ships in 3-4 weeks

Book Hero Magic summarised reviews for this book. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! HOW HAS THIS BEEN REVIEWED?

Jeffrey C. Alexander of Yale University praises Spillman’s ability to synthesise complex theory and empirical studies, presenting cultural sociology as a coherent model of social life rather than divided schools of thought. MichΓ¨le Lamont of Harvard University commends the book as a smart, clear, and up-to-date account of cultural sociology’s development over thirty years, recommending it as an essential resource for sociologists.

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Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781509522811

Publisher: John Wiley and Sons Ltd

Format: Paperback / softback

Date Published: 29 November 2019

Country: United Kingdom

Imprint: Polity Press

Audience: Professional and scholarly

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 15.0mm

Width: 137.0mm

Height: 216.0mm

Weight: 204g

Pages: 160

About the Author

Lyn Spillman is Professor of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame

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