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Welcome to Social Theory is exactly what students want: a lucid and engaging introduction to social theory that carefully uses images, examples and quotations to illustrate new ways of examining contemporary social life. Tom Brock s comprehensive and accessible style produces an indispensable guide to social theory that examines the major theoretical traditions from Marxism through to poststructuralism, and from feminism through to postcolonial theory, new materialism and posthumanism. Welcome to Social Theory gives careful appraisal of classical ideas and debates in social theory and traces their impact through discussion of major contemporary theorists including Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, Margaret Archer, Judith Butler, bell hooks, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Bruno Latour, Gilles Deleuze and Rosi Braidotti.
Social theory matters and this book shows why through relevant and compelling examples, including the gig economy, everyday sexism, digital black feminism, animal and environmental activism, stigma and discrimination against migrants, the need to decolonise the sociology curriculum and many more.
Welcome to Social theory is an indispensable text for undergraduate students who are new to social theory.
Dr. Tom Brock is a Senior Lecturer of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University.
List of contents
Introduction
Marx and Marxism
Nietzsche, Freud And Weber
Durkheim And Functionalism
Phenomenology And Symbolic Interactions
Language, Discourse And Postmodernity
Structure, Agency And Reflexivity
Feminism And Intersectionality
Postcolonial Theory
New Materialism And Posthumanism
About the author
Tom Brock is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University. He received his PhD and MA from the University of Durham. Tom teaches on a range of social theory and digital sociology courses at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. His research interests include games, play, digital consumption and social theory. Tom has published articles relevant in game studies and the sociology of consumption, such as ‘Is Computer Gaming a Craft? Prehension, Practice and Puzzle-Solving in Gaming Labour’, ‘Video gaming as Craft Consumption’, and ‘Videogame Consumption: The Apophatic Dimension’.
Summary
Welcome to Social Theory is exactly what students want: a lucid and engaging introduction to social theory that carefully uses images, examples and quotations to illustrate new ways of examining contemporary social life.
Report
Elegantly written, ambitious in scope and meticulously clear in its exposition, Brock s Welcome to Social Theory provides an engaging introduction to key currents in social thought that will prove indispensable to both newcomers and more established readers in this field. Jason Hughes 20210308
