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This wide-ranging handbook presents in-depth discussions on the array of subspecialties that comprise the field of sociological theory. Prominent theorists working in a variety of traditions discuss methodologies and strategies; the cultural turn in sociological theorizing; interaction processes; theorizing from the systemic and macro level; new directions in evolutionary theorizing; power, conflict, and change; and theorizing from assumptions of rationality.
List of contents
Sociological Theory Today.- Sociological Theory Today.- Theoretical Methodologies and Strategies.- What Makes Sciences "Scientific?".- Formal Theory.- Computational Approaches to Sociological Theorizing.- The Critical Dimension in Sociological Theory.- Metatheorizing in Sociology: The Basic Parameters and the Potential Contributions of Postmodernism.- The Cultural Turn in Sociological Theorizing.- The Strong Program in Cultural Theory: Elements of a Structural Hermeneutics.- Postmodern Social Theory.- Culture and Identity.- Alley Art: Can We... See... at Last, the End of Ontology?.- Theorizing Interaction Process.- Traditional Symbolic Interactionism, Role Theory, and Structural Symbolic Interactionism: The Road to Identity Theory.- Role Theory.- The Emotional/Relational World: Shame and the Social Bond.- Action Theory.- Accounts of Conduct in Interaction: Interruption, Overlap, and Turn-Taking.- Inequality, Status, and the Construction of Status Beliefs.- Theorizing from the Systemicand Macrolevel.- Macrostructural Theory.- The Return of Grand Theory.- Systems Theory.- New Directions in Evolutionary Theorizing.- Sociobiological Theorizing: Evolutionary Sociology.- Evolutionary Theorizing.- Theorizing on Power, Conflict, and Charge.- Sociological Marxism.- Weberian Theory Today: The Public Face.- Conflict Theory and Interaction Rituals: The Microfoundations of Conflict Theory.- The Enduring Vitality of the Resource Mobilization Theory of Social Movements.- Historical Analysis of Political Processes.- World-Systems Theorizing.- Theoretical Understandings of Gender: A Third of a Century of Feminist Thought in Sociology.- Theorizing from Assumptions of Rationality.- Social Rationality versus Rational Egoism.- Comparison Theory.- Exchange and Power: Issues of Structure and Agency.
About the author
Jonathan Turner is a general theorist who seeks to integrate existing theories into more robust and formal theories. He is the author of twenty-eight books and over 140 articles and chapters as well as editor of four other books. He also has been editor of Sociological Perspectives and is currently editor of Sociological Theory.
Summary
This wide-ranging handbook presents in-depth discussions on the array of subspecialties that comprise the field of sociological theory. Prominent theorists working in a variety of traditions discuss methodologies and strategies; the cultural turn in sociological theorizing; interaction processes; theorizing from the systemic and macro level; new directions in evolutionary theorizing; power, conflict, and change; and theorizing from assumptions of rationality.
Additional text
From the reviews:
"This handbook is a marvelous accomplishment. Organized in seven sections, it skillfully captures, maps, and interprets the wide range of theory that now operates in the discipline. Each of its 31 chapters is carefully crafted by a master theorist. [...] This is a glittering gallery of sociological theory written by the preeminent theorists working in the field today [...] there are gemlike chapters that show creative theorists at work, doing what good theorists do best, which is figuring out how the social world works."
(American Journal of Sociology, 2003)
"Instead of compiling a compendium of old, dusty standards, Turner gathered the newest, most-viable theories in sociology, ‘with an eye to capturing the diversity of theoretical activity.’ … From methodological and empirical concerns to cultural and communicative concepts, as well as computational and postmodern approaches, The Handbook of Sociology Theory covers the gamutof modern sociological research. … will take one a long way to understanding the history and the current thoughts of sociology and the social sciences." (Roy Christopher, frontwheeldrive.com, January, 2007)
Report
From the reviews:
"This handbook is a marvelous accomplishment. Organized in seven sections, it skillfully captures, maps, and interprets the wide range of theory that now operates in the discipline. Each of its 31 chapters is carefully crafted by a master theorist. [...] This is a glittering gallery of sociological theory written by the preeminent theorists working in the field today [...] there are gemlike chapters that show creative theorists at work, doing what good theorists do best, which is figuring out how the social world works."
(American Journal of Sociology, 2003)
"Instead of compiling a compendium of old, dusty standards, Turner gathered the newest, most-viable theories in sociology, 'with an eye to capturing the diversity of theoretical activity.' ... From methodological and empirical concerns to cultural and communicative concepts, as well as computational and postmodern approaches, The Handbook of Sociology Theory covers the gamutof modern sociological research. ... will take one a long way to understanding the history and the current thoughts of sociology and the social sciences." (Roy Christopher, frontwheeldrive.com, January, 2007)
