Find my new book on the Sage website by clicking here, get details of price and contents -- and buy!! The files that follow may not make much sense without reading my book. I try to explain the general issues in the book and then refer readers to these reading guides so they can pursue the arguments in more depth. Of course, if you have come to the website independently, you may be able to find your own way -- but read my book anyway (or buy it and promise to read it later)! The idea of 'reading guides' is to let you gain easy access to some texts and provide you with a quick overview, so you can then see what you need to read for yourselves (hence the title) . Of course, the selections and discussions reflect my interests, but I have tried to summarise and paraphrase as accurately as possible too. Do go on and read the texts themselves (or the relevant sections of them for your purposes). Full bibliographic details are found in the files. This section is constantly being updated -- so check back often
But first, two introductory essays, to this collection and to my book
Adorno T (with Horkheimer M) Dialectic of Enlightenment
Althusser L Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses... (and another piece on ideology, the chapter on Rousseau in Althusser L (1972) Politics and History)
Atkinson J and Heritage J Structures of Social Action: Studies in Conversation Analysis (Sacks on (ethno)methodology, Button and Casey on telephone conversations, Atkinson on applause-generating strategies in political speeches)(see also Heritage). Badiou, A The ontology of multiplicity: the singleton of the void (one of his EGS videos) Ontology
of Multiplicity: omega as event’ (follow
up to the above)
Barthes R Image-Music-Text (three key pieces on the death of the author, works and texts, and the new semiology).
Becker H Outsiders
(the bits on labelling theory, moral entrepreneurs,
replies to Gouldner etc).
Benhabib S 'Epistemologies of Postmodernism: a Rejoinder to J-F Lyotard'
Berger P and Luckmann T The Social Construction of Reality
Blumer H The methodological position of symbolic interactionism Sociological Analysis and the 'Variable' Society as Symbolic Interaction
Bourdieu P Outline of a Theory of Practice 'Postscript: Towards a "Vulgar" Critique of "Pure" Critiques' ''Understanding' (a 'methodological' piece from The Weight of the World...) See also notes
on the excellent essay by Loesberg Bourdieu
et al conference papers (early tryouts for Academic Discourse
but more detail especially of the empirical studies) Bourdieu, P Homo Academicus Bourdieu, P Pascalian Mediations
Bottero W and Prandy K 'Interaction and social space: social distance measures of stratification'
Bowles S and Gintis H Schooling in Capitalist America (and an important follow-up piece in 1980) 'Schooling in
Capitalist America
Revisited' (Jan.2002 re-examination of the
evidence)
'Gender is
Burning...' (on drag and its ambivalences,
in the film Paris is Burning)
Clarke, J. and Critcher, C
The
End(s) of Ethnography: from Realism to Social
Criticism Cooley, C
Coward R Class, Culture and the Social Formation (early critique of Hall et al on the media -- see below)
Davis K and Moore R 'Some Principles of Stratification' (classic functionalist account of social stratification)
'Sociological Reflections on Sport, Violence and Civilization' (applies Elias) 'Sport as a
Drug and Drugs in Sport' Durkheim E
The
Archaeology of Knowledge See also Kendall
and Wickham on Foucault's methods
'Passing and the managed achievement of sex status in an intersexed person' (a.k.a. the Agnes study)
Critiques of Habermas (from Profiles and Critiques...) 'Functionalism: Après la lutte' [after the struggle] Modernity and Self-Identity... The Consequences of Modernity (pretty brief and schematic notes) Giddens on Modernity (a review symposium with contributions from Giddens, Beck, Robertson, Swanson and Turner)
Goldthorpe, J., Llewellyn, C and
Payne, C. A Postscript to Knowledge and Human Interests Theory of Communicative Action (McCarthy's Intro) 'The French Path to Postmodernity...' (but ostensibly about Bataille)
'Encoding/decoding' Recent Developments in Theories of Language and Ideology... (Hall on Coward and 'Screen Theory') The Whites of Their Eyes: racist ideologies and the media 'The Political
and The Economic in Marx's Theory of Classes'(see
also Hirst)
'The Politics of Social Mobility' (nice critique of the Oxford Mobility Study)
Hume An
Enquiry Into Human Understanding (brief
notes only on sceptitcism anti-religion etc) Humm S (Ed) Husserl E
Maccannell,
D Manis J and Meltzer B
On surplus value (DH handout -- very brief) Critiques and debates on method (DH handout) The So-Called
Primitive Accumulation (marvellous account
of the real history of capitalism -- and a good
intro to Marx)
Delinquency and
Drift ( Early attempt to insist delinquents
are normal people who have drifted into it) (and see
Sykes and Matza) Mennell S All Manners of Food (good example of figurational analysis) Norbert Elias:
an Introduction Mill JS (actually via Alan Ryan) Mulvey L Visual Pleasure
and Narrative Cinema' (and the follow-ups
'Afterthoughts on "Visual Pleasure"...' and
'Changes') Murphy R
Palmer R Hermeneutics
(rather brief and chatty, with some general
criticisms) Pakulski J and Waters M 'The reshaping and dissolution of social class in advanced societies'
Poulantzas N Classes in
Contemporary Capitalism
Ramazanoglou C (ed) Up Against
Foucault (Grimshaw, Cain, Bailey, MacCannell
and MacCannell)
Rocher G Talcott Parsons and American Sociology (Intro and two chapters)
Rojek C Schutz A Phenomenology of the Social World (chs 3,4,5)
Screen Special on 'Difference' Useful critical discussions of Lacanian approaches (Merck, Williamson, Greig, Stacey)
Sivanandan A Communities of
Resistance... (chapter on the flaws of
'New Times' approaches)
Taylor I, Walton P and Young J (and others) The New
Criminology (opening statement - marxist
critiques of existing approaches in criminology) Critical Criminology (middle piece -- marxist critiques extended) Capitalism and the Rule of Law (final stage - marxist objects identified -- critique of the State)
Turner B For Weber...
(only three chapters summarised, on relations with
neomarxism, and on theodicy)
van Krieken R 'The
barbarism of civilization: cultural genocide and
the "stolen generations"' (on Elias)
Westoby A (ed) Culture and Power in Educational Organisations (Weick, Ouchi and Wilkins, Meyer and Rowan, Bachrach. On micropolitics, and with nice critical counters to much management theory)
Willis P Profane Cultures (very brief) School Production and Theories of Reproduction (important amendments to Learning to Labour)
Winch P The Idea of a Social Science...
Women's Study Group Women Take Issue... (excellent feminist critiques and extensions of CCCS approaches) |