Sociology Of Culture

Iconspicuous Revolutions of 1989. Culture and Contingency in the Making of Political Icons

by Dominik Bartmanski

A Chapter in the Book "Iconic Power"

Published in 2012 by Palgrave Macmillan

Sociological interpretation of news images inevitably take us beyond the surface of pictures to the surfaces and... more Sociological interpretation of news images inevitably take us beyond the surface of pictures to the surfaces and depths of events, to singular bodies and powerful crowds, sights and sites, built structures, and symbolically constructed narratives. It is precisely the new prism of iconicity through which the effects of shocking and euphoric events that seem well known can be explained in full. If icons are indeed stars of the social universe, then sociological analysis provides lenses through which we can better see them. With the theory of iconic power, we can make use of the light of “social stars” to learn new things about the social universe as such.

In his chapter “Iconspicuous Revolution: Culture and Contingency in the Making of Political Icons,” Dominik Bartmański revisits the European icons of the euphoric year of 1989 and asks what constitutes a powerful iconic fact. Specifically, he explains why the fall of the Berlin Wall emerged as the icon of 1989 and has retained this symbolic status ever since. The answer is not obvious. 1989 was full of epochal events and important figures busy making history. Especially the earlier, politically unprecedented changes in Hungary and Poland had opened up a revolutionary space in which such events like the fall of the wall became possible. And yet they have not attained the same lasting influence on the international audiences. To reconstruct this phenomenon is to tell a story about how the iconic can trump the political. By demonstrating what counts in public perception as “revolutionary,” “political signal,” and “beginning” and “end” of a social process, Bartmański shows the role that iconicity plays in constituting these key categories and thus in structuring our ability to notice, understand, and remember events. He argues that it is precisely the iconic power of events that turns them into “objective,” temporal markers of history.

Materiality and Meaning in Social Life: Toward an Iconic Turn in Cultural Sociology

by Dominik Bartmanski

Introduction to the book "Iconic Power" co-authored with Jeffrey C. Alexander

With this volume, we push the study of culture into the material realm, not to make cultural sociology materialistic... more With this volume, we push the study of culture into the material realm, not to make cultural sociology materialistic but to make the study of material life more cultural. We introduce the concept of iconicity, and alongside it the idea of iconic power. Objects become icons when they have not only material force but also symbolic power. Actors have iconic consciousness when they experience material objects, not only understanding them cognitively or evaluating them morally but also feeling their sensual, aesthetic force.

Paradoxes of Sociology: Some Notes on the Meaning and Reception of Jeffrey Alexander's Work

by Dominik Bartmanski

This is an article in Polish.

It serves as the introduction to the book:

Jeffrey C. Alexander – Znaczenia Społeczne: Studia z Socjologii Kulturowej (Social Meanings: Studies in Cultural Sociology. Krakow: Nomos

Z obwoluty książki Jeffreya Alexandra The Meanings of Social Life zachęcają nas do jej lektury słowa Zygmunta... more
Z obwoluty książki Jeffreya Alexandra The Meanings of Social Life zachęcają nas do jej lektury słowa Zygmunta Baumana. W swym krótkim omówieniu tego klasycznego już manifestu kulturalistycznego, Bauman zwraca szczególną uwagę
na jego inspirującą paradoksalność, która spełnia się w przekonującym łączeniu przez Alexandra wątków pozornie przeciwstawnych, w systematycznym dążeniu do zintegrowania tego, co w tradycji socjologicznej pozostawało zwykle rozdzielo-ne lub wzięte za antytezy. Działanie i znaczenie, opis i wyjaśnienie, powszedniość i transcendencja, religijność i racjonalność, wartości i fakty, w końcu poezja kul-tury i proza przyziemności – to według Baumana klasyczne dychotomie ukazane przez socjologię Alexandra w fascynującym i rewidującym dyscyplinę świetle. Celność tej uwagi czyni ją adekwatnym kluczem nie tylko do zrozumienia zawartych w tym tomie tekstów, ale także wyborów intelektualnych, które legły u ich podstaw.

Misyurov D.A. Dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas // Credo New. 2012. №2

by Dmitry Misyurov

The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with... more The article suggests dialectical formulas based on the binary notation as the development formulas: formula with dominant and the non-dominant elements; universal formula; formula with symbolic weight of elements; tautological formula. For example, it suggests an opportunity to use the dialectical formulas for modeling and artificial intelligence creation, etc.

Cultivating Global Citizens: Parents' Choice of Foreign Language Immersion

by Hannah B. Emery

La conversion de Pirandello au cinéma

by Fabio Andreazza

published in 'Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales', 161/162 (mars 2006)

In 1915, Pirandello publishes Si gira (Shoot!), a novel whose main protagonist/ narrator is a movie operator. This... more In 1915, Pirandello publishes Si gira (Shoot!), a novel whose main protagonist/ narrator is a movie operator. This work bears witness both to his interest in the new art, and to the low esteem in which he held it. Pirandello’s distrust seems to be related to his specific social dispositions as a provincial and to the structural antagonism that opposed him, a yet little known writer defending a very demanding conception of art, to D’Annunzio and the Futurists, who were already famous and were then the only Italian writers defending cinema. Pirandello’s position changes considerably in the early 1920s. The success of Six Characters in Search of An Author launches his international career and makes him aware that the cinematographic field is much wider and more differentiated than what he had initially thought in the 1910s. The work of some directors seemed to confirm that transposing his own poetics into film was possible. He then conceived the project of a movie adapted from his most famous theater play and even entertained the notion of triggering a cinematographic revolution as important as the one he had accomplished for theater.

En 1915 Pirandello publie On tourne, un roman dont le protagoniste / narrateur est un opérateur de cinéma. Ce texte témoigne de son intérêt pour le nouvel art, mais aussi du peu de considération qu’il lui accorde. La méfiance de Pirandello semble liée à ses dispositions de provincial et à l’antagonisme structural qui l’oppose, comme écrivain attaché à une conception exigeante de l’art et encore peu connu, à D’Annunzio et aux futuristes qui, déjà célèbres, sont les rares écrivains italiens de l’époque à défendre le cinéma. La position de Pirandello change considérablement au début des années 1920. La carrière internationale que lui ouvre le succès de Six personnages en quête d’auteur, lui donne l’occasion de mesurer que l’espace cinématographique est plus vaste et plus différencié qu’il ne le pensait dans l’Italie des années 1910. Certains metteurs en scène lui paraissent témoigner de la possibilité de produire des films conformes à sa poétique. Il conçoit alors le projet d’un film tiré de sa pièce la plus célèbre et affiche même l’ambition de réaliser dans le cinéma une révolution analogue à celle qu’il avait opérée dans le théâtre.

How cultural tastes shape personal networks

by Omar Lizardo

Culture and (Social and Political) Transformations: draft.

by Jan Kubik

How do we understand taste in music?

by Ganna Grebennikova

An student essay written in Cambridge for 'Media and Culture' class at the Mphil in Modern Society and Global Transformations. Supervised by Peter Webb. An exercise in sociology of culture: Adorno, Bourdieu, Alexander, Archer at al. used to position music in sociological theory and culture studies.

2009, « Habitus, Freedom and Reflexivity », in Theory and Psychology Volume 19, no. 6, pp. 728-755.

by Mathieu Hilgers

The question of freedom is recurrent in the theory of habitus. In this paper I propose that the notion of freedom is... more The question of freedom is recurrent in the theory of habitus. In this paper I propose that the notion of freedom is an essential and necessary component for the coherence of the analyses which mobilize habitus both in terms of their theoretical articulation and in terms of their grounding in empirical reality. This argument can seem surprising considering that the theory of habitus has often been accused of being deterministic. Yet I show that, from an epistemological point of view, habitus theory is not deterministic. Bourdieu’s treatment of this concept implies at least three principles that exclude determinism: (1) the production of an infinite number of behaviors from a limited number of principles, (2) permanent mutation, and (3) the intensive and extensive limits of sociological understanding. After identifying and describing these principles, I show the reason for their incompatibility with a deterministic perspective and consider their implications for the corresponding model of action. I illustrate this analysis by a discussion of Loïc Wacquant’s carnal sociology of the pugilistic universe which reveals why it is essential to understand and explain the relation between habitus and freedom.

2011 The three anthropological approaches to neoliberalism, in International Social Science Journal, Vol 61 (202) : 351–364.

by Mathieu Hilgers

International Social Science Journal, Volume 61, Issue 202, 2011: 351–364.

For around fifteen years now, anthropology has been engaged in the study of neoliberalism. What contribution does the... more For around fifteen years now, anthropology has been engaged in the study of neoliberalism. What contribution does the discipline have to make to a debate largely monopolized by economics and political science? To answer this question, the present article returns to the major texts and highlights the three perspectives from which anthropology has approached neoliberal expansion: culturalist, systemic and the approach based on governmentality. Each has its own epistemological presuppositions and a specific conception of anthropology, globalization and neoliberalism. The article highlights the relevance and limitations of these approaches.

Violence sits in places? Cultural practice, neoliberal rationalism, and virulent imaginative geographies

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. 2011. Violence sits in places? Cultural practice, neoliberal rationalism, and virulent imaginative geographies. Political Geography. 30 (2), 90-98.

Through imaginative geographies that erase the interconnectedness of the places where violence occurs, the notion that... more Through imaginative geographies that erase the interconnectedness of the places where violence occurs, the notion that violence is 'irrational' marks particular cultures as ‘other’. Neoliberalism exploits such imaginative geographies in constructing itself as the sole providence of nonviolence and the lone bearer of reason. Proceeding as a ‘civilizing’ project, neoliberalism positions the market as salvationary to putatively ‘irrational’ and ‘violent’ peoples. This theology of neoliberalism produces a discourse that binds violence in place. But while violence sits in places in terms of the way in which we perceive its manifestation as a localized and embodied experience, this very idea is challenged when place is reconsidered as a relational assemblage. What this re-theorization does is open up the supposed fixity, separation, and immutability of place to instead recognize it as always co-constituted by, mediated through, and integrated within the wider experiences of space. Such a radical rethinking of place fundamentally transforms the way we understand violence. No longer confined to its material expression as an isolated and localized event, violence can more appropriately be understood as an unfolding process, derived from the broader geographical phenomena and temporal patterns of the social world.

Folkhögskolan som musikaliskt förmak

by Erik Nylander

Published in "Två sidor av samma mynt Folkbildning och yrkesutbildning vid de nordiska folkhögskolorna Lundh Nilsson & Nilsson red. 2011 Nordic Academic Press

What symbols

by Dmitry Misyurov

This article contains 12 questions about the symbols. What are your thoughts in response? This article contains 12 questions about the symbols. What are your thoughts in response?

“Red Laughter”: On Refined Weapons of Soviet Jesters

by Serguei Alex. Oushakine (Сергей Ушакин)

Social Research Vol. 79 : No.1 : Spring 2012

CULTURAL SOCIOLOGY AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN A WORLD OF FLOWS: RECAPTURING AMBIGUITY, HYBRIDITY, AND THE POLITICAL

by gianpaolo baiocchi

Please cite as: Baiocchi, Gianpaolo. 2012. CULTURAL SOCIOLOGY AND CIVIL SOCIETY IN A WORLD OF FLOWS: RECAPTURING AMBIGUITY, HYBRIDITY, AND THE POLITICAL. In Alexander, Jacobs, and Smith Eds, The Handbook of Cultural Sociology (Oxford University Press)

Intellectuals and society: sociological and historical perspectives.

by Patrick Baert

By Patrick Baert and Joel Issac.

In: Routledge International Handbook of Contemporary Social and Political Theory. Eds. G.Delanty and S.P. Turner. London: Routledge, pp. 200-211.

This chapter critically assesses the various sociological and historical contributions to the study of... more This chapter critically assesses the various sociological and historical contributions to the study of intellectuals.It also explores the affinities betwen the sociological and historical studies in this area.

Cultural capital and tastes: the persistence of Distinction

by David Wright

Chapter 26 in Hall, J.R., Grindstaff, L and Ming-Cheng, L (eds) (2010) Handbook of Cultural Sociology, Routlegde: New York: 275-284

[Non-refereed Op-ed] Whose Arms Will Embrace You? The United States and the Beijing Consensus

by Amarnath Amarasingam

The United States is increasingly playing a game of subtle communication in the international arena. I suspect we had... more The United States is increasingly playing a game of subtle communication in the international arena. I suspect we had a passing glimpse of this at the 19th Session of the Human Rights Council, which gathered in Geneva last month. The question is: who is the United States talking to and what is it trying to say?

Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia

by Simon Springer

Springer, S. Forthcoming. Illegal evictions? Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia. Journal of Agrarian Change.

The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of... more The unfolding of a juridico-cadastral system in present-day Cambodia is at odds with local understandings of landholding, which are entrenched in notions of community consensus and existing occupation. The discrepancy between such orally recognized antecedents and the written word of law have been at the heart of the recent wave of dispossessions that have swept across the country. Contra the standard critique that corruption has set the tone, this paper argues that evictions in Cambodia are often literally underwritten by the articles of law. Whereas ‘possession’ is a well-understood and accepted concept in Cambodia, a cultural basis rooted in what James C. Scott refers to as ‘orality’, coupled with a long history of subsistence agriculture, semi-nomadic lifestyles, barter economies, and–until recently–widespread land availability have all ensured that notions of ‘property’ are vague among the country’s majority rural poor. In drawing a firm distinction between possessions and property, where the former is premised upon actual use and the latter is embedded in exploitation, this article examines how proprietorship is inextricably bound to the violence of law.