This is the study of a major change in American middle-class emotional culture. It took place between the end of World War I and the 1950s. Becoming a cool character meant adopting an air of nonchalance, an emotional mantle, to shield the whole personality from embarrassing excess.
In his exploration of the interaction between religion and worldwide social and cultural change, the author examines the major theories of global change and discusses the ways in which such change impinges on contemporary religious practice, meaning and influence. Beyer explores some of the key issues in understanding the shape of religion today, including religion as culture and as social system, pure and applied religion, privatized and publicly influential religion, and liberal versus conservative religions. He goes on to apply these issues to five contemporary illustrative cases: the American Christian Right; Liberation Theology movements in Latin America; the Islamic Revolution in Iran; Zionists in Israel; and religious environmentalism.
The author examines how indigenous activists are cultivating international support for a programme of self-determination and legal protection, as well as how the indigenous voice in world politics is transforming civic discourse within the international community. With the United Nations designating 1993 as the `Year of Indigenous Peoples', this book could not be more timely.
This volume is a comprehensive analysis of research and theory on verbal communication and social influence. It examines a variety of empirical studies, theoretical positions, methodological matters and substantive issues pertaining to the use of language for generating influence and control. It moves from the basic concept of monological speech and the achievement of power to the increasingly complex and subtle cases of conversational control and linguistic depoliticization. Topics such as linguistic signs of power, language as a resource for creating power and social causes of verbal power are examined in contexts ranging from informal conversations to newspaper headlines. The research scrutinized ranges from qualitative analyses of social interaction to quantitative analyses of message effects.
How do we derive concepts from stories and then use these concepts to understand people? What would have to be added to transform story material from the journalistic or literary to the academic and theoretically enriching? Addressing these and other issues such as the interface between life as lived and the social times, distinguished contributors explore this emerging new field in this unique volume. Beginning with the philosophical framework that underlies the study of narrative, the book covers such questions as: what makes people want to preserve the stories of their past? What methods can be used to deconstruct a narrative text? Can what we learn from people's narratives of their past be used to account for their current psychological functioning? What happens if people lose their ability to narrate their story? Can people's narrative accounts tell us something about identity and its development?
Presents selections that span the political gamut from the far left to the far right, demonstrating the clash of views on the many issues surrounding the political correctness debate.
"Changing Human Reproduction" demonstrates that conception and birth are as much social as biological events. The authors stress the importance of viewing human reproduction not only as a biological event but also as social reproduction. The book argues that systematic research into the social aspects of reproduction is possible, and is being done; that the neglect of social research has led to the failure to make necessary provisions for the social consequences of new reproductive techniques. The plight of the involuntarily childless who, having been helped to conceive, find themselves with three, four or more babies illustrates this point clearly. Drawing on methods from history, sociology and anthropology, the contributors analyze the changes which have been initiated by the new reproductive techniques. Our understanding of how babies are conceived, and what it means to be a parent or a relative, have all become more complex.
In the 1960s many sociologists proclaimed traditional religion to be in its death throes. But, just as secularization gained nearly universal acceptance among scholars, religious resurgence burst forth from many directions - new religious movements and the growth of Islamic fundamentalism for example. In A Future for Religion?, contributors ask whether, if such dynamic forces are at work, is religion really dying? They discuss issues usually excluded from books on the sociology of religion - including religious experience, emotional renewal, religion and the body.
This volume examines socially-based theory and research, pedagogy and practice in professional communication. The contributors provide a comprehensive overview of the social perspective which emphasizes the context of communication, and then distinguish it from positivistic, cognitive and other competing approaches. After establishing a broad framework for situating developments in professional communication research, the book then moves on to: explore more particular topics, issues and problems within the perspective; examine the historical and theoretical traditions in rhetoric, semiotics, literary criticism, philosophy of science, social psychology and cultural anthropology; discuss implications for classroom practice in professional communication; and describe the ways that the social perspective has changed our understanding of communication in the workplace.
