Social Performance: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics, and Ritual

ISBN-13: 9780521857956 / Angielski / Twarda / 2006 / 394 str.

Jeffrey Alexander; Jason L. Mast; Bernhard Giesen

Opis

Taking a "cultural pragmatic" approach to meaning, the contributors suggest a new way of looking at the continuum that stretches between ritual and strategic action. They do so by developing, for the first time, a model of "social performance." This volume offers the first systematic and analytical framework that transforms the metaphor into a social theory and applies it to a series of facinating large-scale social and cultural processes--from September 11 and the Clinton/Lewinsky Affair, to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Willy Brandt's famous "kneefall" before the Warsaw momument.

Recenzje

'Truly a groundbreaking work, and is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in the understanding of modern social and political action.' Marvin Carlson, TDR: The Drama Review

Spis treści

Introduction: symbolic action in theory and practice: the cultural pragmatics of symbolic action Jeffrey C. Alexander and Jason L. Mast; 1. Cultural pragmatics: social performance between ritual and strategy Jeffrey C. Alexander; 2. From the depths of despair: performance, counterperformance, and 'September 11' Jeffrey C. Alexander; 3. The cultural pragmatics of event-ness: the Clinton/Lewinsky affair Jason L. Mast; 4. Social dramas, shipwrecks and cockfights: conflict and complicity in social performance Isaac Reed; 5. Performing a 'new' nation: the role of the TRC in South Africa Tanya Goodman; 6. Performing opposition or, how social movements move Ron Eyerman; 7. Politics as theater: an alternative view of the rationalities of power David E. Apter; 8. Symbols in action: Willy Brandt's kneefall at the Warsaw monument Valentin Rauer; 9. The promise of performance and the problem of order Kay Junge; 10. Performance art Bernhard Giesen; 11. Performing the sacred: a Durkheimian perspective on the performance turn in the social sciences Bernhard Giesen.