In recent years, the study of celebrity has developed and cohered into a flourishing field of social and cultural analysis. There is huge interest in topics such as the politics and logic of glamour; the role of the public-relations industry in manipulating television audiences; the relationship between fame and social control; and the economics of the so-called celebrity industry. And as interest in celebrity continues to explode, a variety of forerunners to its study drawing on materials from a wide range of disciplines including sociology, cultural studies, history, psychology,...

New Religious Movements (NRMs) came into being as a distinct subfield of academic study in the 1970s in response to the explosion of non-traditional religions that took place in the waning years of the Sixties counterculture. (The designation 'New Religion' is a direct translation of a Japanese term coined for the many new religions that emerged in the wake of the Second World War, and was adopted by Western scholars in the late Sixties/early Seventies in preference to the pejorative term 'cult'.) These movements, and those termed 'sects' and 'cults', initially attracted the attention of...

This major works collection surveys the nature of Muslim diasporas in the west from a sociological perspective, exploring the issues of migration, integration, identity, politics, Islamophobia, and radicalisation.

This four-volume collected works is the state of the art on the research and scholarship on Muslim diasporas in the West carried out over the last four decades. From canonical works to the latest trends in study, these contributions have added to the understanding of ethnicity, equality and diversity in relation to Muslims in the west. These article explore the...

The parameters within which young people live their lives have changed radically. In particular, rapid and dizzying changes to education systems and labour markets around the world have dramatically increased the complexity of the so-called youth phase .

While youth and young adulthood have developed and cohered into critical concepts in contemporary social and cultural analysis, the daunting quantity (and variable quality) of the available research exploring the many, often controversial, issues that the concepts throw up makes it difficult to discriminate the useful from the...

A term of antique provenance, identity has developed and cohered into a critical concept in contemporary social and cultural analysis. However, the daunting quantity (and variable quality) of the available research exploring the many, often controversial, issues attendant upon identity and the breadth and complexity of the canon on which it draws makes it difficult to discriminate the useful from the tendentious, superficial, and otiose. That is why this new title in the highly regarded Routledge series, Critical Concepts in Sociology, is so timely. It answers the urgent need for a...

This is a new title from Routledge s Critical Concepts in Sociology series. Compiled by the editorial team behind the acclaimed "International Handbook of Public Communication of Science and Technology" (Routledge, 2008), this four-volume mini library provides an easy-to-use, one-stop collection of the best foundational and cutting-edge scholarship from the fast-growing and increasingly important scholarly domain that is the public communication of science.

As well as bringing together the major works that have shaped this field of research, the collection will be welcomed as the first...

This new 4 volume collection will bring together the key literature on Islam and Society. In four broad themes the collection will cover Islam and power; minorities and pluralism; everyday life, ethics and community building; subjectivation, discipline and piety. Fully indexed and including a newly written introduction by the editor, this is an essential reference resource for student and scholar.

This collection aims to illustrate the variety of different Islamic mediated expressions, both in Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority contexts. The study of the myriad of ways in which Islam is mediated in today s world is important, because the media (both traditional, i.e print and broadcast, and new /social/online) are a battleground for the meaning and nature of Islam. Different discourses about Islam are vying for public attention, because to be in the spotlight means to be influential. From everyday accounts of religious experience, through reformist, conservative, and reactive...