The old assumption that modernization leads to secularization is outdated. Yet the certainty that religion is an anthropological universal that can only be suppressed by governments is also dead. Thus it is now a favorable moment for a new perspective on religion. This book takes human experiences of self-transcendence as its point of departure. Religious faith is seen as an attempt to articulate and interpret such experiences. Faith then is neither useful nor a symptom of weakness or misery, but an opening up of ways of experience. This book develops this basic idea, contrasts it with the...

Culture is increasingly important to American social science, but in what way? This book addresses the core issues of the sociology of culture-questions about the social role of meaning, along with those about the methods sociologists use to study culture and society-in a manner that makes clear their relevance to sociology as a whole. Part I consists of essays by leading cultural sociologists on how the turn to culture has changed the sociological study of organizations, economic action, and television, and concludes with Georgina Born's methodological statement on the sociology of art and...

Jihad is the most organized force against Western capitalism since the Soviet era. Yet jihadism is multifaceted and complex, much broader than Al Qaeda alone. In the first wide-ranging introduction to today's rapidly growing jihadism, Khosrokhavar explains how two key movements variously influence jihadi activists. One, based in the Middle East, is more heavily influenced by Islamic religion and political thought. The other, composed of individuals growing up or living mostly in Europe and Western democracies including the United States, is motivated by secular as well as religious...

fresh appreciation of the events of 1989 as we approach their 20th anniversary in 2009 Performative Democracy explores a potential in political life that easily escapes theorists: the indigenously inspired enacting of democracy by citizens. Written by one who experienced an emerging public sphere within Communist Poland, the book seeks to identify the conditions for performativity-performing politics--in public life. It examines a broad spectrum of cultural, social, and political initiatives that facilitated the non-violent transformation of an autocratic environment into a democratic one....

Though it is difficult to describe what a just world should be, everyone is able to denounce injustice when he/she is a victim or a witness of it. Based on a long-term study of workers, this new book tests and expands upon prevailing theories of justice by Rawls, Nozick, Taylor, Walzer, and other important philosophers. Injustice at Work describes the way workers perceive social injustice. It reveals why they so often feel unequal, scorned, dominated, and alienated at work. The book develops three principles of justice-equality, merit, and autonomy-showing how individuals combine them in...

fresh appreciation of the events of 1989 as we approach their 20th anniversary in 2009 Performative Democracy explores a potential in political life that easily escapes theorists: the indigenously inspired enacting of democracy by citizens. Written by one who experienced an emerging public sphere within Communist Poland, the book seeks to identify the conditions for performativity-performing politics--in public life. It examines a broad spectrum of cultural, social, and political initiatives that facilitated the non-violent transformation of an autocratic environment into a democratic one....

Classical Durkheimian Studies of Myth and the Sacred presents English translations of several important essays, some never before translated, by members of the famous Annee sociologique group around Emile Durkheim. These works by Marcel Mauss, Henri Hubert, and Robert Hertz are key contributions to today's growing interest in and reinterpretation of Durkheimian thought on culture, religion, and symbolism. The central thrust in this new interpretive effort uses the Durkheimian theory of the sacred to understand the symbolism and meanings of cultural structures and narratives more generally....

The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) is a modern social drama that enabled the nation's apartheid past to be constructed as a cultural trauma, and by doing so created a new collective narrative of diversity and inclusion. The TRC relied primarily on testimonies from victims and perpetrators of apartheid violence who came forward to tell their stories in a public forum. Rather than simply serving as data for setting the historical record straight, this book shows that it was not only the content of these testimonies but also how these stories were told and what values...

Though it is difficult to describe what a just world should be, everyone is able to denounce injustice when he/she is a victim or a witness of it. Based on a long-term study of workers, this new book tests and expands upon prevailing theories of justice by Rawls, Nozick, Taylor, Walzer, and other important philosophers. Injustice at Work describes the way workers perceive social injustice. It reveals why they so often feel unequal, scorned, dominated, and alienated at work. The book develops three principles of justice-equality, merit, and autonomy-showing how individuals combine them in...

In case studies that examine wrenching historical and contemporary crises across five continents, cultural sociologists analyze the contingencies of trauma construction and their fateful social impact. How do some events get coded as traumatic and others which seem equally painful and dramatic not? Why do culpable groups often escape being categorized as perpetrators? Why are some horrendously injured parties not seen as victims? Why do some trauma constructions lead to moral restitution and justice, while others narrow solidarity and trigger future violence? Expanding the pioneering cultural...