Aims to provide an accessible but challenging introduction to Bourdieu's ideas. The issues developed include the sociology of culture, leisure and taste; the intrinsic reflexivity of social science; and the role of language in society and in social sciences.

Aims to provide an accessible but challenging introduction to Bourdieu's ideas. The issues developed include the sociology of culture, leisure and taste; the intrinsic reflexivity of social science; and the role of language in society and in social sciences.

The influence of Pierre Bourdieu--one of the most protean intellectual forces in contemporary French thought--extends far beyond is home discipline of sociological research and thought. His work, presented in over twenty books, lies on the borders of philosophy, anthropology and ethnology, and cultural theory. The present volume consists of diverse individual texts, produced between 1980 and 1986, which take two forms: interviews in which Bourdieu confronts a series of probing and intelligent interviewers, and conference papers that clarify and extend specific areas of his research. Now that...

The influence of Pierre Bourdieu-one of the most protean intellectual forces in contemporary French thought-extends far beyond is home discipline of sociological research and thought. His work, presented in over twenty books, lies on the borders of philosophy, anthropology and ethnology, and cultural theory.

The present volume consists of diverse individual texts, produced between 1980 and 1986, which take two forms: interviews in which Bourdieu confronts a series of probing and intelligent interviewers, and conference papers that clarify and extend specific areas of his research....

Our usual representations of the opposition between the "civilized" and the "primitive" derive from willfully ignoring the relationship of distance our social science sets up between the observer and the observed. In fact, the author argues, the relationship between the anthropologist and his object of study is a particular instance of the relationship between knowing and doing, interpreting and using, symbolic mastery and practical mastery?or between logical logic, armed with all the accumulated instruments of objectification, and the universally pre-logical logic of practice. In this, his...

In this major new work, Pierre Bourdieu examines the distinctive forms of power--political, intellectual, bureaucratic, and economic--by means of which contemporary societies are governed. What kinds of competence are claimed by the bureaucrats and technocrats who govern us? And how do those who govern gain our recognition and acquiescence? Bourdieu examines in detail the work of consecration that is carried out by elite education systems--in France by the grande ecoles, in the United States by the Ivy League schools, and in England by Oxford and Cambridge. Today, this "state nobility"...

In this highly original work, Pierre Bourdieu turns his attention to the academic world of which he is part and offers a brilliant analysis of modern intellectual culture. The academy is shown to be not just a realm of dialogue and debate, but also a sphere of power in which reputations and careers are made, defended and destroyed. Employing the distinctive methods for which he has become well known, Bourdieu examines the social background and practical activities of his fellow academics--from Foucault, Derrida, and Lacan to figures who are lesser known but not necessarily less influential....

Our usual representations of the opposition between the "civilized" and the "primitive" derive from willfully ignoring the relationship of distance our social science sets up between the observer and the observed. In fact, the author argues, the relationship between the anthropologist and his object of study is a particular instance of the relationship between knowing and doing, interpreting and using, symbolic mastery and practical mastery--or between logical logic, armed with all the accumulated instruments of objectification, and the universally pre-logical logic of practice. In this, his...

Written with verve and intensity (and a good bit of wordplay), this is the long-awaited study of Flaubert and the modern literary field that constitutes the definitive work on the sociology of art by one of the world's leading social theorists. Drawing upon the history of literature and art from the mid-nineteenth century to the present, Bourdieu develops an original theory of art conceived as an autonomous value. He argues powerfully against those who refuse to acknowledge the interconnection between art and the structures of social relations within which it is produced and received. As...

The everyday practice of photography by millions of amateur photographers may seem to be a spontaneous and highly personal activity. But France's leading sociologist and cultural theorist Pierre Bourdieu and his research associates show that few cultural activities are more structural and systematic than photography. This perceptive and wide-ranging analysis of the practice of photography reveals the logic implicit in this cultural field. For some social groups, photography is primarily a means of preserving the present and reproducing moments of collective celebration, whereas for other...