Kategoria BISAC: Social Science >> Sociology - General

German professors and academic intellectuals are often blamed for their passivity or complicity in the face of the anti-Republican surge of the late Weimar years, culminating in the National Socialist rise to power. Karl Mannheim was a preeminent member of a vital minority committed to making German universities contribute to democratization. Mannheim argued that traditional German emphasis on the cultivation of individuals rooted in a certain high culture had to be adapted to a more egalitarian, socially complex community. He advocated teaching of sociology to create social awareness to...

Globalization has been the "buzzword" in international political and academic discourse since the 1990s. It is used as a general descriptor of a world in which borders are becoming less and less important, while transnational flows of capital and goods, but also of ideas and people, cultural norms and values, crime, war, and viruses are increasing.

If globalization's dynamics are to be fully understood, a reasonable critique is to be formulated, and realistic political proposals to meet the challenges of globalization are to be developed, this complex phenomenon must be dissected....

It is widely acknowledged that the United States has always provided fertile ground for the growth of new religious movements and cults, but modern organized efforts to oppose and restrict them have been less well understood. In Agents of Discord, Anson Shupe and Susan E. Darnell offer a groundbreaking analysis of the operations and motives of these oppositional groups, which they generally group under the umbrella term of the anticult movement.

Historically there have always been parallel groups opposed to certain religious movements, whether these be anti-Quaker,...

Who Owns Knowledge? explores the emerging linkages between the extension of knowledge and the law. It anticipates that the legal system will not only be called upon to adjudicate in matters of creative minds, but will be expected to do so to an ever increasing degree.

Linkages between the legal system and knowledge are bound to multiply in modern societies. Ironically, while increasingly relying on knowledge, we are simultaneously investing significant resources into controlling this same knowledge. This includes developing a system of legal governance over how knowledge is...

Where will postmodern culture lead us in the twenty-first century? Will it destroy traditional cultures together with the old, established religions that were its foundation? These questions and the new concerns they evoke are explored in this important collection of original essays. Contributors challenge entrenched assumptions about what many social scientists consider irreversible cultural trends. These include cultural differentiation, emphasis on individual identity, movement toward religion as a private act rather than a community commitment, and above all, emphasis on the...

The volume highlights answers to important questions raised by shifting organizational forms and arrangements, such as:

• How are identity processes affected by, and how do they...