Offering a major challenge to established textbooks and pointing to inspiring new ways of approaching sociology, this book presents a notable shift in introductory sociology. Too often the subject is taught as a dry and detached system of thought and practice. Passion is regarded as something to avoid or to treat with inherent suspicion. By asking questions about sociology and its relation to passion, the authors seek to revitalize the subject. The book introduces and develops a number of themes such as: identity, knowledge, magic, desire, power and everyday life. It argues that students should analyze these themes through practices including: reading, writing, speaking, storytelling and organizing. The authors aim to intr

Music is an accumulation of mediators: instruments, languages, sheets, performers, scenes, media and so on. There is no musical objectin itself ; music must always be made again. In this innovative book, Hennion turns the elusiveness of music into a resource for a pragmatic analysis: by which collective process do we make music appear among us? Rather than offering a sociology of music, The Passion for Music listens to the lesson provided by the case of music - this art of infinite mediations. Learning from music allows us to transform the paradigm to be offered by sociology, by confronting it (from Durkheim and Weber to Bourdieu) with a different way of considering objects. For this task, Hennion draws on aesthetics (Adorno) and art history (Haskell, Baxandall), as well as science and technology studies and popular music studies (Latour, Frith, DeNora). As part of that project, The Passion for Music presents a wide-ranging series of case studies, restoring attention to the rich and varied intermediaries through which music is brought to life: from the debate around the reinterpretation of baroque music, to the classroom, the rock scene, the classical music concert, Bach‘s ‘social career in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the practices of musicamateurs today. This is the first English translation of one of the most important works of French scholarship on music and society.

Music is an accumulation of mediators: instruments, languages, sheets, performers, scenes, media and so on. Learning from music - this art of infinite mediations - allows us to confront sociology with a different way of considering objects. For this task, Hennion draws on aesthetics, art history, science, technology and popular music studies. He shows us that music is a collective process, which must always be performed again and again. As part of that project, he presents a wide-ranging series of case studies, restoring attention to the rich and varied intermediaries through which music is brought to life. This is the first English translation of one of the most important works of French scholarship on music and society.

Probing the ominous side of career advice to "follow your passion," this data-driven study explains how the passion principle fails us and perpetuates inequality by class, gender, and race; and it suggests how we can reconfigure our relationships to paid work. "Follow your passion" is a popular mantra for career decision-making in the United States. Passion-seeking seems like a promising path for avoiding the potential drudgery of a life of paid work, but this "passion principle"—seductive as it is—does not universally translate. The Trouble with Passion reveals the significant downside of the passion principle: the concept helps culturally legitimize and reproduce an exploited, overworked white-collar labor force and broadly serves to reinforce class, race, and gender segregation and inequality. Grounding her investigation in the paradoxical tensions between capitalism's demand for ideal workers and our cultural expectations for self-expression, sociologist Erin A. Cech draws on interviews that follow students from college into the workforce, surveys of US workers, and experimental data to explain why the passion principle is such an attractive, if deceptive, career decision-making mantra, particularly for the college educated. Passion-seeking presumes middle-class safety nets and springboards and penalizes first-generation and working-class young adults who seek passion without them. The ripple effects of this mantra undermine the promise of college as a tool for social and economic mobility. The passion principle also feeds into a culture of overwork, encouraging white-collar workers to tolerate precarious employment and gladly sacrifice time, money, and leisure for work they are passionate about. And potential employers covet, but won't compensate, passion among job applicants. This book asks, What does it take to center passion in career decisions? Who gets ahead and who gets left behind by passion-seeking? The Trouble with Passion calls for citizens, educators, college administrators, and industry leaders to reconsider how we think about good jobs and, by extension, good lives.

This lucidly written textbook covers the historical background of clinical sociology as a field and its developing trends around the world. It addresses the urgent need for sociologists to develop a clinical approach in their effort to improve society, with the emphasis that clinical sociology should complement the work of other disciplines such as clinical psychology, social work, and social anthropology. This book discusses in depth the concept of clinical sociology itself and the obligations of clinical sociologists. It fills a gap in the literature which reveals a lack of discussion and consensus on the roles and responsibilities of clinical sociologists, therefore making an important contribution to clinical sociology, and sociology, more broadly. Graduate students, practitioners and professionals in the field of clinical sociology, social work and other related disciplines will find this book very useful.

Show students the relevance of sociology to their lives. Adapted from Ritzer’s Introduction to Sociology, this text provides students with a rock-solid foundation in a shorter and more streamlined format.

Emotions are back. Once at the center of the study of politics, emotions have receded into the shadows during the past three decades, with no place in the rationalistic, structural, and organizational models that dominate academic political analysis. With this new collection of essays, Jeff Goodwin, James M. Jasper, and Francesca Polletta reverse this trend, reincorporating emotions such as anger, indignation, fear, disgust, joy, and love into research on politics and social protest. The tools of cultural analysis are especially useful for probing the role of emotions in politics, the editors and contributors to Passionate Politics argue. Moral outrage, the shame of spoiled collective identities, or the joy of imagining a new and better society, are not automatic responses to events. Rather, they are related to moral institutions, felt obligations and rights, and information about expected effects, all of which are culturally and historically variable. With its look at the history of emotions in social thought, examination of the internal dynamics of protest groups, and exploration of the emotional dynamics that arise from interactions and conflicts among political factions and individuals, Passionate Politics will lead the way toward an overdue reconsideration of the role of emotions in social movements and politics generally. Contributors: Rebecca Anne Allahyari Edwin Amenta Collin Barker Mabel Berezin Craig Calhoun Randall Collins Frank Dobbin Jeff Goodwin Deborah B. Gould Julian McAllister Groves James M. Jasper Anne Kane Theodore D. Kemper Sharon Erickson Nepstad Steven Pfaff Francesca Polletta Christian Smith Arlene Stein Nancy Whittier Elisabeth Jean Wood Michael P. Young

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the field of the Sociology of Emotions, incorporating sociological, feminist and cultural perspectives. Structured around three dimensions - conceptualisation, theory and analysis of emotions - it provides new insights into the field, with a particular focus on contemporary social issues such as loneliness, depression, confidence, consumption, class, intimacy and sexuality. The book examines the language of emotions, looking at macro and micro framing of emotions in modernity, emotional labour, public emotions, passionate emotions, melancholic emotions, masculinity and emotions, love, intimacy and emotions. It delves into both positive and negative emotions such as happiness, anger, fear and sadness. The book will be essential reading for researchers and students seeking a current and interdisciplinary resource covering a wide range of international material in the field of Sociology of Emotions.

Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) was a major figure of the Scottish Enlightenment whose thought was, in many respects, original and distinctive. This book is a study of his ideas and of the intellectual forces that shaped them. Though somewhat overlooked in the nineteenth century, Ferguson was rescued from obscurity in the first half of the twentieth century by scholars interested in the origins of sociology and early critiques of modernity. Ferguson’s interest in the mechanics of social life and especially social change led him to many groundbreaking insights. In fact, he is sometimes identified as the 'Father of Modern Sociology'. In addition to exploring whether or not he merits this title, this study examines the whole of Ferguson’s thought as a system and includes his moral and faculty psychology, historiography, theology, politics and social science. Ferguson is distinguished by his deep appreciation of the complexity of the human condition; his study of society is based on the belief that it is not only reason, but the unseen, unplanned, sub-rational and visceral forces that keep the human universe in motion. Ferguson’s appreciation of this fact, and his ability to make social science of it, is his major achievement.