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Sociology after Postmodernism
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Sociology after Postmodernism

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June 1997 | 240 pages | SAGE Publications Ltd
Postmodernism is frequently described as a death-blow to sociology. In proposing the end of society, it is regarded as robbing sociologists of their subject matter. This book examines the effect of postmodernism on sociological thought with individual chapters that address the topics of class, gender, race, criminology and deviance, law, culture, sexuality, emotion, medicine and the body, science and technology, and historical and political sociology. The authors argue that it is a mistake to conceive of postmodernism in terms of a fatal attack on what sociologists do. They locate the identity of sociology "after" postmodernism as a contested site that opens up the possibility of re-imagining the enterprise of sociology. The authors show how this sociological re-imagination might be conducted and trace some of the main areas to which it leads. Postmodernism is presented as a source of stimulation that requires sociologists to reconsider some of their central conventional categories and practices. The volume also offers the reader the opportunity to reflect on the contemporary state of sociological thinking. The book was commissioned to fill a perceived gap in the literature for a text that is both scholarly and accessible to students as a guide to the transformations in sociological thinking. Wide-ranging and full of insight, it will become required reading for students of sociology.

 
INTRODUCTION
David Owen
The Postmodern Challenge to Sociology
 
CLASS
Malcolm Waters
Inequality after Class
 
GENDER
Samantha Ashenden
Feminism, Postmodernism and the Sociology of Gender
 
RACE AND ETHNICITY
Paul Connolly
Racism and Postmodernism: Towards a Theory of Practice
 
CRIMINOLOGY AND DEVIANCE
Nigel South
Late-Modern Criminology
`Late' as in `Dead' or `Modern' as in `New'

 
 
LAW
Alan Hunt
Law, Politics and the Social Sciences
 
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Ralph Schroeder
The Sociology of Science and Technology after Relativism
 
CULTURE AND MEDIA
Douglas Kellner
Social Theory and Cultural Studies
 
SEXUALITY
Arlene Stein
Sex after `Sexuality'
From Sexology to Post-Structuralism

 
 
AFFECTIVITY
Sean Watson and Peter Jowers
Somatology
Sociology and the Visceral

 
 
MEDICINE AND THE BODY
Thomas Osborne
Body Amnesia - Comments on Corporeality
 
HISTORY AND POLITICS
Mitchell Dean
Sociology after Society

`For those of us who take the thesis of postmodernity seriously yet retain the empirical and theoretical apparatus of sociology, this book will be a very welcome addition to our libraries' - Contemporary Sociology