Disintegration: Bad Love, Collective Suicide, and the Idols of Imperial Twilight


Book Description

Together again for the first time, Marx and Durkheim join forces in the pages of Disintegration: Bad Love, Collective Suicide, and the Idols of Imperial Twilight for a dialectical exploration of the moral economy of neoliberalism, animated, as it is not only by the capitalist chase for surplus value, but also by an immortal vortex of sacred powers. Classical sociology and psychoanalysis are reconstituted within Hegelian social ontology and dialectical method that differentiates between the ephemeral and free and the eternal and fixed aspects of modern life.




Aesthetic Collectives


Book Description

This book focuses attention on groups of performing people that are unique aesthetic objects, the focus of an artist’s vision, but at the same time a collective being; a singular, whole mass that exists and behaves like an individual entity. This text explores this unique experience, which is far from rare or special. Indeed, it is pervasive, ubiquitous and has, since the dawn of performance, been with us. Surveying installation art from Vanessa Beecroft & Kanye West, Greek tragedy, back-up dancing groups and even the mass dance of clubbing crowds, this text examines and names this phenomenon: Aesthetic Collectives. Drawing on a range of methods of investigation spanning performance studies, acting theory, studies of atmosphere and affect and sociology it presents an intervention in the literature for something that has long deserved its own attention. This book will be of great interest to scholars, students and practitioners in performance studies, theatre, live art, sociology (particularly of groups and subcultures), cultural studies and cultural geography.




Research in Education


Book Description







Handbook of Peer Interactions, Relationships, and Groups, Second Edition


Book Description

The definitive handbook on peer relations has now been significantly revised with 55% new material. Bringing together leading authorities, this volume presents cutting-edge research on the dynamics of peer interactions, their impact on multiple aspects of social development, and the causes and consequences of peer difficulties. From friendships and romance to social withdrawal, aggression, and victimization, all aspects of children's and adolescents' relationships are explored. The book examines how individual characteristics interact with family, group, and contextual factors across development to shape social behavior. The importance of peer relationships to emotional competence, psychological well-being, and achievement is analyzed, and peer-based interventions for those who are struggling are reviewed. Each chapter includes an introductory overview and addresses theoretical considerations, measures and methods, research findings and their implications, and future directions. New to This Edition *Chapters on neuroscience, social media, social inequality, prosocial behavior with peers, and sociological approaches. *Expanded coverage of applied issues: chapters on interventions for socially withdrawn children, activity programs that promote positive youth development, and policy initiatives. *Chapters on same- and other-sex peer relationships, peer influence, educational environments, evolutionary models, the self-concept, personality, and animal studies. *Increased attention to variations in peer relations due to culture, gender, and race. *Many new authors and topics reflect a decade's worth of theoretical and methodological advances, including the growing use of complex longitudinal methods.




Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge


Book Description

"Bartley and Radnitzky have done the philosophy of knowledge a tremendous service. Scholars now have a superb and up-to-date presentation of the fundamental ideas of evolutionary epistemology." --Philosophical Books




Convincing Political Stakeholders


Book Description

In the new edition of his standard work, the founder of one of the most successful lobbying companies in the European Union (EU), Prof. Klemens Joos, bundles experience acquired over more than three decades to form a scientific theory on governmental relations. It focusses on the insight that, in view of the increasingly complex decision-making structures of the EU, the most precise possible knowledge of decision-makers and decision-making processes is at least equally as important to success as the content aspects of interest representation. In a new chapter, the author sets out the formula for science-based interest representation developed by him from his practical experience. With the Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force on 1 December 2009, the EU de facto became a state territory stretching from Portugal to Finland and from Ireland to Cyprus. The European Parliament became an equal-status decision-maker alongside the Council of the European Union (Council). The previous co-decision procedure was elevated to become the standard procedure ("ordinary legislative procedure"). The so-called qualified majority (55 percent of the EU member states which simultaneously represent at least 65 percent of the EU population) was introduced for all important areas in the Council. As a result, the outcome of decision-making processes has become largely incalculable for the actors on the "European Union stage" - the EU member states, EU regions, companies, associations and organisations. The second edition includes a new chapter, in which Prof. Klemens Joos makes the variables of successful interest representation even more tangible on the basis of his scientific formula: at the latest since the Treaty of Lisbon, the basic prerequisite for successful interest representation in the EU involves the continuous and close intermeshing of the affected party's content competence (of the four "classic instruments" of interest representation: corporate representative offices, associations, public affairs agencies, law firms) with process structure competence (i.e. the EU-wide maintenance of the required spatial, personnel and organisational capacities as well as strong networks across institutions, political groups and member states) on the part of an independent intermediary. The likelihood of success can be increased exponentially if success is achieved, firstly, in committing to the concern of an affected party through a change of perspective such that the positive effects on the common good are shifted into the foreground for the decision-makers in the EU (perspective change competence) and, secondly, in successfully integrating the concern into the crucial decision-making processes at the political level and continuously supporting it (process support competence). Guest authors: This work includes guest contributions from Prof. Christian Blümelhuber (Berlin University of the Arts), Prof. Anton Meyer (formerly LMU Munich), Prof. Armin Nassehi (LMU Munich) and Prof. Franz Waldenberger (Director of the German Institute of Japanese Studies, Tokyo) as well as a foreword by Prof. Gunther Friedl (Dean of the TUM School of Management) and a preface by Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann (President of TU Munich).




Methodology and Epistemology for Social Sciences


Book Description

Selections from the work of an influential contributor to the methodology of the social sciences. He treats: measurement, experimental design, epistemology, and sociology of science each section introduced by the editor, Samuel Overman. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.




Conformity's Children


Book Description




The Mass Psychology of Ethnonationalism


Book Description

Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ethnonationalism has left its indelible mark on Europe and every other continent. The latest events in the Balkans, in central and eastern Europe, and in the former Soviet Union unequivocally testify to the power and influence of ethnonationalism at the end of the second millennium. What forces make people so committed to their ethnonational groups that they are ready to ignore all other concerns, first and foremost the rights and interests of people of other ethnicities? What is the social psychological and anthropological underpinning of ethnonationalism? And finally; why and how do people adhere to nation alist attitudes and beliefs? These questions are virtually impossible to avoid for anyone who has directly felt the impact of ethnonationalism, but they also present them selves to anyone who has indirectly experienced the prejudices unleashed by ethnonationalist forces. This book attempts to answer all these questions by focusing on national feeling and the social psychological and anthropological founda tions that underly the sense of belonging that is essential to nationalism. No matter how qualitatively different nationalist attitudes and beliefs are from national sentiment, the latter has to be considered in any study of national ism.