Culture, Power, and History: |
Culture, Power, and History: Studies in Critical Sociology, written by several BC Sociology professors, graduate students, and alumni, and edited by Professor Stephen Pfohl and PhD students Aimee Van Wagenen, Patricia Arend, Abigail Brooks and Denise Leckenby, has just been published by Brill Academic Publishers (Leiden, The Netherlands). The article below, describing the origins of the book, can also be found in the Sociology Speaks 2003-4. (To read other issues of our newsletter, see our Sociology Speaks web page.)
David Fasenfest, the editor of Critical Sociology, invited Boston College Sociology faculty and grad students to develop a special issue of the journal after being impressed by their contributions during a session of The Future of Critical Sociology at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. While ten faculty members and students made up the core collective, a number of students, alumni, and faculty contributed. The project, described in Sociology Speaks 2002-3, was completed in March of 2004 and published in Volume 30, Number 2 of Critical Sociology. The table of contents is shown below. A slightly expanded version of the same material will be published as an edited book.
Stephen Pfohl: Culture, Power, and History: An IntroductionCulture
Abigail Brooks: Under the Knife and Proud of It': An Analysis of the Normalization of Cosmetic Surgery
Steven D. Farough: The Social Geographies of White Masculinities
Charles Sarno: On the Place of Allegory in the Methodological Conventions of a Critical Sociology: A Case Study of Max Weber's Protestant Ethic
Aimee van Wagenen: An Epistemology of Haunting: A Review Essay
Power
R. Danielle Egan: Eyeing the Scene: The Uses and (RE)uses of Surveillance Cameras in an Exotic Dance Club
Delario Lindsey: To Build a More Perfect Discipline': Ideologies of the Normative and the Social Control of the Criminal Innocent in the Policing of New York City
Karen McCormack: Resisting the Welfare Mother: The Power of Welfare Discourse and Tactics of Resistance
William R. Wood: Viral Power: Interview with Arthur and Marilouise Kroker
History
Davarian L. Baldwin: Black Belts and Ivory Towers: The Place of Race in U.S. Social Thought, 1892-1948
Jackie Orr: The Militarization of Inner Space
Charlotte Ryan: It Takes a Movement to Raise an Issue: Media Lessons from the 1997 U.P.S. Strike
William R. Wood: (Virtual) Myths
Book Reviews
All books are by BC Sociology alumni, reviews are by current students or alumni.
Patricia Arend's review of Janet Wirth-Cauchon's Women and Borderline Personality Disorder: Symptoms and Stories
Christine Crofts' review of Reto Muller's Manufacturing Whiteness
Kelly Joyce's review of Andrew Herman's The Better Angels of Capitalism: Rhetoric, Narrative, and Moral Identity Among Men of the American Upper Class
Jeffrey A. Langstraat's review of David Croteau and William Hoynes' The Business of Media: Corporate Media and the Public Interest
Catherine Sigworth's review of Julie Manga's Talking Trash: The Cultural Politics of Daytime TV Talk Shows