Böcker i Published in association with Theory, Culture & Society-serien

What do we mean by 'diaspora' and 'hybridity'? Why are they pivotal concepts in contemporary debates on race, culture and society? This book is a politically inflected, assessment of the key debates on diaspora and hybridity. It relates the topics to contemporary social struggles and cultural contexts.

What is phenomenological sociology? Why is it significant? This book argues that phenomenology was the most significant, wide-ranging and influential philosophy to emerge in the twentieth century.

Explores the meaning of leisure in the context of key social formations of our time. This title brings together the insights of feminism, Marxism, Weber, Elias, Simmel, Nietzsche and Baudrillard to produce a survey - and rethinking - of leisure theory.

This is an examination of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of culture and habitus. Within the wider intellectual context of Bourdieu's work, this book provides a systematic reading of his assessment of the role of "culture capital" in the production and consumption of symbolic goods.

This book provides a systematic account of the intellectual context as well as an exhaustive analysis of the key themes informing Deleuze and Guattari's work. It will be invaluable in situating the philosophy of these two major figures within the perspective of the social and human sciences.

Long awaited Second Edition of this popular exploration of development theory, from one of the leading figures in field.

This book provides a critical introduction to de Certeau's work and influence, looks at his key ideas and asks how we should try to understand him in relation to theories of modern culture and society.

What is postcolonial studies? What are its achievements, strengths and weaknesses? This book deals with one of the most important issues with special emphasis on neo-liberalism within world poverty and the 'third world'. It clarifies: the territory of postcolonial studies; how identity and postcolonialism relate; and more.

Deals with questions about how power and resistance operate in contemporary society. This title argues that critique must take place from within information flows, rather than from the safety of 'academic detachment' and that information is power. It presents the prospects of intellectual life in an age dominated by global flows of information.

`It is difficult to qualify excitement and enthusiasm for this book.... For those studying and teaching on the body... the book is an essential text....' - Sociology of Health and Illness`...enriches the conceptual arsenal for interdisciplinary analysis of political, social and cultural change...' - The American Journal of Sociology

Asks why we see some bodies as monstrous or vulnerable and examines what this tells us about ideas of bodily normality and bodily perfection. Drawing on feminist theories of the body, biomedical discourse and historical data, this title argues that the response to the monstrous body has always been ambivalent.

Drawing on long term empirical research into cultural practices, lifestyles and identities, this volume explores how far reaching global changes are articulated locally.

Shilling offers the most comprehensive overview of the field to date and an innovative framework for the analysis of embodiment, founded on a revised view of the relation of classical works to the body. Shilling believes the body should be read as a multi-dimensional medium for the constitution of society.

This delightful, thought-provoking book tackles head-on the assumption that laughter and humour are necessarily good in themselves. The author proposes a social theory that places humour central to social life. Billig argues that all cultures use ridicule as a disciplinary means to uphold norms of conduct and conventions of meaning.

Paul Virilio demonstrates how technology has made inertia the defining condition of modernity. An instantaneous present has replaced space and the sovereignty of territory - everything happens without the need to go anywhere.

Addressing a number of prominent sports and sport stars, this book demonstrates the economic and cultural factors that have contributed to the popularity of sport stars. It also examines issues such as race and gender, the impact of professionalization, growing media coverage, and the role of agents.

This work explains what is understood by the term "new social movements", and provides a critical assessment of identity politics. It examines a range of issues including neo-tribalism associated with identity politics and alternative lifestyles.

'... a powerful piece of work that deserves to be read widely. It ranges across central concerns in the fields of social theory, political theory, and science studies and engages with the ideas of key classical and contemporary thinkers' - Barry Smart, Professor of Sociology, University of Portsmouth

An anthropological study of the gift, that relates giving to the institutions and social structures of modern life

This book investigates the aesthetic nature and purposes of computer culture in the contemporary world. It casts a cool eye on the claims of cybertopians, tracing the globalization of the new medium and enquiring into its effects on subjectivity and sociality.

'A sophisticated and passionately written account of the classed and gendered identities of a small group of working-class white women who live in the north-west of England. It is ethnography at its best, having been built on long-term, thoughtful engagements in the field' - Gender and Education

In this discussion of the aesthetic in everyday life the aesthetic codes of advertising, architecture, the Internet and everyday images are used as examples of the disorientation which a multiplication of codes creates. Welsch proposes untangling the `aestheticization of everyday life' and replacing it by more meaningful and durable categories.

This book is a unique and agenda-setting interpretation of nature and ecology.

These challenging essays have their roots in the fertile convergence of feminism, sociology and cultural studies. Themes include the assessment of feminist theory, its transformations and ability to illuminate issues and practices. The complex relationship between objects of study, their political implications and their historical context is a recurring theme.

In this major work, Zygmunt Bauman classifies the meanings of culture. For Bauman, culture is a living, changing aspect of human interaction which must be understood and studied as a universal of human life. At the heart of his approach is the proposition that culture is inherently ambivalent.

Buci-Glucksmann explores the condition of modernity through the works of a number of writers and philosophers. She considers how figures such as Nietzsche, Adorno, Musil, Barthes and Lacan constitute a baroque paradigm, united by their allegorical style, their conflation of aesthetics with ethics and their subject matter.

This book challenges those contemporary sociologists who argue that the notion of 'society' is an outmoded basis for sociological analysis and instead revitalizes the idea that sociology is truly 'the study of society'. Mellor returns the human and religious aspects of social life to the centre of social theory.