Download or read book Stalking the Sociological Imagination written by Mike Keen and published by Praeger. This book was released on 1999-05-30 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An account of the FBI's investigation of prominent American sociologists, based on documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. It suggests that the FBI marginalized critical sociologists and suppressed the development of a Marxist tradition in American sociology.

Download or read book Stalking Sociologists written by Renee C. Fox and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until recent years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation enjoyed an exalted reputation as America's premier crime-fighting organization. However, it is now common knowledge that the FBI and its long-time director, J. Edgar Hoover, were responsible for the creation of a massive internal security apparatus that undermined the very principles of freedom and democracy they were sworn to protect. While no one was above suspicion, Hoover appears to have held a special disdain for sociologists and placed many of the profession's most prominent figures under surveillance. In Stalking Sociologists, Mike Forrest Keen offers a detailed account of the FBI's investigations within the context of an overview of the history of American sociology.This ground-breaking analysis history uses documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Keen argues that Hoover and the FBI marginalized sociologists such as W. E. B. Du Bois and C. Wright Mills, tried to suppress the development of a Marxist tradition in American sociology, and likely pushed the mainstream of the discipline away from a critique of American society and towards a more quantitative and scientific direction. He documents thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars dedicated to this project. Faculty members of various departments of sociology were recruited to inform on the activities of their colleagues and the American Sociological Association was a target of FBI surveillance. Keen turns sociology back upon the FBI, using the writings and ideas of the very sociologists Hoover investigated to examine and explain the excesses of the Bureau and its boss. The result is a significant contribution to the collective memory of American society as well as the accurate history of the sociological discipline."This ground-breaking book documents in meticulous detail decades of harassment and surveillance of major American sociologists by the FBI. The misuse of power...will outrage all Americans a

Download or read book Stalking Sociologists written by Renee C. Fox and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Until recent years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation enjoyed an exalted reputation as America's premier crime-fighting organization. However, it is now common knowledge that the FBI and its long-time director, J. Edgar Hoover, were responsible for the creation of a massive internal security apparatus that undermined the very principles of freedom and democracy they were sworn to protect. While no one was above suspicion, Hoover appears to have held a special disdain for sociologists and placed many of the profession's most prominent figures under surveillance. In Stalking Sociologists, Mike Forrest Keen offers a detailed account of the FBI's investigations within the context of an overview of the history of American sociology.This ground-breaking analysis history uses documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Keen argues that Hoover and the FBI marginalized sociologists such as W. E. B. Du Bois and C. Wright Mills, tried to suppress the development of a Marxist tradition in American sociology, and likely pushed the mainstream of the discipline away from a critique of American society and towards a more quantitative and scientific direction. He documents thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars dedicated to this project. Faculty members of various departments of sociology were recruited to inform on the activities of their colleagues and the American Sociological Association was a target of FBI surveillance. Keen turns sociology back upon the FBI, using the writings and ideas of the very sociologists Hoover investigated to examine and explain the excesses of the Bureau and its boss. The result is a significant contribution to the collective memory of American society as well as the accurate history of the sociological discipline."This ground-breaking book documents in meticulous detail decades of harassment and surveillance of major American sociologists by the FBI. The misuse of power...will outrage all Americans a

Download or read book An Analysis of C Wright Mills s The Sociological Imagination written by Ismael Puga and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2017-07-05 with total page 83 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: C. Wright Mills’s 1959 book The Sociological Imagination is widely regarded as one of the most influential works of post-war sociology. At its heart, the work is a closely reasoned argument about the nature and aims of sociology, one that sets out a manifesto and roadmap for the field. Its wide acceptance and popular reception is a clear demonstration of the rhetorical power of Wright’s strong reasoning skills. In critical thinking, reasoning involves the creation of an argument that is strong, balanced, and, of course, persuasive. In Mills’s case, this core argument makes a case for what he terms the “sociological imagination”, a particular quality of mind capable of analyzing how individual lives fit into, and interact with, social structures. Only by adopting such an approach, Mills argues, can sociologists see the private troubles of individuals as the social issues they really are. Allied to this central argument are supporting arguments for the need for sociology to maintain its independence from corporations and governments, and for social scientists to steer away from ‘high theory’ and focus on the real difficulties of everyday life. Carefully organized, watertight and persuasive, The Sociological Imagination exemplifies reasoned argument at its best.

Download or read book C Wright Mills and the Cuban Revolution written by A. Javier Treviño and published by UNC Press Books. This book was released on 2017-04-05 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In C. Wright Mills and the Cuban Revolution, A. Javier Trevino reconsiders the opinions, perspectives, and insights of the Cubans that Mills interviewed during his visit to the island in 1960. On returning to the United States, the esteemed and controversial sociologist wrote a small paperback on much of what he had heard and seen, which he published as Listen, Yankee: The Revolution in Cuba. Those interviews--now transcribed and translated--are interwoven here with extensive annotations to explain and contextualize their content. Readers will be able to "hear" Mills as an expert interviewer and ascertain how he used what he learned from his informants. Trevino also recounts the experiences of four central figures whose lives became inextricably intertwined during that fateful summer of 1960: C. Wright Mills, Fidel Castro, Juan Arcocha, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The singular event that compelled their biographies to intersect at a decisive moment in the history of Cold War geopolitics--with its attendant animosities and intrigues--was the Cuban Revolution.

Download or read book Social Science for What written by Mark Solovey and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-07-07 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the NSF became an important yet controversial patron for the social sciences, influencing debates over their scientific status and social relevance. In the early Cold War years, the U.S. government established the National Science Foundation (NSF), a civilian agency that soon became widely known for its dedication to supporting first-rate science. The agency's 1950 enabling legislation made no mention of the social sciences, although it included a vague reference to “other sciences.” Nevertheless, as Mark Solovey shows in this book, the NSF also soon became a major—albeit controversial—source of public funding for them. Solovey's analysis underscores the long-term impact of early developments, when the NSF embraced a “scientistic” strategy wherein the natural sciences represented the gold standard, and created a social science program limited to “hard-core” studies. Along the way, Solovey shows how the NSF's efforts to support scholarship, advanced training, and educational programs were shaped by landmark scientific and political developments, including McCarthyism, Sputnik, reform liberalism during the 1960s, and a newly energized conservative movement during the 1970s and 1980s. Finally, he assesses the NSF's relevance in a “post-truth” era, questions the legacy of its scientistic strategy, and calls for a separate social science agency—a National Social Science Foundation. Solovey's study of the battles over public funding is crucial for understanding the recent history of the social sciences as well as ongoing debates over their scientific status and social value.

Download or read book Exchange Action and Social Structure written by Milan Zafirovski and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2001-07-30 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This unique volume provides a new interpretation and synthesis of network exchange theory in an effort to contribute to a neo-Weberian economic sociology. Arguing against commonly held assumptions about network exchange theory and its interpretation of all social actions as economic exchanges, Zafirovski seeks to explain these processes by employing an interdisciplinary approach and by examining the impact of social and institutional structures on market-economic exchange. The author argues that economic structure, processes, and actions are the outcomes of social action and institutions, not the other way around. This rehabilitation of economic sociology begins with a reconsideration of the character, scope, and development of the field. The author then grounds his sociological approach to economic exchange in social action and structure before examining the role of social motivations in economic exchange. He then examines the political structuration, the cultural constitution, and the social construction of economic exchange and exchange cycles. The book concludes with a discussion of the character and variation of economic exchange in comparative social systems and the relationships of exchange, economic development, and social variables. This unique and persuasive book is an important contribution to the study of economic sociology and sociological theory.

Download or read book Windows Into the Soul written by Gary T. Marx and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2016-05-31 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Windows into the Soul, Gary T. Marx sums up a lifetime of work on issues of surveillance and social control by disentangling and parsing the empirical richness of watching and being watched. Ultimately, Marx argues, recognizing complexity and asking the right questions is essential to bringing light and accountability to the darker, more iniquitous corners of our emerging surveillance society.

Download or read book Frames of Protest written by Hank Johnston and published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. This book was released on 2005-07-05 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Frames of Protest brings together important empirical research and theoretical essays by leading sociologists, political scientists, and media specialists that focus on social movement frames and framing practices. Frames are new ways of understanding political and social relations that emphasize injustice and the need for change. As such, they are crucial for the development of social movements and protest. Frames of Protest is the only book to focus exclusively on this major research perspective in social movement and protest studies. Thirteen chapters encompass the major themes in the framing perspective to offer a state-of-the-art review. Three chapters present evidence for the determining influence of framing in social movement mobilization. Next, framing activities by the state and the mass media are analyzed. Then, two research reports examine the effect of political opportunities on framing-in Poland under the Communists and in New York City's ethnic politics. Several chapters by leading theorists present a lively debate about the relationship of ideologies to collective action frames. The book closes with a hands-on discussion about analyzing textual materials and interview transcripts to do frame analysis that lends itself to longitudinal and cross-case comparisons.

Download or read book Conceptualizing Racism written by Noel A. Cazenave and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 271 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conceptualizing Racism is a provocative book that confronts the language we use to discuss and understand racism. Author Noel A. Cazenave argues that American social science has, since its inception, practiced linguistic racial accommodation that blurs our understanding of systemic racism and makes it difficult to effect meaningful change. Conceptualizing Racism highlights how words matter in racism studies. The author traces the history of linguistic racial accommodation through the development of sociology as a discipline and illustrates how it is at play today, not only within the discipline but in public life.

Download or read book The Subcultural Imagination written by Shane Blackman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-17 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Subcultural Imagination discusses young adults in subcultures and examines how sociologists use qualitative research methods to study them. Through the application of the ideas of C. Wright Mills to the development of theory-reflexive ethnography, this book analyses the experiences of young people in different subcultural settings, as well as reflecting on how young people in subcultures interact in the wider context of society, biography and history. From Cuba to London, and Bulgaria to Asia, this book delves into urban spaces and street corners, young people’s parties, gigs, BDSM fetish clubs, school, the home, and feminist zines to offer a picture of live sociology in practice. In three parts, the volume explores: history, biography and subculture; practising reflexivity in the field; epistemologies, pedagogies and the subcultural subject. The book offers cutting edge theory and rich empirical research on social class, gender and ethnicities from both established and new researchers across diverse disciplinary backgrounds. It moves the subcultural debate beyond the impasse of the term’s relevance, to one where researchers are fully engaged with the lives of the subcultural subjects. This innovative edited collection will appeal to scholars and students in the areas of sociology, youth studies, media and cultural studies/communication, research methods and ethnography, popular music studies, criminology, politics, social and cultural theory, and gender studies.

Download or read book Death in Contemporary Popular Culture written by Adriana Teodorescu and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-11-26 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With intense and violent portrayals of death becoming ever more common on television and in cinema and the growth of death-centric movies, series, texts, songs, and video clips attracting a wide and enthusiastic global reception, we might well ask whether death has ceased to be a taboo. What makes thanatic themes so desirable in popular culture? Do representations of the macabre and gore perpetuate or sublimate violent desires? Has contemporary popular culture removed our unease with death? Can social media help us cope with our mortality, or can music and art present death as an aesthetic phenomenon? This volume adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the discussion of the social, cultural, aesthetic, and theoretical aspects of the ways in which popular culture understands, represents, and manages death, bringing together contributions from around the world focused on television, cinema, popular literature, social media and the internet, art, music, and advertising.

Download or read book Legacy of the Chicago School a Collection of Essays in Honour of the Chicago School of Sociology During the First Half of the 20th Century written by Christopher Hart and published by Lulu.com. This book was released on 2010 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A collection of original essays celebrating the legacy of the Chicago School of Sociology during the first half of the 20th century. Contributors - Professor Howard S. Becker, San Francisco, USA. Professor Ian Shaw, University of York, England. Professor Roger A. Salerno, Chair Sociology and Anthropology, Pace University, New York City, USA. Professor Brian Roberts, University of Glamorgan, Wales. Dennis W. MacDonald, Chair and Associate Professor of Sociology, Saint Anselm College, USA. Dr Julie L. Arthur Kirby, Edge Hill University, England. Professor Martyn Hammersley, The Open University, England. Dr Matthias Gross, UFZ, Permoserstr. Leipzig, Germany. Dr Shane Blackman, Canterbury Christ Church University, England. Dr Filipa Subtil, Instituto Politecnico de Lisboa, Portugal and Jose Luis Garcia, Instituto de Ciencias Sociais da Universidade de Lisboa.

Download or read book Talcott Parsons Today written by A. Javier Treviño and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2001 with total page 322 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These ten essays reassess and continue Parson's work in sociology, weighing in on the controversies which continue to surround his thought. Topics include scientific paradigms and organizational culture, Weber's influence, complexity theory, functionalism, generalized symbolic media, the social community, and normative dilemmas. Contributors include scholars of sociology, communications, and behavioral science, from the North America, Europe, and Australia. c. Book News Inc.

Download or read book Introducing Criminological Thinking written by Jon Heidt and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2014-11-28 with total page 910 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Visual techniques for applying criminological theory to social science research Introducing Criminological Thinking: Maps, Theories, and Understanding is an accessible and user-friendly criminological theory text for students, instructors and researchers. In addition to the unique use of concept maps, mind maps, and other visual techniques to consider theory-based inquiry, this text combines an exploration of the core elements of theory with relevant examples drawn from biology, psychology, sociology, critical traditions, and integrative efforts. Unlike in other theory texts, the chapters are arranged by level of explanation to help students understand how theories from different disciplines interact with each other as a foundation for many contemporary criminological theories. Authors Jon Heidt and Johannes Wheeldon have developed a seven-step model to identify key aspects of different theories including their historical and social context, base assumptions, scope, problem foci, terms/concepts, related research, and practical ramifications. This text offers both a student-friendly theoretical discussion and accessible visual examples to explain criminological theory and its applicability to social science research.

Download or read book The Suppression of Dissent written by Jules Boykoff and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-09-13 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Despite longstanding traditions of tolerance, inclusion, and democracy in the United States, dissident citizens and social movements have experienced significant and sustained - although often subtle and difficult-to observe - suppression in this country. Using mechanism-based social-movement theory, this book explores a wide range of twentieth century episodes of contention, involving such groups as mid-century communists, the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the modern-day globalization movement.

Download or read book Taking It Big written by Steven P. Dandaneau and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2001-01-24 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For use as a primary or supplemental text for Introductory Sociology, Social Theory, and senior "capstone" courses. An unabashedly "critical" text for those who want to connect their students′ personal experiences with what is happening at the societal, global level today. The emphasis is on teaching "the sociological imagination" (i.e., to instill in students a unique and radical form of consciousness that will allow them to conceptualize today′s chief global and individual problems and the relations between them). Dandaneau adopts a perspective like that of C. Wright Mills and argues that the sociological imagination is the "most needed" type of consciousness in the world today. The author encourages students to think through a wide variety of topics - from ecological crises to panic disorder, from hyperreality to the sociology of disability, from Generation X to Generation Next. As Dandaneau says, "The point ... is not so much to learn the truth, but to learn how to think about essential issues and troubles as sociologists themselves try to do, to become a participant with others in facing down the challenges of our present epoch." "It is an elegant and profound meditation on thinking sociologically. Written with a rare panache one seldom finds in sociology... it′s the product of a view of contemporary social life that is profoundly troubling... What this adds up to is a distinctive sociological and moral voice." - Peter Kivisto, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois