Re-examining C.Wright Mills’s legacy as a jumping off point, this original introduction to sociology illuminates global concepts, themes and practices that are fundamental to the discipline. It makes a case for the importance of developing a sociological imagination and provides the steps for how readers can do that. The unique text:• Offers succinct and wide-ranging coverage of many of the most important themes and concepts taught in first year sociology courses;• Has a gl...

Exploring cultural transformations of intimacy in contemporary Mexico, Intimacies and Cultural Change examines the ways in which globalization and rapid cultural change have transformed the cultural meanings of couple relationships, sexuality, and personal life in Mexican society. Through a range of contemporary case studies, the book sheds light on the ways in which people draw on these cultural meanings in everyday life to account for their experiences and practices of intimacy in differ...

This book builds a fresh perspective on therapeutic narratives of intimate life. Focusing on the question of how popular psychology organises everyday experiences of intimacy, its argument is grounded in qualitative research in Trinidad in the Anglophone Caribbean.Against the backdrop of Trinidad’s colonial and postcolonial history, the authors map the development of therapeutic institutions and popular therapeutic practices and explore how transnationally mobile, commercial forms ...

This groundbreaking new introduction to sociology is an innovative hybrid textbook and reader. Combining seminal scholarly works, contextual narrative and in-text didactic materials, it presents a rich, layered and comprehensive introduction to the discipline. Its unique approach will help inspire a creative, critical, and analytically sophisticated sociological imagination, making sense of society and the many small and large problems it poses.

Self-help books aim to empower their readers and deliver happiness and personal fulfilment but do they really live up to this? This book offers a fresh perspective on self-help culture and popular psychology. Research on this subject matter has generally focused on the USA and the Global Northwest. In contrast, this book explores the production, circulation and consumption of self-help books from an innovative transnational perspective. Case studies on Trinidad, Mexico, the People's Republ...

Wie entfaltet sich das Menschsein im Spannungsfeld biblischer Polyvalenz? Welche theologischen Impulse lassen sich aus den frühchristlichen Texten für Gegenwart und Zukunft gewinnen? Welche Resonanz entfalten biblische Narrative und wie interferiert diese mit kulturellen Deutungsmustern? Diese Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Christian Strecker, Professor für Neues Testament an der Augustana-Hochschule Neuendettelsau, vereint Beiträge von Kolleginnen, Kollegen und Weggefährten. Sie alle ...

The Routledge International Handbook of Global Therapeutic Cultures explores central lines of enquiry and seminal scholarship on therapeutic cultures, popular psychology, and the happiness industry. Bringing together studies of therapeutic cultures from sociology, anthropology, psychology, education, politics, law, history, social work, cultural studies, development studies, and American Indian studies, it adopts a consciously global focus, combining studies of the psychologisatio...

Drawing on affect theory and research on academic capitalism, this book examines the contemporary crisis of universities. Moving through 11 international and comparative case studies, it explores diverse features of contemporary academic life, from the coloniality of academic capitalism to performance management and the experience of being performance-managed.Affect has emerged as a major analytical lens of social research. However, it is rarely applied to universities and their ma...

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Ongoing conflicts between neoliberal and post-neoliberal politics have resulted in growing social instability in Latin America. This book explores the cultural dynamics of neoliberalism and anti-neoliberal resistance in Latin America as a complex set of interrelated cultural forms, examining the ways in which neoliberalism has transformed public discourses of self and social relationships, popular cultures and modes of everyday experience....