Singer-Songwriters and Musical Open Mics is an ethnographic exploration of New York City’s live music events where musicians signup and perform short sets. This sociological study dispels the common assumption that open mics are culturally monolithic and reserved for novice musicians. Open mics allow musicians at different locations within their musical development and career to interactively perform, practice, and network with other musicians. Important themes in the book include: the ten...

Co-opting Culture: Culture and Power in Sociology and Cultural Studies represents a collection of new scholarship on culture from the social sciences and from work done under the rubric of "cultural studies". Working from the idea that Sociology and Cultural Studies have developed distinct and valuable toolkits for understanding culture, the editors have brought together a collection of essays that address the ways in which the cultures around race, sex, and gender are mediated th...

It has been over 60 years since David Riesman’s most famous work The Lonely Crowd brought him international acclaim. While this remains a best-selling sociology book, Riesman’s expertise and publications spanned far beyond the treatment of the American social character type offered there. This volume recasts and reintroduces Riesman by presenting newly discovered and unpublished manuscripts of his work, including excerpts from a previously unpublished critical biography of Freud that Riesm...