The Sociological Bent : InsideMetro Culture

The Sociological Bent: Inside Metro Culture is an engaging introduction to sociology and to some exciting, illuminating and powerful ways of thinking about society. Written in a clear and accessible style, and drawing on the work of both contemporary and classical sociologists, this innovative text explores the relationships between various cultural forms, institutional sites and the practices of everyday life. The text is divided into thirty-seven short, digestible modules that address issues and topics of interest to contemporary students, ranging from passports and car advertising to personal hygiene and sex re-assignment surgery. Core concepts such as modernity, hegemony, ideology, discourse and culture are discussed in order to provide intellectual frameworks for the reading of diverse cultural forms and practices. Students are encouraged to move beyond commonsense assumptions about social experience and to theorise many naturalised and familiar aspects of their everyday lives, such as: • celebrity and the social functions of fame • fashions in food, clothing and consumer goods • globalisation, corporate collapse and crime • the nature of ‘belonging’ to nations, groups or subcultures • transformations in intimacy, and in sex and gender relations. The text also introduces students to a range of methods for comprehending contemporary life – including social semiotics, discourse analysis, field immersion and ethnography – equipping them with the most sophisticated tools of analysis that current scholarship can provide. The Sociological Bent demonstrates the diversity of sociological thinking and research, and explains the historical background and meaning of the key concepts applied in each area of focus. It provides students with an excellent foundation for developing a sociological understanding of the contemporary world, as well as the sociological framework or infrastructure required for them to undertake further sociological studies.