Teaching Yourself Social Theory

David Harris

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780803976887, 9780803976870
• eBook ISBN: 9781849207140
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

`Social theory is a very difficult subject to teach and it is one that students generally find hard to get to grips with. Teaching Yourself Social Theory offers a highly original and comprehensive resource that will be welcomed by students and teachers alike? - Barry Smart, University of Portsmouth

`I have no hesitation in recommending Harris? text to students and teachers of social theory? - Sociology

This refreshing and accessible text demonstrates how social theory can be made into an intelligible discourse that touches upon key aspects of everyday life. The abstraction and formalism of much contemporary social theory is criticized as unnecessarily `scholastic? for the beginner. The author maintains that the main problems in studying the subject are not intrinsic to social theory, but derive from how the subject is taught as a university discipline. This lively book uses non-specialist terms to introduce more complex themes, and incorporates a Website with questions and reading guides to some of the classic works.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART I
• 1 - Economic Constraints: Marxism and the Mode of Production
• 2 - Moral Constraints: Functionalism
• PART II
• 3 - The Emergent Qualities of Social Life: Weber and Elias
• 4 - Theorising Subjective Action
• PART III
• 5 - Weber, Class and the Politics of Closure
• 6 - The Turn to Gramsci
• 7 - Critical Theory, Positivism and Critique
• 8 - Feminism(s)
• 9 - The Politics of Otherness
• 10 - Foucault
• 11 - Politics in the 'Everyday'
• PART IV
• 12 - Language Games and Linguistic Turns
• 13 - Hitting the 'Posts'
• References
• Index