Beyond the Cultural Turn: New Directions in the Study of Society and Culture (Studies on the History of Society and Culture) (Volume 34) - Softcover

Bonnell, Victoria E.; Hunt, Lynn; White, Hayden

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520216792 ISBN 13: 9780520216792

Publisher: University of California Press, 1999

Synopsis

Nothing has generated more controversy in the social sciences than the turn toward culture, variously known as the linguistic turn, culturalism, or postmodernism. This book examines the impact of the cultural turn on two prominent social science disciplines, history and sociology, and proposes new directions in the theory and practice of historical research.

The editors provide an introduction analyzing the origins and implications of the cultural turn and its postmodernist critiques of knowledge. Essays by leading historians and historical sociologists reflect on the uses of cultural theories and show both their promise and their limitations. The afterword by Hayden White provides an assessment of the trend toward culturalism by one its most influential proponents.

Beyond the Cultural Turn offers fresh theoretical readings of the most persistent issues created by the cultural turn and provocative empirical studies focusing on diverse social practices, the uses of narrative, and the body and self as critical junctures where culture and society intersect.

About this title

About the Author:

Victoria E. Bonnell is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Center for Slavic and East European Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, author of Iconography of Power: Soviet Political Posters under Lenin and Stalin (California, 1997), and editor of The Russian Worker: Life and Labor under the Tsarist Regime (California, 1983), among other works. Lynn Hunt is Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania, and is author of The Family Romance of the French Revolution (California, 1992), and editor of The New Cultural History (California, 1989), among other works.

Review:

"A short review can only gloss the cumulative richness of this volume and the nuanced essays of the individual authors. . . . "Beyond the Cultural Turn is simply the best book we have on the past accomplishments and the future directions of cultural analysis. It will no doubt stand beside those rare edited volumes that become oft-cited classics. Scholar of all disciplinary affiliations, including scientists, will find the issues raised in this collection compelling."--"American Journal of Sociology

About this edition

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0520216792
• ISBN 13: 9780520216792
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 364