On Scandal: Moral Disturbances in Society, Politics, and Art (Structural Analysis in the Social Sciences, Series Number 31) - Softcover

Adut, Ari

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0521720400 ISBN 13: 9780521720403

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2009

Synopsis

Scandal is the quintessential public event. Here is the first general and comprehensive analysis of this ubiquitous moral phenomenon. Taking up wide-ranging cases in society, politics, and art, Ari Adut shows when wrongdoings generate scandals and when they do not. He focuses on the emotional and cognitive experience of scandals and the relationships among those who are involved in or exposed to them. This perspective explains variations in the effects, frequency, elicited reactions, outcomes, and strategic uses of scandals. On Scandal offers provocative accounts of the Oscar Wilde, Watergate, and Lewinsky affairs. Adut also employs the lens of scandal to address puzzles and questions regarding public life. Why is American politics plagued by sex scandals? What is the cause of the rise in political scandals in Western democracies? Why were Victorians sometimes very accommodating and other times very intolerant of homosexuality? What is the social logic of hypocrisy? Why has transgression been so central to modern art?

About this title

About the Author

Ari Adut is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds postgraduate degrees from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and the University of Chicago, where he has also taught. His research has received support from the Social Science Research Council and the American Council of Learned Societies.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0521720400
• ISBN 13: 9780521720403
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 374