Understanding Society

A Survey of Modern Social Theory

Second Edition

Douglas Mann

Comprehensive. Focuses on contemporary social theory (1930s to present) while also providing an overview of classical theory in opening chapters, making the text suitable for full-year social theory courses.
Current. Explores contemporary debates relating to communication, popular culture, the global village, corporatism, globalization, race, gender, and sexuality, offering students an up-to-date treatment of modern social theory.
Logical organization. Groups theorists into major categories-including critical theory, structuralism and post-structuralism, and globalization-so they can be studied in the order that best suits individual courses, providing flexibility for instructors.
Student-friendly pedagogy. Extensive study questions and bibliographies at the end of each chapter, as well as illustrations, tables, and icons indicating additional material online help students understand important concepts.
Engaging. A lively, lucid writing style makes complex content accessible for students.

Understanding Society

A Survey of Modern Social Theory

Second Edition

Douglas Mann

Description

Understanding Society: A Survey of Modern Social Theory, Second Edition, introduces the major streams of contemporary social theory and traces their evolution to the present day. This edition features an entirely new chapter on three recent schools of thought centering on the somatic (bodily) aspects of personal identity--race, gender, and queer theory. In addition, a series of fictional vignettes and "flashbacks" throughout illuminate the topics in each chapter and help students make connections between social theory and real-world issues. Using a contemporary and accessible writing style that will engage readers, the book features current debates on such topics as communication, popular culture, the global village, corporatism, and globalization.

Previous publication dates

August 2007

Understanding Society

A Survey of Modern Social Theory

Second Edition

Douglas Mann

1. An Introduction to Social Theory
The Basics: What Is Society?
Science and Values
Causality and Laws
Modernity and the Enlightenment
Flashback: Bonjour Monsieur Condorcet
Modern Historical Trends
Modernism in the Arts, Letters, and Sciences
Paradigms of Social Theory
2. Functionalism and Its Critics
Hobbes's Question: Why Have a Society at All?
Durkheim on Society as a Functional Organism
Vignette: A Functional Life
Talcott Parsons and Structural Functionalism
Robert Merton
Conflict Theory
Flashback: A Party Disrupted
C. Wright Mills
Sociobiology: An Evolutionary Functionalism
Conclusion
3. The Debate over Materialism
Vignette: The Factory
Marx's Main Ideas
Two Marxists Who Shook the World: Lenin and Trotsky
Antonio Gramsci and Hegemony
Louis Althusser on Ideology
Jean-Paul Sartre's Search for a Method
Karl Mannheim's Sociology of Knowledge
Pierre Bourdieu and the Varieties of Capital
Jean Baudrillard on Consumer Culture
Flashback: Sarah at the Mall
The End of the Left?
4. Slamming Society: Critical Theory and Situationism
Vignette: The Free Spirits
The Philosophical Foundations of Critical Reason: Hegel and Nietzsche
Freud on Civilization and Its Discontents
Theodor Adorno on Culture
Herbert Marcuse on Modern Industrial Society
Some Criticisms of the Frankfurt School
Christopher Lasch on the Culture of Narcissism
Jurgen Habermas on Capitalism and Communicative Action
Situationism
Culture Jamming
Flashback: An Unexpected Visit
5. Meaning in Society: Human Agency and Social Explanation
Vignette: Athena's Tale
Structure vs Agency: The Basics
Weber on Understanding Society
Ludwig Wittgenstein and Language Games
R.G. Collingwood's Historical Idealism
Peter Winch on the Idea of a Social Science
Hans-Georg Gadamer's Hermeneutics
Flashback: A Big Confusing Greek Wedding
Rational Choice Theory
Anthony Giddens on Agency and Structure
6. Society as Symbols or Constructs: Symbolic Interactionism and Phenomenology
Vignette: Saturday Night Dazzler
Cooley, Mead, and the Birth of Symbolic Interactionism
Herbert Blumer and Mature Symbolic Interactionism
Erving Goffman's Dramaturgy
Flashback: Dancing with a Star
The Phenomenology of Everyday Life
The Social Construction of Reality
Ethnomethodology
7. Structuralism, Semiotics, and Post-Structuralism
Vignette: A Long Voyage
The Basics of Structuralism and Semiotics
Joseph Campbell and the Hero with a Thousand Faces
Flashback: Mission Accomplished
Semiotics and Popular Culture
Post-Structuralism: The Theoretical Logic of Postmodernism
Jacques Derrida and Deconstruction
Michel Foucault on Power and the Docile Body
8. Postmodernism: Political Economy and Communications
Vignette: The Postmodern Guy
Revisiting Postmodern Culture
The Postmodern Condition
The Post-Industrial Information Society
Manuel Castells: The Network Society and the Information Age
Flashback: Bart and Network Society
9. Postmodernism: Time, Space, and Culture
Vignette: Highway One Revisited
Jameson on the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
Baudrillard on Postmodern Society as the Desert of the Real
Postmodern Pop Culture
Postmodern Space/Time
Flashback: Going Down the Road
10. Feminism
Vignette: The Last Days of Disco
The Three Waves of Feminist Theory and Practice
Shulamith Firestone and the Dialectic of Sex
Susan Moller Okin on the Family as a School for Justice
Carol Gilligan and the Ethics of Care
Feminist Standpoint Theory
Donna Haraway's Cyborgs
Camille Paglia's Attack on the Second Wave
Flashforward: FemFriends@Y2K
11. The Global Village
Vignette: Welcome to the Global Village
The Medium Is the Message: Marshall McLuhan
Heather Menzies on the Global Village Today
Negri and Hardt on Empire
Flashback: Run Jessica Run
12. Globalization, McDonaldization, and Corporatism
A Short History of the Global Political Economy
McDonaldization
Theories of Globalization
Corporatism
Flashback: Mallrats
13. Who Am I? The Self and Society (NEW!)
Vignette: Out of Africa
The Philosophical Debate over Personal Identity
Race Theory
Judith Butler on Sex, Gender, and Performativity
Coming Out of the Sociological Closet: Queer Theory

Understanding Society

A Survey of Modern Social Theory

Second Edition

Douglas Mann

Author Information

Douglas Mann is Assistant Professor in the faculty of information and media studies at the University of Western Ontario. In addition to authoring two editions of Understanding Society, Mann has published Structural Idealism: A Theory of Social and Historical Explanation (WLU Press, 2002), Philosophy: a New Introduction (Nelson, 2005), and dozens of academic and newspaper articles. His main research and teaching areas include social and political theory, pop culture, music, and science fiction.