Trans seems to be everywhere in American culture. Yet there is little understanding of how this came about. Are people aware that there were earlier periods of gender flexibility and contestability in American history? How well known is it that a pr…
Bruno Latour s long term project is to compare the felicity and infelicity conditions of the different values dearest to the heart of those who have never been modern . According to him, this is the only way to develop an anthropology of the Moderns…
In an interactive and densely connected world, transnational communication has become a central feature of everyday life. Taking account of a variety of media formats and different regions of the world, Adrian Athique provides a much-needed critical…
On April 27, 2007, the first Speculative Realism (SR) workshop was held at Goldsmiths, University of London, featuring four young philosophers whose ideas were loosely allied. Over the ensuing decade, the ideas of SR spread from philosophy to the ar…
'Even the biographical individual is a social category', wrote Adorno. 'It can only be defined in a living context together with others.' In this major new biography, Stefan Muller-Doohm turns this maxim back on Adorno himself and provides a rich an…
On 22 July 2011 a young man named Anders Behring Breivik carried out one of the most vicious terrorist acts in post-war Europe. In a carefully orchestrated sequence of actions he bombed government buildings in Oslo, resulting in eight deaths, then c…
The Posthuman offers both an introduction and major contribution to contemporary debates on the posthuman. Digital 'second life', genetically modified food, advanced prosthetics, robotics and reproductive technologies are familiar facets of our glob…
This exciting new book presents the field of social demography, animating the study of population with a vibrant sociological imagination. Gregg Lee Carter provides multiple demonstrations of how taking a demographic perspective can give us a better…
To ordinary people, science used to seem infallible. Scientists were heroes, selflessly pursuing knowledge for the common good. More recently, a series of scientific scandals, frauds and failures have led us to question science s pre-eminence. Revel…
Radio s influence can be found in almost every corner of new media. Radio in the Digital Age assesses a medium that has not only survived the challenges of a new technological age but indeed has extended its reach. This is not a book about digital r…
This book reviews existing explanations of the links between drugs and crime, and assesses the practical approaches currently being taken to tackle the problems involved.
Why are we so concerned about drugs and crime? Is the relationship between drug-taking and criminal behaviour as straightforward as it is sometimes made to appear? What should be done about the problem? This thought-provoking book argues that much c…
Land is one of the world's most emotionally resonant resources, and control over it is fundamental to almost all human activity. From the local level to the global, we are often in conflict over the ground beneath our feet. But because human relatio…
Understanding the Life Course provides a uniquely comprehensive guide to the entire life course from an interdisciplinary perspective. Combining important insights from sociology and psychology, the book presents the concept's theoretical underpinni…
From everyday apps to complex algorithms, Ruha Benjamin cuts through tech-industry hype to understand how emerging technologies can reinforce White supremacy and deepen social inequity.Benjamin argues that automation, far from being a sinister story…
The new edition of this popular introduction explores the meaning of social deviance in contemporary society. It traces the path by which we create deviance: how we single out behavior, ideas, and appearances that differ from the "norm," label them…
Documentary in Practice provides a unique approach to practical documentary making. Through fascinating analysis of real life production situations, Jane Chapman shows the challenges and issues faced during the filmmaking process and advises on how…
Documentary in Practice provides a unique approach to practical documentary-making. Through fascinating analysis of real-life production situations, Jane Chapman shows the challenges and issues faced during the filmmaking process by a range of both…
The concept of free will is profoundly important to our self-understanding, our interpersonal relationships, and our moral and legal practices. If it turns out that no one is ever free and morally responsible, what would that mean for society, moral…
One of the most enduring ideas in economics is that unemployment is both unavoidable and necessary for the smooth functioning of the economy. This assumption has provided cover for the devastating social and economic costs of job insecurity. It is a…
Democracies today are in the grip of a myth: the myth of the will of the people. Populist movements use the idea to challenge elected representatives. Politicians, content to invoke the will of the people, fail in their duty to make responsible and…
Evil is not confined to war or to circumstances in which people are acting under extreme duress. Today it more frequently reveals itself in the everyday insensitivity to the suffering of others, in the inability or refusal to understand them and in…
Humans have become so powerful that we have disrupted the functioning of the Earth System as a whole, bringing on a new geological epoch the Anthropocene one in which the serene and clement conditions that allowed civilisation to flourish are disapp…
In the aftermath of the First World War, the poet Paul Valery wrote of a crisis of spirit , brought about by the instrumentalization of knowledge and the destructive subordination of culture to profit. Recent events demonstrate all too clearly that…
The original edition of this accessible and interdisciplinary textbook was the first to consider the ethical issues of digital media from a global, cross-cultural perspective. This third edition has been thoroughly updated to incorporate the latest…
Digital history is an emerging field that draws on digital technology and computational methods. A global enterprise that invites scholars worldwide to join forces, it presents exciting and novel ways we might explore, understand and represent the p…
Existentialism: An Introduction has established itself as the most comprehensive and accessible book on the subject available. In this fully revised and expanded second edition, Kevin Aho draws on a wide range of existentialist thinkers from both th…
Now with a substantial new postscript on the financial crisis This book provides a basic introduction to the 'nuts and bolts' of capitalism. It starts by examining the classic accounts of capitalism found in the works of Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Max W…
The concept of well-being plays a central role in moral and political theory. Policies and actions are justified or criticized on the grounds that they make people better or worse off. But is there really such a thing as well-being, and if so, what…
Inequality is not just about the size of our wallets. It is a socio-cultural order which, for most of us, reduces our capabilities to function as human beings, our health, our dignity, our sense of self, as well as our resources to act and participa…
Translated by CAROLYN SHREAD In the post-feminist age the fact that woman' finds herself deprived of her essence' only confirms, paradoxically, a very ancient state of affairs: woman' has never been able to define herself in any other way than in te…
Moral psychology is the systematic inquiry into how morality works, when it does work, and breaks down when it doesn't work. In this comprehensive new textbook, Mark Alfano outlines the five central concepts in the study of moral psychology: agency,…
In recent years the spread of diseases such as AIDS, SARS and avianflu has pushed health issues towards the top of the internationalagenda. Such outbreaks have serious political, economic, and socialconsequences and remind the world of the necessity…
Politicians invoke grand ideas: social justice, democracy, community, liberty, equality. But what do these ideas really mean? How can politicians across the political spectrum appeal to the same values? This fourth edition of Adam Swift's highly rea…
Globalization and technological advances have had a dramatic impact on the relationship between media and politics. How can we understand the connection between the two in the present day? Alexa Robertson argues that we cannot understand the power o…
Contrary to optimistic visions of a free internet for all, the problem of the 'digital divide' - the disparity between those with access to internet technology and those without - has persisted for close to twenty-five years.In this textbook, Jan va…
Ever since humans sketched primitive maps in the dirt, the quest to understand our surroundings has been fundamental to our survival. Studying geography revealed that the earth was round, showed our ancestors where to plant crops, and helped them ap…
Time is central to our lived experience of the world. Yet, as this book reveals, it is startlingly difficult to reconcile the way we seem to experience time with many of the theories presented to us in physics and metaphysics. This comprehensive and…
What do sex doll sales, locust swarms and a wired-brain pig have to do with the coronavirus pandemic? Everything-according to that "Giant of Lubliana," the inimitable Slovenian philosopher Slavoj i ek.In this exhilarating sequel to his acclaimed Pan…
In Southern Theory Raewyn Connell presents the case for a new 'world social science' - one that is inclusive of many voices - by arguing for a more democratic global recognition of social theory from societies outside the dominant European and North…
Disasters kill, maim, and generate increasingly large economic losses. But they do not wreak their damage equally across populations, and every disaster has social dimensions at its very core. This important book sheds light on the social conditions…
The emergence of modern sciences in the seventeenth century profoundly renewed our understanding of Nature. For the last three centuries new ideas of Nature have been continuously developed by theology, politics, economics, and science, especially t…
Questions about who we are, who we can be, and who is like and unlike us underpin a vast range of contemporary social issues. What makes our families so important to us? What do the often stark differences between how we self-identify and the way ot…
Covers the experience of a range of forms of sexual violence over women's lifetimes. Drawing on feminist theory, developing a critique of male research and quoting extensively from the women interviewed, the book develops feminist thought in several…
The second edition of Consumer Culture brings this successful introductory textbook right up-to-date for students who are interested in the nature and role of consumption in modern societies. It introduces the importance of new object-based studies…
The passage from 'solid' to 'liquid' modernity has created a new and unprecedented setting for individual life pursuits, confronting individuals with a series of challenges never before encountered. Social forms and institutions no longer have enoug…
What is life like for workers in the gig economy? Is it a paradise of flexibility and individual freedom? Or is it a world of exploitation and conflict? Callum Cant took a job with one of the most prominent platforms, Deliveroo, to find out. His viv…
In his philosophical reflections on the art of lingering, acclaimed cultural theorist Byung-Chul Han argues that the value we attach today to the vita activa is producing a crisis in our sense of time. Our attachment to the vita activa creates an im…
Rising inequality is the defining feature of our age. With the lion's share of wealth growth going to the top, for a growing percentage of society a middle-class existence is out of reach. What exactly are the economic shifts that have driven the so…
Until recently, struggles for justice proceeded against the background of a taken-for-granted frame: the bounded territorial state. With that "Westphalian" picture of political space assumed by default, the scope of justice was rarely subject to exp…
The Welfare State Reader has established itself as a vital source of outstanding original research since its original appearance in 2000. In the third edition, Pierson, Castles and Naumann have comprehensively overhauled the content, bringing it who…
Neo-Confucianism is a philosophically sophisticated tradition weaving classical Confucianism together with themes from Buddhism and Daoism. It began in China around the eleventh century CE, played a leading role in East Asian cultures over the last…
