Living in the 'empire of the gaze': time, enclosure and surveillance in a theological college

Interest in 'the body' as a focus of sociological research and theory has, in part, drawn on Foucault's concept of 'biopower' in order to investigate and interpret the often complex intersections of control and resistance. This type of analysis has significance for occupational socialization research that explores and interrogates the institutional settings and processes of professional preparation. In this paper, aspects of Foucault's analytic frame will be used to describe and interpret how full-time, residential training for ordained ministry functions to inscribe and regulate the 'docile bodies' of the trainees. It further explores the means by which students conform to and contest this 'curriculum of the body'.     

Community Colleges and the “Promise” of Public Sociology: A College President’s Perspective

Public sociology in a community college setting offers great possibilities for the advancement of our discipline. As open access institutions whose stakeholders range from high school students dually enrolled in college to retirees epitomizing the ethos of lifetime learning, community colleges attract a diverse populace whose stock of life experiences resonates with sociological concepts. In this article I discuss how a well-known sociologist impacted a diverse audience, illustrating both the promise and the pitfalls of sociology for the public. I then situate “public sociology” within the context of my role as a college president and discuss how I have utilized a sociological imagination to structure the central themes of a successful capital campaign.     

Between the Living and Undead: How Zombie Cinema Reflects the Social Construction of Risk,the Anxious Self,and Disease Pandemic

The zombie film has become an important component of contemporary popular culture. The sociological nature of the themes addressed by these films reflect prominent social concerns, and lend themselves to sociological analysis as texts themselves. This article examines the zombie film genre, its history, predominant themes, and its illustration of sociological dynamics related to identity, collective behavior, disease, contagion, and the privileges that come from social inequality. Particular attention is placed on what the zombie films, themselves, can tell us about society and how they illustrate sociological principles. First, we examine the origins and history of zombie cinema. Next, we move to a discussion of the central narrative devices around which zombie films are organized. In particular, we focus on two narratives in zombie films: those that emphasize zombie possession; and those that focus on the sociological risks of zombie pandemics. The discussion then moves to an analysis of zombies as selves, and how zombie films express cultural anxieties about selfhood, loss of autonomy, and threats of de‐individualization. We then explore the roles of power and privilege in the social epidemiology of zombification, paying particular attention to how those who succumb to zombiedom illustrate the sociological dynamics of health disparities in the real world. Finally, the sociology of infectious disease is used to address how zombiedom correlates with real disease outbreaks, what we know about the social aspects of infectious disease transmission, and the sociology of pandemics.     

The Corpus Status of Literature in Teaching Sociology: Novels as “Sociological Reconstruction”

Using fiction in teaching sociology involves what Harvey Sacks calls “sociological reconstruction”. Numerous comments on teaching sociology provide advice and suggestions on the use of literature and “what counts” as “sociological” literature, including specific titles. This paper goes further: while the use of literature is a routine feature of sociological accounts, discerning the relevance of a novel, or a passage within a novel, to sociological themes is an analyst’s achievement. It requires work both by the teacher and the student to recognize the relevance of fiction to sociology. Previous studies on fiction in sociology focus on the pedagogic aspects of using novels but fail to acknowledge the key problem of “sociological reconstruction” attempted through the use of novels. The paper explicates the crucial and generic issue of “corpus status”, which is fore-grounded by the use of non-sociological materials in sociology.     

Embodiment and social structure: a response to Howson and Inglis

Howson and Inglis' paper is both timely and thought provoking. However, it is my contention that their argument is fundamentally flawed. They make five claims. The first two concern the emergence of sociological interest in 'the body' and are sound in my view. The third is that the work of Merleau-Ponty, which has been central to many forms of 'corporeal sociology', lacks an account of social structure and is insufficiently sociological in focus to be of use t o sociology. The fourth suggests that the work of Pierre Bourdieu, which might be deemed a corrective to Merleau-Ponty, cannot serve this purpose without generating a form of social structural determinism which would undermine the benefits of Merleau-Ponty's contribution. The fifth speculates on whether cultural studies might not provide a more fruitful avenue for those who wish either to avoid determinism or to rejoin Merleau-Ponty. My main contention is with the third and fourth of these claims, though my view also necessarily has implications for the fifth.     

The Sociological Literature on Nuclear Issues*

In this paper we address the question of the existing and potential role of sociologists in the nuclear debate by first sketching some of the major nuclear issues, second by guaging the extent of professional attention which sociology has focused on nuclear issue. Our focus is on the professional sociological literature. In addition to it there is a vast peace literature which ranges from academic studies to newsletters and propaganda pieces. Sociologists may contribute heavily to the peace literature and be active in the peace or relatede campaigns, but we exclude these activities from our study. We view them as actions which sociologists do in their roles of concerned citizens. Our focus here is on the professional sociological literature and our comments pertain solely to it. We select thirteen journals to represent various aspects of this literature and review all issues from 1945 to the present to guage the coverage of nuclear issues in the sociological literature.     

Behaviour under the condition of anonymity: a visual analysis

Analysing photographs of abandoned hotel rooms, we forensically classify hotel guests who left their rooms into three ideal types. Goffman’s idea of impression management is central for indicating ideal-type specific behavioural motivations. Under the condition of relative anonymity provided in hotel rooms, the audience for which guests manage impressions is either absent or the guests themselves who construct it. In the case of an audience to be seen as relevant it is either an internalised audience, guiding one’s behaviour, or it is a real audience. We demonstrate that it is possible to classify guests according to forensic analysis of the clues that identify their behaviours as (1) authentic, that is independent from an audience; (2) guided internally by an imagined audience; or (3) influenced by the perception of a real audience. The sociological categories of power and status are used to systematically differentiate behaviours of our three ideal-typical classes of hotel guests.     

Vulnerability, violence and (cosmopolitan) ethics: Butler's Precarious Life

This article proposes that Butler's Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence provides a valuable contribution to the sociology of cosmopolitanism on the basis of a perspective which forcefully addresses the new sovereign power of the USA which reneges on the possibilities of cosmopolitanization by means of resurgent nationalism, extra-legal modalities of militarization and incarceration ('the new war prison') and state powers now integrated into normalized practices of everyday governmentality. Butler's Foucauldian approach to power and subjectivity is contrasted with Beck's understanding of self-reflexivity in cosmopolitanized society. Butler's feminist-inspired approach to mourning and grief and her account of vulnerability and violence also encourage a response to recent acts of terrorism and subsequent wars by means of an ethics of non-violence. Drawing on the Levinasian concept of 'the face' Butler explores the obligation posed by 'the face' to refuse violent confrontation. The article suggests a sociological reading of Butler's ethical account which throws light on issues pertinent to the cosmopolitanization thesis, through an interrogation of the relations of power and powerlessness which underlie encounters with otherness.     

A preliminary study of some broad disability related themes within the Edinburgh Festival Fringe

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the inspiration for this article which offers an initial consideration of some broad disability related themes (by disabled performers and by others). Comedy is covered in most detail with some concentration on a particular performer. Reference is made to other performance categories, such as drama, and to some influences from beyond the fringe. Disablism, othering and the freak show genre are amongst the themes which emerge from this exploration which includes consideration of whether disabled comedians can be disablist and whether disability equality legislation is impacting on what happens in performance. From the perspective of a disability aware audience member, unreconstructed disablism in comedy appeared to be fairly widespread within the fringe, mainly manifesting itself via the idle use of othering language such as the word ‘spaz’. This paper represents a snap shot from a huge and varied festival and is presented as a starting point which has inspired future deeper research.     

Facing Each Other: Japanese and Russian Sociologies

The history of sociology as a subfield has long aimed to describe the historical developments of the discipline, within which national traditions offer unique voices while also contributing to a global sociology. How do various sociological paradigms and national traditions approach social reality in similar and different ways? This paper examines Russian and Japanese contributions to the history of sociology by reviewing some of their major concepts and perspectives. On this basis, this paper seeks to probe into the past and present self-understandings of the two sociological traditions, as well as their potentials for a more active role in global sociological discourse. Both countries have a history of protracted isolation, which has made them more or less invisible in the international sociological community. However, Russian and Japanese sociological traditions exist and are ready to be tapped, even as their production and mobilization of intellectual resources remain strongly embedded in their politics, cultures, and societies. A broader aim of this paper is to enhance mutual understandings and future collaborations between sociologists in Russia and Japan.     

Ageing, status politics and sociological theory

As a feature of social change and as an aspect of social stratification, ageing and age groups have been seriously neglected by sociological theory. This article attempts to conceptualize age groups in a multi-dimensional model of stratification which considers ageing in relation to economic class, political entitlement, or citizenship, and cultural life-styles. This multi-dimensional model provides an analytical basis for rejecting functionalist theories of ageing, which emphasize the positive functions of social disengagement, activity theories, which show that self-esteem in ageing is an effect of continuing social involvement, and Marxist social gerontology, which argues that retirement is determined by labour-market requirements in capitalism. The article concludes by developing a reciprocity-maturation curve of ageing which explains age stigmatization through exchange theory as an effect of declining social reciprocity. Both young and elderly social groups in a period of economic recession are perceived to be socially dependent, and become the targets of 'the politics of resentment'. The processes of social ageing can be located in the core of sociological theory, because they are connected fundamentally to the conditions of social solidarity.     

WEB PAGES, AUTHORS AND AUDIENCES: The meaning of a mouse click

One popular framework for analysing web pages has been to think of them as identity performances on the part of the author. This framework opens up possibilities for analysis of the ways in which identity performances are composed. The personal web pages to which this perspective is most immediately applicable, are, however, now only a small proportion of the overall amount of information available on the World Wide Web. It would be possible, by extension, to analyse institutional web pages as performances of the institutional identity. It is the contention of this paper that to do so is to miss out on some important aspects of web page design: namely that the production of a web page involves understandings not only of the audience for the page but also of the capacities of the technology. In addition, web page production has to become a socially meaningful act for the individual web page developer and the institution concerned. It is, therefore, argued that the analysis of web pages can usefully learn from media studies and the sociology of technology in this respect. An interview-based study of the developers of web pages for the service departments of a UK university is described. The ideas of audience which the authors use are far from homogeneous: they include an institutional offline audience for the page, a pre-existing imagined audience, developers themselves as audience, and the technology of the browser as a stand-in audience. The audience and the capacities of the technology are developed in context through the practices of designers.     

The Sociological Significance of Sleep: Progress, Problems and Prospects

Sleep is something we all 'do' on a daily or nightly basis, consuming approximately a third of our lives. It is only relatively recently, however, that sociologists have begun to address the social significance of sleep. This paper, therefore, provides an invitation of sorts to a rich and fascinating new field of sociological inquiry, charting and commentating on the sociological significance of sleep in relation to the following seven key themes: (i) body and society; (ii) roles and routines; (iii) history and culture; (iv) work and employment; (v) gender and the life course; (vi) health and illness; and finally, (vii) politics and ethics. The paper concludes with some further critical thoughts and reflections on this sociological engagement with sleep to date and the theoretical, conceptual and methodological challenges ahead.     

Market returns? Gender and theories of change in employment relations

This paper explores recent arguments about the marketization of female labour, in the context of a wider analysis of the role of concepts like 'the market' and 'individualization' in sociological accounts of change in employment relations. It will be argued that within sociology there has been a tendency for rapid, large-scale changes in employment relations to be characterized as the breakdown of social influences or structures and as the emergence of atomized, individuated market forces. In the most recent models, change in the nature of gendered positions within employment are presented in terms of a decline of social structuring and social constraint. These emergent accounts hold similarities to classical economics, and to Marx's and Weber's accounts of employment, which also characterized new forms of employment relations in terms of the emptying of their social content and their replacement by market forms. We offer an alternative, moral economy, perspective which foregrounds the continued significance of social relations in the structuring of employment and employment change. We develop the argument through an analysis of gendered patterns of employment and change in family form.     

Lessons from The Wire: epistemological reflections on the practice of sociological research

Recent debates and controversies have highlighted several issues surrounding sociological research, which relate to the general conditions under which it is undertaken and how this is changing. There is a pressing need to respond to these issues as a whole, in particular by examining what they tell us about research practices. This article argues that a consideration of themes raised by the American television drama The Wire is useful for facilitating such a response, since it may be read as a discussion of working conditions within neoliberal societies. The following themes are pertinent here: the need to reflect upon the terms by which research is framed by funders, to take adequate time to conduct and complete research, and to encourage critical debate within research. Whilst these relate to influential epistemological discussions by Pierre Bourdieu and Michael Burawoy, this reading of The Wire is particularly helpful for highlighting the practical and inter‐relational situations in which sociological research is carried out but which tend not to receive the systematic attention they deserve.     

Locating Zombies in the Sociology of Popular Culture

In this essay, focusing primarily on the cinema of the walking corpse, I provide an overview of zombie studies and suggest potential avenues for sociological inquiry into zombie phenomena. I argue that zombie films, comic books, novels, video games, and the like can be seen as significant cultural objects that reflect and reveal the cultural and material circumstances of their creation. Despite emanating from complex culture‐producing institutions and (arguably) capturing extant social anxieties, sociology has remained quiet on zombie phenomena. Issues of significance, history, and definition are discussed. I then locate three avenues of inquiry ideally suited to the sociological toolkit: symptomatic analysis of content, production, and audience response and interaction. I conclude by calling for a multipronged sociological analysis into “zombie culture.”     

Toward a political sociology of privatized punishment: Contestation,state structures,and stratification

Privatized punishment—in which nonstate actors carry out state-mandated criminal punishments—has developed into a common practice since its rise in the 1980s. Many disciplines, including criminology, political science, public administration, and economics, have examined its use over the past four decades. However, privatized punishment has not garnered much attention in sociology. This is surprising, as privatized punishment touches on the key themes in sociology, and in the political sociology in particular. In this paper, we attempt to insert privatized punishment into classic and contemporary discussions in political sociology. Below, we offer an overview of privatized punishment and provide a high-level review of how other social scientific disciplines have studied the phenomenon. Then we argue that political sociology provides a useful, if underutilized, lens for studying privatized punishment. In particular, we highlight three political sociological themes—contestation, state structures, and stratification—that can be fruitfully applied to the study of privatized punishment, and we sketch multiple lines of future research informed by these themes.     

Legitimations of class structure inGone With The Wind

The role of popular culture in legitimating the existing social order is examined through an analysis of the film version ofGone With The Wind. This film was selected because, judging from its immense popularity, it has had great potential as a vehicle for legitimation. The analysis reveals several ways in which the audience is brought to identify with the upper class as well as several themes which legitimate class structure. An earlier version of this paper was read at the Popular Culture Association National Meeting, 1978, Cincinnati, Ohio. I wish to thank Ava Baron, Joni Fulton, Jane Rosenbaum, and the reviewers ofQualitative Sociology for their helpful comments in preparing the final draft of this paper.     

The Force of Creative Negation: The Author in Boris Pasternak’s Safe Conduct

This is a comparative analysis of the Russian re-readings of Seren Kierkegaard. The paper demonstrates a profound interdependence between the text and cultural context. Special attention is given to Lev Shestov’s presentation of Kierkegaard as “Dostoevsky’s Double” and Piama Gaidenko’s modernist depiction of Kierkegaard as a “master of paradox and irony.” The former was written in France at the beginning of the twentieth century, while the latter was realized during the “thaw” of the 1970s. This study of the Russian reception of Kierkegaard complements and links the existing European and North American interpretations of his philosophical system to the Russian intellectual tradition. The paper concludes that Gaidenko fruitfully joined the discourse on Being and Existence, even though she had no access to the mainstream postmodern debates, but she did so on the basis of Europe’s shared cultural tradition.     

The sociology of grit: Exploring grit as a sociological variable and its potential role in social stratification

This paper proposes the currently fashionable psychological notion of “grit” as a potentially useful variable in sociological analysis and explores its potential for contributing to addressing sociological concerns. Grit, comprising perseverance and passion toward long‐term goals, has received growing attention within academia and from the general public as a strong predictor of achievement. Grit captures an important, noncognitive, underdeveloped aspect of agency not included in life course or stratification studies. Grit can contribute to our understanding about how the subjective beliefs that are typically treated as agency are actually translated into volitional action that constructs one's life course, a crucial potential life course mechanism. This paper suggests incorporating grit into sociological understanding of individual‐level aspects of stratification, moving beyond its current conception anchored fully in psychology, to further understand what it is, where it comes from, and why it is sociologically useful.