Cultural Sociology, Modes of Inquiry, and Political Analysis: A Rejoinder to Steensland

Closely bounded research programs are both common and effective in sociology. Describing such programs as operating with a "restricted code" is deeply problematic. These matters aside, the remarkable rise of cultural sociology in fact reflects adaptation to sociology's disciplinary norms and core thematic concerns. Steensland (2009) might better have reversed his argument: faced with the achievements of cultural analysis, the slumbering giant called "mainstream sociology" should wake up.