by Jeffrey C. Alexander (Editor)
The best-known classic works of Emile Durkheim are characterized by a structural approach to the understanding of society, and it is this element of his writings that has been most taken up by modern social science. This volume rejects the dominant structural approach, drawing instead on Durkheim's later work, in which he shifted to a symbolic theory of modern industrial societies that emphasized the importance of ritual to collective behavior. By doing so, the contributors offer not only a radically different interpretation of Durkheim, but also a challenging new way of linking the interpretation of culture and the interpretation of society.
Back Jacket
This book is designed to bring the analysis of symbolic phenomena more directly into the discourse of sociology. The human studies are in the midst of an explosion of cultural interest. In diverse disciplinary orientations throughout Europe and in literary studies in the United States, semiotics and structuralism-and the poststructuralist movements which have followed in their wake-have fundamentally affected contemporary understandings of social experience and ideas.