From its very beginnings, the social study of culture has been polarized between structuralist
theories that treat meaning as a text and investigate the patterning that provides relative …

In this collaboratively authored work, five distinguished sociologists develop an ambitious
theoretical model of" cultural trauma"—and on this basis build a new understanding of how …

What binds societies together and how can these social orders be structured in a fair way?
Jeffrey C. Alexander's masterful work, The Civil Sphere, addresses this central paradox of …

In this book Jeffrey C. Alexander develops an original social theory of trauma and uses it to
carry out a series of empirical investigations into social suffering around the globe. Alexander …

In this essay we make a new proposal for the sociological approach t culture. We begin with
a brief critical history of the social scientif treatment of culture and a criticism of some recent …

In The Meanings of Social Life, Jeffrey Alexander presents a new approach to how culture
works in contemporary societies. Exposing our everyday myths and narratives in a series of …

The following is simultaneously an essay in sociological theory, in cultural sociology, and in
the empirical reconstruction of postwar Western history. Per theory, it introduces and …

Cultural trauma occurs when members of a collectivity feel they have been subjected to a
horrendous event that leaves indelible marks upon their group consciousness, marking their …

Fifteen years later, the lead article in the American Sociological Review was entitled ‘A
Theory of Market Transition: From Redistribution to Markets in State Socialism’. The transition …

The work of fifteen nationally and internationally known theorists in sociology, this volume
demonstrates an exciting new trend in sociological thinking. Each essay proposes a link …