Chasing Society

In this episode, I talk to Ingvill Stuvøy about surrogacy, technology and the economics behind it...and about Karl Marx. Yes!

An interview with Romit Chowdhury about men, masculinity and city life. Romit is currently based at the University of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. Reading recommendations will follow soon.

In this episode, I will attend to one of the lesser known texts of Pierre Bourdieu: The Peasant and His Body. The text was published as a  chapter in Bourdieu's last book and as a separate article in the journal Ethnography. The body takes centerstage in this ethnographic analysis of the lifeworld of the peasant in Bourdieu's home region of Béarn. 

In this episode, I attend to Simmel's  famous text The Metropolis and The Mental Life which was published in 1903. It seems as if this one has aged pretty well and may still be a valid description of the urban lifestyle.

In this episode, I introduce one of sociology's most important, yet, most difficult works: Talcott Parsons' two-volume epos The Structure of Social Action, originally published in 1937. Aside from a brief overview and introduction, I am also going to outline its most important theoretical concept: the unit act.Some suggestions for further reading:Joas and Knöbl (2009): Social Theory - Twenty Introductory Lectures.Richard Münch (1994): Sociological Theory - From the 1920's to the 1960's.And, of course, the man himself, Talcott Parsons (1968/1937): The Structure of Social Action - Volume I and II.

This episode zooms in on Durkheim's concept of social facts as outlined in The Rules of the Sociological Method.

In this episode, I introduce Georg Simmel's idea of a 'formal sociology' and use his ideas about 'conflict' and 'the stranger' as an example.

Welcome to the first part of my introduction to Max Weber. This episode introduces and illustrates some of his most important concepts and gives a short and concise summary of his most famous work: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.