Contemporary Social Theory: An Introduction
Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Preface to the third edition -- Preface to the second edition -- 1 The textures of society -- What is society? -- Society and social theory -- Coping with climate change: Anthony Giddens -- Key themes in contemporary social theory -- Living in the world after Covid-19: addressing the future -- Further questions -- Further reading -- Internet links -- 2 The contemporary relevance of the classics -- The contradictions of modernity: Marx -- Modernity as iron cage: Weber -- Modernity as moral bonds: Durkheim -- Trauma, tragedy and Thanatos: Freud -- Summary points -- Further questions -- Further reading -- Internet links -- 3 The Frankfurt School -- Horkheimer and Adorno: Dialectic of Enlightenment -- Freudian revolution: the uses of psychoanalysis -- Fromm: fear of freedom -- Adorno: The Authoritarian Personality, anti-Semitism and the psychodynmics of modernity -- Written in the stars: Adorno on astrology -- Marcuse: Eros, or one-dimensional futures? -- Utopia and social transformation: Marcuse on libidinal rationality -- Criticisms of Marcuse -- Summary points -- Further questions -- Further reading -- Internet links -- 4 Structuralism -- Saussure and structural linguistics -- Criticisms of Saussure -- The Raw and The Cooked: Lévi-Strauss and structural anthropology -- Roland Barthes: structuralist semiology and popular culture -- Foucault: knowledge, social order and power -- Society and disciplined bodies -- The limits of structuralism: Foucault's History of Sexuality -- Governmentality -- Criticisms of Foucault -- Summary points -- Further questions -- Further reading -- Internet links -- 5 Post-structuralism -- Lacan: the mirror stage and imaginary -- Lacan's reformulation of structuralism: language, symbolic order and the unconscious.