Critical Introduction to Contemporary Social Theory

Piotr Sztompka is an honorary professor of sociology at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, He was a visiting professor at Columbia University (NY) and the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), as well as universities in Europe, Australia, and Latin America. He was elected the President of International Sociological Association (ISA). Among his books published in English are Sociological Dilemmas: Toward a Dialectic Paradigm (1979), The Sociology of Social Change (1993), Society in Action: The Theory of Social Becoming (1991), and Trust: a Sociological Theory (1999).

• PrefacePart I: The legacy: On the shoulders of giants1. Sociological theory: The concepts, varieties, and uses2. Pseudo-theories and pseudo-epistemology3. The Long 19th century on the shoulders of giants4. The Golden Era of Theory: The 20th century5. New theoretical trends in the 21st centuryPart II: Continuities and emerging new trendsTheories With a Moral Message; In Search for a Good Society6. Jeffrey C. Alexander’s cultural sociology: From civil sphere to performative actions and societalization7. Gary Allan Fine on tiny publics: Civil sphere at the micro-level of everyday life8. Axel Honneth on new critical theory: Focus on recognition9. Ulrich Beck on cosmopolitanism: World society after globalization10. Allain Caille on gift paradigm: Focus on reciprocityTheories Of Microcomponents of Social Life: Dissecting the Social Fabric11. Jonathan Turner on radical microsociology: Interactions and their emotional syntax12. Randall Collins’ processual and emotional perspective: interactive ritual chains, violence, and charisma13. Hans Joas on new pragmatism: Focus on practices and creative actionsTheories Analyzing Mechanisms of Social Events: Unravelling the Modus Operandi Of Society14. Jon Elster on rational choice and emotions: Continuities and revisions15. Peter Hedstrom on analytical sociology: Social mechanisms and the theory of imitation16. Margaret Archer on morphogenesis: Unravelling themechanism of social change17. Theodor Schatski and the idea of social sites: On the ontology of society18. Robert K. Merton revisited: On theoretical pluralism and disciplined eclecticismBibliography

In A Critical Introduction to Contemporary Social Theory, eminent scholar Piotr Sztompka takes us on an illuminating guided tour of key contemporary sociological theories. A compelling volume for established scholars and an ideal text for graduate instruction.Viviana A. Zelizer, Lloyd Cotsen ’50 Professor of Sociology at Princeton University, and author of Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the EconomyThis is a majestic overview of sociological theorizing that covers its many threads as it weaves them into a coherent totality. Piotr Sztompka has an excellent grasp of these threads and is unique in being as able to explain the nuances of discipline oriented formal analytic theorizing (of Hedstrom) as the more loosely coherent social theorizing of critical theorists like Butler and Burawoy. This is an outstanding and very timely book with the promise of a long shelf-life.Ron Eyerman, Professor of Sociology at Yale University, and author of Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African-American IdentityPiotr Sztompka’s new book is a learned, thought provoking and critical review of contemporary sociology and its theories, with a focus on the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It is a deeply informative, highly readable and, occasionally, polemical book. No one interested in social science, social theory and in achieving an understanding of the contemporary world can afford not to engage with this volume. It will find a wide readership among senior scholars, university students and the interested public alike.Björn Wittrock, Chair of Social Sciences and Vice-President ex officio of Academia Europaea.