About the Book

This wide-ranging handbook presents in-depth discussions on the array of subspecialties that comprise the field of sociological theory. Prominent theorists working in a variety of traditions discuss methodologies and strategies; the cultural turn in sociological theorizing; interaction processes; theorizing from the systemic and macro level; new directions in evolutionary theorizing; power, conflict, and change; and theorizing from assumptions of rationality

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Contents

1.    Sociological Theory Today  /  Jonathan H. Turner
I. THEORETICAL METHODOLOGIES AND STRATEGIES
2.    What Makes Sciences "Scientific?"  /  Stephan Fuchs
3.    Formal Theory  /  Guillermina Jasso
4.    Computational Approaches to Sociological Theorizing  /  Kathleen M. Carley
5.    The Critical Dimension in Sociological Theory  /  Craig Calhoun
6.    Metatheorizing in Sociology: The Basic Parameters and the Potential Contributions of Postmodernism  /  George Ritzer, Shanyang Zhao, and Jim Murphy
II. THE CULTURAL TURN IN SOCIOLOGICAL THEORIZING
7.    The Strong Program in Cultural Theory: Elements of a Structural Hermeneutics  /  Jeffrey Alexander and Philip Smith
8.    Postmodern Social Theory  /  George Ritzer and Douglas Goodman
9.    Culture and Identity  /  Michele Iximont
10.    Alley Art: Can We ... See ... at Last, the End of Ontology?  /  Judith R. Blau
III. THEORIZING INTERACTION PROCESSES
11.    Traditional Symbolic Interactionism, Role Theory, and Structural Symbolic Interactionism: The Road to Identity Theory  /  Sheldon Stryker
12.    Role Theory  /  Ralph H. Turner
13.    The Emotional/Relational World: Shame and the Social Bond  /  Thomas J. Schejf
14.    Action Theory  /  Hans Joas and Jens Beckert
15.    Accounts of Conduct in Interaction: Interruption, Overlap, and Turn-Taking  /  Emanuel A. Schegloff
16.    Inequality, Status, and the Construction of Status Beliefs  /  Cecilia L. Ridgeway
IV. THEORIZING FROM THE SYSTEMIC AND MACROLEVEL
17.    acrostructural Theory  /  Peter M. Blau
18.    The Return of Grand Theory  /  Jonathan H. Turner and David E. Boyns
19.    Systems Theory  /  Kenneth D. Bailey
V. NEW DIRECTIONS IN EVOLUTIONARY THEORIZING
20.    Sociobiological Theorizing: Evolutionary Sociology  /  Joseph Lopreato
21.    Evolutionary Theorizing  /  Stephen K. Sanderson
VI. THEORIZING ON POWER, CONFLICT, AND CHANGE
22.    Sociological Marxism  /  Michael Burawoy and Erik Olin Wright
23.    Weberian Theory Today: The PubUc Face  /  Alan Sica
24.    Conflict Theory and Interaction Rituals: The Microfoundations of Conflict Theory  /  Jorg Rossel and Randall Collins
25.    Resource Mobilization Theory: Vigorous or Outmoded?  /  John D. McCarthy and Mayer N. Zald
26.    Historical Analysis of Political Processes  /  Charles Tilly
27.    World-Systems Theory  /  Christopher Chase-Dunn
28.    Theoretical Understandings of Gender: A Third of a Century of Feminist Thought in Sociology  /  Janet Saltzman Chafetz
VII. THEORIZING FROM ASSUMPTIONS OF RATIONALITY
29.    Social Rationality versus Rational Egoism  /  Siegwart Lindenberg
30.    Comparison Theory  /  Guillermina Jasso
31.    Exchange and Power: Issues of Structure and Agency  /  Karen S. Cook and Eric R. W. Rice

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About the Author / Editor

Jonathan H. Turner, University of California, Riverside, California.

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