WiSe 24/25: Cultural Sociology
Jayme Gomes Neto
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Culture is one of those crucial but hard-to-define concepts in humanities and social sciences. It refers to a great variety of things, from the tacit modes of knowing, valuing, and expression in everyday life to the big systems of articulated meanings found in arts, literature, religion, politics, and even science. In a way, culture is everywhere. So it’s not at all a surprise that the study of culture is a fundamental part of the humanities and social sciences. Yet the task of dealing with meanings and symbols pervasive in virtually all spheres of social life is a complicated and multifaceted one. In view of such a challenge, many thinkers and schools of thought have developed proper theoretical and methodological approaches to come to grips with cultural phenomena as well as their multiple forms and dynamics. The present course aims to familiarize the student with such general approaches to culture, giving a special emphasis on the contemporary sociological ways of articulating culture to social structures and social processes. -----
The first part of the course is dedicated to discussing distinct intellectual traditions – such as functionalism, structuralism, semiotics, hermeneutics, interactionism, poststructuralism, etc. – and the way they have thematized culture. The second part focuses on the emergence of “cultural sociology” as a proper research program in contemporary social sciences and its application in empirical research. The aim is to present an overview of the main themes, problems, and concepts developed by these traditions so that the students can build up a basic intellectual toolkit for understanding the cultural dimensions of contemporary society.
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Regular appointments