Taking it big

"Taking it big" Table Of Contents:

• 1- Sociology, or, imaginative reflections from empirically damaged life. What is this book about? Is this book depressing? Max Weber and the classical view of modernity. Sociology as critical theory. Developing an orientation to self and society
• 2- The big picture, or, a brief survey of our dying world. More life, more death. More sun, less fun. The significance of conservation biology. Social facts as social fate?
• 3- The small picture, or, yesterday's dystopia as today's everyday life. The making of the big picture. The making of the small picture. At the edges of the small picture. Emotions in postmodern times. Postmodern bodies. Agency and power. Is there no way out?
• 4- Toward a postmodern sociological imagination and a sociological imagination for postmodern times. What is the sociological imagination? Postmodern extremes. Looking back on Mills. Applying the sociological imagination : three models
• 5- A wrong child : analyzing the unanalyzable. Getting to know James Lyon Berube. Identity versus non-identity. Arrogant categories. The necessity of conceptualization and communication. Mimesis. World-historical mimesis?
• 6- The shadow cast by Chistmas in purgatory. Generation X : a phantom subject. What is Generation X? The origin of Generation X. The cultural apparatus
• 7- Enter the improbable guru of the 60's . Whither the sociological imagination?. Radicalizing the sociological imagination. Generation X's common destiny
• 8- Religion and society : of gods and demons. The classical view of religion. Observable patterns. Religious institutions as social institutions. Of deferred dreams and blasted hopes. Religion and social change. The borderland between faith and reason. The sociological imagination and religious fundamentalism. Convergence at the extremes? The social forces working against the sociological imagination
• 9- The degradation of the public sphere. Propaganda techniques. The public sphere and the mass media. Beyond Time magazine. Theorizing the degradation of the public sphere. Sociology and democracy
• 10- The end of history. A brief history of time and space. Fukuyama and Wallerstein : taking it too big. Stone and Lee : taking it too small. After the end of history?
• 11- Sociology without society. The problem. Sociology with society. Local and global. The division of sociological labor. Sociology and society. Looking back, looking ahead.

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