Culture and Power: Bourdieu's Sociology

Author: David Swartz (USA)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-05-01
Features: This is the first comprehensive introduction to Bourdieu's "thought portraits" in China, clear, objective, and moderate. Bourdieu's critical sociology, while revealing that all cultural and knowledge production is based on interests and power relations, also, to some extent, negates its own legitimacy. Although later, Bourdieu proposed the "reflexivity" requirement for sociology, his "secret" remains nothing more than appealing to the "moral responsibility" of intellectuals and cultural figures. (Deng Jinming) — From the "Culture and Power" column of the China Book News. This is a highly acclaimed work in the field of sociology, especially in the study of Bourdieu. Bourdieu is one of the most influential social theorists in the world today, and his works have been exerting an increasingly significant influence on the Chinese academic world since the 1990s. However, for Chinese scholars unfamiliar with the French intellectual and cultural context, interpreting Bourdieu is not an easy task. As a comprehensive and critical examination of Bourdieu's works, this book focuses on one of the core themes of Bourdieu's theory—the relationship between culture and power. It clearly defines and organizes the fundamental concepts of Bourdieu's sociology, and through detailed materials, convincingly presents the academic origins of Bourdieu's social theory. It analyzes how Bourdieu synthesized Western sociological theories and practices from Durkheim, Marx, Weber, and beyond, and how he was influenced by thinkers such as Sartre, Lévi-Strauss, and Althusser.