Practicing Culture (Taking Culture Seriously)

Practicing Culture seeks to revitalize the field of cultural sociology with an emphasis not on abstract theoretical debates but on showing how to put theoretical sources to work in empirical research. Culture is not just products and representations but practices. It is made and remade in countless small ways and occasional bursts of innovation. It is something people do and do in rich variety and distinctive contexts as engaging case studies from the book reveal. For example; In Russia's most Western city, Kaliningrad, residents dig for artifacts symbolizing a German past - even though their parents only migrated to what was once Konigsberg after WWII. From Spain to Poland to Canada advertising firms are hired to make nations into "brands", a globally reproduced strategy for claiming to be distinctive in attractive and conventional ways. In Buenos Aires, opera listeners stand in packed galleries, listening as passionately as singers perform, closing their eyes and claiming to be elevated and remade by the music. In the U.S. fans of professional wrestling pride themselves on being smart enough to know how much is trickery and how the tricks work yet still believe in the contest. Practicing Culture will reshape and invigorate the sociology of culture not only through internal development but through enhanced connections to the interdisciplinary social theory and to related fields like the Sociology of Knowledge and Ethnography. It will prove an essential tool for students and researchers of Cultural Theory, Contemporary Social Theory and Cultural Sociology.Practicing Culture (Taking Culture Seriously), 1 was published 2007 under ISBN 9780415412513 and ISBN 041541251X.