Whether lauded or condemned, his writing has had far-reaching ramifications, and his work on deconstruction cannot be ignored. This volume introduces students of literature and cultural studies to Derrida's enormously influential texts, covering such topics as: deconstruction, text and difference; literature and freedom; law, justice and the 'democracy to come'; drugs, secrets and gifts. Nicholas Royle's unique book, written in an innovative and original style, is an outstanding introduction to the methods and significance of Jacques Derrida.

    Studies in Ethnomethodology has inspired a wide range of important theoretical and empirical work in the social sciences and linguistics. It is one of the most original and controversial works in modern social science and it remains at the centre of debate about the current trends and tasks of sociology and social theory. Ethnomethodology - the study of the ways in which ordinary people construct a stable social world through everyday utterances and actions - is now a major component of all sociology and linguistics courses. Garfinkel's formidable reputation as one of the worlds leading sociologists rest largely on the work contained in this book. Studies in Ethnomethodology was originally published by Prentice Hall in 1967 and has remained in print ever since. It is widely used as a text book in this country and in the United States. This new paperback is a special student edition of Garfinkel's modern classic.

    And yet, argues sociologist Randall Collins, they and much else in our social lives are driven by a common force: interaction rituals. Interaction Ritual Chains is a major work of sociological theory that attempts to develop a “radical microsociology.” It proposes that successful rituals create symbols of group membership and pump up individuals with emotional energy, while failed rituals drain emotional energy. Each person flows from situation to situation, drawn to those interactions where their cultural capital gives them the best emotional energy payoff. Thinking, too, can be explained by the internalization of conversations within the flow of situations; individual selves are thoroughly and continually social, constructed from the outside in.The first half of Interaction Ritual Chains is based on the classic analyses of Durkheim, Mead, and Goffman and draws on micro-sociological research on conversation, bodily rhythms, emotions, and intellectual creativity. The second half discusses how such activities as sex, smoking, and social stratification are shaped by interaction ritual chains. For example, the book addresses the emotional and symbolic nature of sexual exchanges of all sorts — from hand-holding to masturbation to sexual relationships with prostitutes — while describing the interaction rituals they involve. This book will appeal not only to psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists, but to those in fields as diverse as human sexuality, religious studies, and literary theory.

    W. Connell, one of the world's leading scholars in the field, answers these questions, and more. He provides a readable introduction to modern gender studies, gender theories, and gender politics. He presents contemporary classics of research, traces the history of Western intellectuals' ideas, and discusses current findings on gender differences, inequalities and patterns in the state and corporations. However, the book is more than an introduction. It provides a powerful contemporary framework for gender studies, based on a synthesis of structural and post-structural analysis. Connell demonstrates the multidimensional and dynamic character of gender relations. He shows how to link individual life with large-scale social patterns, and how to locate gendered bodies in the historical process that constantly transforms gender relations. He also shows, in a deeply personal way, how gender politics arises in personal life and why we need to address injustice.

    Written by leading ethnographers of virtual worlds, and focusing on the key method of participant observation, the book provides invaluable advice, tips, guidelines, and principles to aid researchers through every stage of a project, from choosing an online fieldsite to writing and publishing the results.Provides practical and detailed techniques for ethnographic research customized to reflect the specific issues of online virtual worlds, both game and nongameDraws on research in a range of virtual worlds, including Everquest, Second Life, There.com, and World of WarcraftProvides suggestions for dealing with institutional review boards, human subjects protocols, and ethical issuesGuides the reader through the full trajectory of ethnographic research, from research design to data collection, data analysis, and writing up and publishing research resultsAddresses myths and misunderstandings about ethnographic research, and argues for the scientific value of ethnography

    Fully revised and updated throughout, the second edition includes compelling new case studies, such as the impact of social and cultural capital in the cases of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, and new material on current topics such as the impact of the financial and credit crisis, intergenerational mobility, and the impact of racism and sexism. The Meritocracy Myth examines talent, attitude, work ethic, and character as elements of merit and evaluates the effect of non-merit factors such as social status, race, heritage, and wealth on meritocracy. A compelling book on an often-overlooked topic, the first edition was highly regarded and proved a useful examination of this classic American ideal.

    This book introduces you to R, RStudio, and the tidyverse, a collection of R packages designed to work together to make data science fast, fluent, and fun. Suitable for readers with no previous programming experience, R for Data Science is designed to get you doing data science as quickly as possible. Authors Hadley Wickham and Garrett Grolemund guide you through the steps of importing, wrangling, exploring, and modeling your data and communicating the results. You’ll get a complete, big-picture understanding of the data science cycle, along with basic tools you need to manage the details. Each section of the book is paired with exercises to help you practice what you’ve learned along the way. You’ll learn how to: Wrangle—transform your datasets into a form convenient for analysis Program—learn powerful R tools for solving data problems with greater clarity and ease Explore—examine your data, generate hypotheses, and quickly test them Model—provide a low-dimensional summary that captures true "signals" in your dataset Communicate—learn R Markdown for integrating prose, code, and results

    Why has social science failed in attempts to emulate natural science and produce normal theory? Bent Flyvbjerg argues that the strength of social science is in its rich, reflexive analysis of values and power, essential to the social and economic development of any society. Richly informed, powerfully argued, and clearly written, this book provides essential reading for all those in the social and behavioral sciences.

    The overt economic function of this appeal is to make us buy things. Its ideological function, however, is to involve us as 'individuals' in perpetuating the ideas which endorse the economic basis of our society. If it is economic conditions which make ideology necessary, it is ideology which makes those conditions seem necessary.If society is to be changed, this vicious circle of necessity and ideas must be broken. Decoding Advertisements is an attempt to undo one link in the chain which we ourselves help to forge, in our acceptance not only of the images and values of advertising, but of the 'transparent' forms and structures in which they are embodied. It provides not an answer, but a set of tools which we can use to alter our own perceptions of one of society's subtlest and most complex forms of propaganda.Other books by Judith Williamson published by Marion Boyars are Consuming Passions: the Dynamics of Popular Culture and Deadline at Dawn: Film Criticism 1980-1990.

    Leaders who understand what's going on around them see what they need to do to achieve the results they want. Bolman and Deal's influential four-frame model of leadership and organizations--developed in their bestselling book, Reframing Organizations: Artistry Choice and Leadership--offers leaders an accessible guide for understanding four major aspects of organizational life: structure, people, politics, and culture. Tapping into the complexity enables leaders to decode the messy world in which they live, see more options, tell better stories, and find strategies that are more effective. Case examples of leaders like Jeff Bezos at Amazon, Howard Schultz at Starbucks, Tony Hsieh at Zappos, Ursula Burns at Xerox, and the late Steve Jobs at Apple provide concrete lessons that readers can put to use in their own leadership. The book's lessons include:How to use structural tools to organize teams and organizations for better results How to build motivation and morale by aligning organizations and people How to map the terrain and build a power base to navigate the political dynamics in organizations How to develop a leadership story that shapes culture, provides direction, and inspires commitment to excellence

    White Women, Race Matters breaks with this tradition by focusing on the particular experiences of white women in a racially hierarchical society. By considering the ways in which their experience not only contributes to but challenges the reproduction of racism, the work offers a rigorous examination of existing methodologies, practices and assumptions concerning racism and gender relations. Supported by extracts from in-depth life history interviews, White Women, Race Matters provides valuable course material.

    A rebel against the Catholic tradition in which he was raised, Althusser studied philosophy and later joined both the faculty of the Ecole normal superieure and the French Communist Party in 1948. Viewed as a "structuralist Marxist," Althusser was as much admired for his independence of intellect as he was for his rigorous defense of Marx. The latter was best illustrated in For Marx (1965), and Reading Capital (1968). These works, along with Lenin and Philosophy (1971) had an enormous influence on the New Left of the 1960s and continues to influence modern Marxist scholarship. This classic work, which to date has sold more than 30,000 copies, covers the range of Louis Althusser's interests and contributions in philosophy, economics, psychology, aesthetics, and political science. Marx, in Althusser's view, was subject in his earlier writings to the ruling ideology of his day. Thus for Althusser, the interpretation of Marx involves a repudiation of all efforts to draw from Marx's early writings a view of Marx as a "humanist" and "historicist." Lenin and Philosophy also contains Althusser's essay on Lenin's study of Hegel; a major essay on the state, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," "Freud and Lacan: A letter on Art in Reply to Andr� Daspre," and "Cremonini, Painter of the Abstract." The book opens with a 1968 interview in which Althusser discusses his personal, political, and intellectual history.

    The first chapter outlines the theoretical foundations for IPA. It discusses phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiography and how they have been taken up by IPA. The next four chapters provide detailed, step by step guidelines to conducting IPA research: study design, data collection and interviewing, data analysis, and writing up. In the next section, the authors give extended worked examples from their own studies in health, sexuality, psychological distress, and identity to illustrate the breadth and depth of IPA research. The final section of the book considers how IPA connects with other contemporary qualitative approaches like discourse and narrative analysis and how it addresses issues to do with validity.

    Khiara M. Bridges investigates how race—commonly seen as biological in the medical world—is socially constructed among women dependent on the public healthcare system for prenatal care and childbirth. Bridges argues that race carries powerful material consequences for these women even when it is not explicitly named, showing how they are marginalized by the practices and assumptions of the clinic staff. Deftly weaving ethnographic evidence into broader discussions of Medicaid and racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality, Bridges shines new light on the politics of healthcare for the poor, demonstrating how the “medicalization” of social problems reproduces racial stereotypes and governs the bodies of poor women of color.

    GOOP editors introduce the experts they rely on, and dive into Q&A's on the ins and outs of sexual health, pleasure, and ways to evolve the conversations we have with ourselves, our partners, and each other. Part 1, Seduction: Mines the deeper layers of seduction-with suggestions for assessing attraction, reigniting the flame once it's gone out, and navigating dating, unconventional relationship scenarios, the sex toy aisle, and more. Part 2, Sexuality: Different takes on what sexuality means, looks, and feels like today, and options for tapping into sexual power-including a chapter on strengthening libido and tantric practices to up sexual energy. Part 3: Doing It: Antidotes to bedroom boredom, the psychology behind oral sex, how to figure out and pursue what you want-and play out fantasies that may seem beyond reach. Part 4, Orgasm: A closer look at enduring sex myths, with expert advice on closing the orgasm gap, doing away with the pressure to perform, and the benefits of self-pleasure. Part 5, Sex Ed: Covers the essentials (like clean lube and condoms), hormone health, and how to talk to your partner when something is up-all with an eye toward pleasure (as opposed to just avoiding calamity). Throughout the book you'll find goopasutra-style takes on the reality of experiences ranging from plain vanilla to menage a trois, plus personal anecdotes from the GOOP team.