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This introductory chapter discusses the theme of this volume, which is about social life and cultural sociology. The chapters in this volume can be considered as adventures in the dialectics of cultural thought as they move back and forth between theorizing and researching, between interpretations and explanations, between cultural logics and cultural pragmatics. This volume presents a new approach for understanding how culture works in contemporary societies and shows how some unseen cultural structures translate into concrete actions and institutions.

This chapter explores the concept of the cultural sociology of evil. It explains that for every effort to institutionalize comforting and inspiring images of the socially good and right, there is an interlinked and equally determined effort to construct social evil in a horrendous, frightening, and equally realistic way. It discusses the systematic crystallization and elaboration of evil by institutions and societies in their pursuit of the good. It also discusses the intellectual roots of the displacement of evil, the displacement of evil in contemporary social science and the transgression and the affirmation of evil and good.

In dialogue with recent developments in cultural sociology, this chapter looks at the forms of discourse generated by movement activists in response to the multiple relations in which they are involved. Networks are reinterpreted as multiple, cross‐cutting sets of social relations sustained by conversational dynamics within social settings. They are at the same time the location for the development of movement solidarities and for the transmission of messages, identity, etc. across movements. The chapter identifies several conversational mechanisms that characterize the process of network construction and reproduction. It also introduces a technique, Galois lattices, to map the complexity of conjunctures of actors and events in a dynamic way.

This chapter examines the information machine in the context of cultural sociology. It argues that the theory underlying the proposition about the possibility of a purely technical rationality is not correct because both human action and its environments are indelibly interpenetrated by the nonrational. It discusses socioscientific understandings of technology and suggests that far from being empirical accounts based on objective observations and interpretations, they represent simply another version of technocratic discourse itself.

This chapter examines in more abstract terms how universities, in combination with the broader political culture, cultivate distinctive styles of conservatism among students. It reviews research in the fields of higher education studies, cultural sociology, political theory, and organization studies to capture some of the more general processes observed at Eastern Elite University and Western Flagship University. In particular, it considers how social and cultural capital gives rise to the particular dominant conservative styles of civilized discourse at Eastern Elite, provocation in the Western Public university system, and the submerged styles seen at these different campuses. The chapter concludes by arguing that the model developed for studying student conservatism on both campuses is general enough to be useful to scholars studying other aspects of students' lives other than politics.

This chapter introduces the distinction between ontological and cultural sociological theories of the sacred, which respectively understand the sacred to be grounded in the essence of the cosmos or human person or to be culturally constructed. The limitations of ontological approaches are discussed, and an initial outline of a cultural sociological understanding of the sacred is developed through a critical re-reading of the work of Emile Durkheim. Rejecting Durkheim’s social ontology and his relatively undifferentiated concept of the profane, the chapter concludes by offering an initial definition of the sacred as that which people take to be a non-contingent reality which exerts an unquestionable moral claim over social life, and of sacred forms as specific instantiations of the sacred.

This chapter outlines the book’s aims to analyse how racism and anti-racism influence Black middle class cultural consumption. It begins by summarising the colourblind literature on the middle class, which I argue limits our overall understanding of how middle class identity and culture are racialised. I then review the literature on the White and Black middle classes, before positioning the book in relation to these streams of research. The triangle of Black middle class identity is then sketched out, where I argue there are three Black middle class identity modes – strategic assimilation, ethnoracial autonomous, and class-minded – each showing a different relationship between racism, anti-racism, and cultural consumption.

This chapter brings the book to a conclusion. I review the contributions this book makes to studies of the Black middle class, critical race theory, cultural sociology, and race and class more broadly. I also examine how my research can open up new studies in cultural sociology, critical race studies, and international perspectives on the Black middle class. The book also reflects on the theme of the book series: racism, resistance, and social change, where I argue that a growth in a Black middle class does not mean there is growing racial equality in Britain.

Chapter 1 argues that opinion and news commentary are neglected topics in research literatures about media, democracy and the public sphere. It offers the idea of the space of opinion as a way of conceptualizing the role of opinion in contemporary democracies. The space of opinion is defined as a distinct social space with its own history and cultural logic, located at the chaotic intersection of the journalistic, the political and the academic fields. The chapter concludes with a description of research design, including details about sampling and data collection strategies from six major opinion formats in print and television: The New York Times, USA Today, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, Face the Nation, Crossfire, and Hannity & Colmes.

This chapter presents a good introduction to Roger Chartier's, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern France. Fernando de Rojas' prologue clearly indicates the central tension of every history of reading—and this is why he is worthy of consideration. Reading is a creative practice, which invents singular meanings and significations that are not reducible to the intentions of authors of texts or producers of books. Rojas also implies that the history of genres, both textual and typographical, could provide the underpinnings for the history of discourse as formulated by Michel Foucault. Printing lowers the cost of the book's manufacture and shortens the time of production. Cultural history might find a new niche at the crossroads of textual criticism, the history of the book, and cultural sociology.

This introduction provides an overview of the central issues contained in previously published reviews. It sets the stage for the civil sphere project in terms of the evolution of Alexander’s larger theoretical concerns. It presents a critical review of previously published critiques of Alexander’s understanding of civil society. It then presents an overview of his intellectual career from neo-functionalism to cultural sociology, with a focus on the significance of symbolic structures in helping to promote social solidarity. Finally, the introduction offers brief summaries and analysis of the six commentaries and Alexander’s rejoinder.

In this chapter I argue there are three modes of Black middle class identity, which individuals towards each identity mode adopting specific cultural repertoires. Firstly is the identity mode labelled strategic assimilation. Here, individuals adopt repertoires of code switching and cultural equity; they switch identities when around the White middle class, and strive to consume dominant cultural capital to achieve a cultural equity with White middle class people. Secondly, there are those towards the ethnoracial autonomous identity mode. They reject the strategy of code switching through their repertoire of browning, and through their repertoire of Afro-centrism they prioritise consuming cultural forms which give positive representations of Black diasporic histories, knowledges, and identities. Lastly are those towards the class-minded identity mode. They adopt repertoires of post-racialism – arguing that we are ‘beyond racism’ – and de-racialisation, seeing themselves as ‘middle class’ rather than Black.

The chapter’s analysis begins with its contention that one cannot understand the civil sphere without first understanding Alexander’s version of cultural sociology and of the significance he attaches to performance and political rituals. The chapter considers the two to be inextricably linked. In its analysis, the chapter stresses the centrality of performativity. This leads to identifying what it views as the three central shortcomings of the civil sphere project. First, it states Alexander exhibits a distinctly American optimism that does not resonate with the situation in Europe. Second, by focusing on dramatic political rituals, Alexander gives insufficient attention to public reasoning. Finally, he does not think the civil sphere is adequately defined.

This chapter outlines a comparative framework for ethnographic analysis that combines contributions from formal sociology, symbolic interaction, and the strong program in cultural sociology. Building on the methodological perspective that Eviatar Zerubavel has termed “social pattern analysis,” the authors show how underlying formal properties, including patterns of social interaction, foundational narrative structures, and formulaic modes of performance, tie otherwise quite disparate cases together. Moreover, actors in different contexts merge these social forms with widespread cultural codes, resulting in patterned structures of meaning. Otherwise different cases thus emerge as variant manifestations of a common social theme. Using such social themes as analytic lenses offers great promise for theory construction and serves as a guide for expanding empirical inquiry to a greater range of contexts and cases. Drawing on research pertaining to various topics, the chapter shows how using a thematic lens provides a compelling foundation for comparative multicase analysis while honing the interpretive and descriptive strengths traditionally associated with ethnography on the underlying properties and processes that tie such cases together.

This chapter discusses the coverage of this volume which is about envisioning the worst. Building on theories and ideas forwarded by both cultural and cognitive sociologists, this chapter argues that the inability to envision and specify the worst is, in part, a sociocultural phenomenon. It explains that the worst can become a perceptual blind spot, obscured or blurred by a variety of routine and patterned sociocultural practice and this makes it hard to define. This chapter also provides a summary of the chapters in this volume.