The Meaning of Culture: Moving the Postmodern Critique Forward

(Hardback)

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Building upon the insights of postmodernism, this book argues for an approach to studying culture that has as its basis the social construction of meaning and reality and emphasizes micro-level processes and emotion. In general, postmodernism privileges the structure of culture and posits that due to identifiable social dynamics, the structure of culture has become fragmented and has left the experience of cultural reality by human actors pluralistic, uncertain, and emotionally flat. This emphasis on structure has been emulated by many of the major contemporary theoretical approaches to culture. This work critiques the structural approach found in postmodernism and current cultural theories that neglects agency, affect-meaning, and the micro-level processes of meaning and reality construction. On the other hand, postmodernism has brought attention to a diverse array of social processes that are at work in late-capitalistic countries. Thus, in the final chapter of the book, the proposed micro-level, affective theory is situated within the macro-level processes of postmodernity. The postmodern critique is grounded and advanced by theoretically linking macro-postmodernism with micro-reality. This book will be of interest to students and faculty in sociology and cultural studies.

Reviews

"[This book] is an impressive step forward from the central theoretical arguments of the past 15 years. His infusion of sociological theory of ritual and emotion into cultural theory brings new life to the field. Allan develops from postmodernism a theory of the production of culture under conditions of late capitalist media markets. Allan notes that postmodernists have inherited a weakness from the structuralist theory of meaning, its focus on cognitive meanings and neglect of emotional meanings; and its focus on sign systems in relation to each other, as texts detached from the micro-interactions of real human actors. Allan builds his solutions from the Durkheimian/Goffmanian lineage of theory about interaction as ritual, and from the burgeoning field of the sociology of emotions. Allan brings the micro level back into culture, and thus restores both human emotions and agency."-Randall Collins, Professor of Sociology University of Pennsylvania
"Kenneth Allan's [book] is one of the most important books of the last decade. It meets postmodernism on its own terms, but proposes a theory that captures the basic thrust of this perspective and, yet, converts it into a theory that is both scientific and testable....Drawing from well-established ideas from micro-level sociological theory, Allan makes a strong case for viewing culture as only taking on meaning when it is embedded in interpersonal rituals within real groups. This theory does not negate the insights of cultural postmodernism, but it does give them a material base."-Jonathan H. Turner, Distinguished Professor of Sociology University of California, Riverside
[A] very interesting and often provocative book.-Social Forces
"A very interesting and often provocative book."-Social Forces
"[A] very interesting and often provocative book."-Social Forces

Author Bio

KENNETH ALLAN is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro.