Contemporary Sociological Theory: Expanding the Classical Tradition

1. THE UNDERSTANDING OF SOCIETY. 2. FUNCTIONALISM. Part One: Talcott Parsons: Grand Theory. Part Two: Robert K. Merton: Middle-Range Theory. Part Three: Neofunctionalism. 3. CONFLICT THEORY. Part One: Conflict Theory and the Critique of Society. Part Two: Conflict Theory and Analytic Sociology: The Legacy of Max Weber. 4. EVOLUTION AND MODERNITY: MACROSOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES. Part One: Karl Marx and the Classless Society. Part Two: Talcott Parsons's Evolutionary Model. Part Three: Jurgen Habermas: Rationalization and Communicative Action. Part Four: Anthony Giddens: Structuration Theory and High Modernity. 5. SYMBOLIC INTERACTIONISM. Part One: George Herbert Mead: The Self. Part Two: Herbert Blumer: Interpretation and Methodology. Part Three: Erving Goffman: Dramaturgy and the Interaction Order. Part Four: Arlie Russell Hochschild and Patricia Hill Collins: Expanding the Horizons of Symbolic Interactionism. 6. PHENOMENOLOGY. Part One: Harold Garfinkel: The Founder of Ethnomethodology. Part Two: Peter Berger: The Social Construction of Reality. Part Three: Dorothy E. Smith: Feminist Standpoint Theory. 7. THEORIES OF RATIONAL CHOICE. Part One: Rational Choice, Social Exchange, and Individual Behavior. Part Two: Rational Choice and the Analysis of Social Structure. Part Three: James Coleman and the Foundations of Social Theory. 8. REDISCOVERING THE BODY: THE SOCIOLOGY OF THE BODY AND SOCIOBIOLOGY. Part One: The Sociology of the Body. Part Two: Sociobiology. 9. CONCLUSION: EVALUATING SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY. Part One: The Future of Sociological Theory: Modernism and Postmodernism. Part Two: Social Theory and Understanding: The Value of Multiple Perspectives. Selected Bibliography. Index.