Handbook of Contemporary Sociological Theory, 1st ed. 2016 Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research Series

This Handbook provides the hidden common threads that tie sociological inquiry together and featuring eminent scholars, it separates itself from its predecessors in substance and organization. Rather than rehashing old debates or longingly gazing at the past, this book presents sociologists with new ways of conceptualizing the organization and presentation of sociological theory. At the heart of this Handbook?s vision is the twin goals of making theory a viable enterprise by reconceptualizing how we teach theory and keeping theory closely tied to its empirical applications. Three strategies are offered: (1) Elucidating how classic issues like integration or interaction are interrogated today; (2) Presenting a coherent vision of the social levels of reality that theorists work on such as communities, groups, and the self as well as how the coherence of these levels speaks to the macro-micro link; and, (3) Theorizing the social world rather than celebrating theorists or theories; that is, one can look at how theory is used holistically to understand the constraints the social world places on our lived experience or the dynamics of social change. Hence, in the second decade of the 21st century, it has become clear that sociology is at a crossroads as the number of theorists and amount of theory available is increasingly unmanageable and unknowable by the vast majority of professionals and students. As such, this Handbook of Contemporary Sociological Theory presents the novice and the expert with the a roadmap for traversing this crossroad and building a more coherent, robust, and cumulative sociology.

Chapter 1. Introduction: Seth Abrutyn.- Part 1. Classical Problems Contemporalized.- Chapter 2. Integrating and Disintegrating Dynamics in Human Societies; Jonathan H. Turner.- Chapter 3. Power in Organizational Society: Macro, Meso and Micro; Yingyao Wang and Simone Polillo.- Chapter 4. Action in Society: Reflexively Conceptualizing Activities; Andreas Glaeser.- Chapter 5. Interactionism: Meaning and Self as Process; Iddo Tavory.- Chapter 6. Cultural Theory; Omar Lizardo.- Part II. Rethinking the Macro-Micro Link.- Chapter 7. The Macro and Meso Basis of the Micro Social Order; Jonathan H. Turner.- Chapter 8. The Problem of Social Order in Nested Group Structures; Edward J. Lawler, Shane R. Thye and Jeongkoo Yoon.- Chapter 9. Social Networks and Relational Sociology; Nick Crossley.- Chapter 10. Varieties of Sociological Field Theory; Daniel N. Kluttz and Neil Fligstein.- Part III. A Coherent Social Universe.- Chapter 11. Institutional Spheres: The Macro-structure and Culture of Social Life; Seth Abrutyn.- Chapter 12. Stratification; Katja M. Guenther, Matthew C. Mahutga and Panu Suppatkul.- Chapter 13. The Concept of Community as Theoretical Ground: Contention and Compatibility Across Levels of Analysis and standpoints of Social Processes; Michael D. Irwin.- Chapter 14. Organizations as Sites and Drivers of Social Action; Walter W. Powell and Christof Brandtner.- Chapter 15. Small Groups: Reflections of And Building Blocks for Social Structure: Stephen Benard and Trenton D. Mize.- Chapter 16. The Thories of Status Characteristics and Expectation States; Murray Webster, Jr. and Lisa Slattery Walker.- Chapter 17. The Self; Alicia D. Cast and Jan E. Stets.- Part IV. Constraints on Experience.- Chapter 18. Microsociologies: Social Exchange, Trust, Justice and Legitimacy; Michael J. Carter.- Chapter 19. Ethnomethodology and Social Phenomenology; Jason Turowetz, Mathhew M. Hollander and Douglas W. Maynard.- Chapter 20. Theory in Sociology of Emotions; Emi A. Weed and Lynn Smith-Lovin.- Chapter 21. Sociology as the Study of Morality; Kevin McCaffree.- Chapter 22. Forgetting to Remember: The Present Neglect abd Future Prospects of Collective Memory in Sociology Theory; Christina Simko.- Chapter 23. Intersectionality; Zandria Felice Robinson.- Part V. Modes of Change.- Chapter 24. Social Evolution; Richard Machalek and Michael W. Martin.- Chapter 25. Reimagining Collective Behavior; Justin Van Ness and Erika Summers-Effler.- Chapter 26. Theorizing Social Movements; Dana M. Moss and David A. Snow.

Seth Abrutyn is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Memphis. Trained as a theorist, his interests include mental health, social psychology, emotions, in addition to sociocultural evolution and religion. In short, his work emphasizes synthesizing disparate theories in order to make more robust and comprehensive theoretical principles. His primary research focuses on the elucidating the links between meso-level structural and cultural forces and micro-level dynamics that shape adolescent suicide. His work on suicide can be found in the American Sociological Review, Sociological Theory, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and Society and Mental Health.