About the Book
Frontiers of Social Theory presents essays reflecting the current state and near-term prospects of sociological theory. Written especially for this volume by the younger generation of sociological theorists, these essays point away from the theoretical extremism typical of the past and discuss the ways in which traditional labels and commitments to sociological theory are changing. Contributors present a wide range of contemporary theoretical perspectives and simultaneously reveal a profound interchange among them. Together these essays demonstrate today’s powerful movement towards syntheses in theoretical sociology.
Contents
1. The Current Status of Sociological Theory: The New Syntheses / George Ritzer
Part 1. New Life in Some Traditional social and Sociological Theories
2. Neofunctionalism Today: Reconstructing a Theoretical Tradition
3. Conflict Theory and the Advance of Macro-Historical Sociology / Randall Collins
4. The Decline of the Grand Narrative of Emancipatory Modernity: Crisis or Renewal in Neo-marxian Theory? / Robert J. Antonio
5. Symbolic Interactionism in the Post-Blumerian Age / Gary alan Fine
6. Exchange Theory: A blueprint for Structure and Process / Karen S. Cook, Jodi O'Brien, and Peter Kollock
Part 2. Liveliness of More Recent Social and Sociological Theories
7. The World as It Happens: Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis / Deirdre Boden
8. The comparative Advantages of Rational Choice Theory / Debra Friedman and Michael Hechter
9. The Uses of French Structuralisms in Sociology / Charles C. Lemert
10. The Postmodern Turn: Positions, Problems, and Prospects / Douglas Kellner
11. Betwixt and Between: Recent Cultural Sociology in Europe and the United States / Michele Lamont and Robert Wuthnow
12. Feminist Sociological Theory: The Near-Future Prospects / Patricia M. Lengermann and Jill Niebrugge-Brantley
Part 3. Overviews of Social and Sociological Theory
13. Micro-Macro Linkage in Sociological Theory: applying a Metatheoretical Tool / George Ritzer
14. The Past, Present, and Future of Theory in American Sociology / Jonathan Turner
15. The History and Politics of Recent Sociological Theory / Norbert Wiley
About the Author / Editor
GEORGE RITZER is Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland. Author of numerous articles and several well-known monographs and texts in sociological theory and metatheory, Dr. Ritzer was the past Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Section on Theoretical Sociology.
