Public Sociologies Reader - by Judith Blau & Keri Iyall-Smith (Paperback)

About the Book

By highlighting the role of the Public Sociologist and the international conception of human rights, this volume uniquely contributes to scholarship and current debates, while it also accomplishes two other objectives: first, it will be useful in the classroom; and second, it ...

Book Synopsis

At an earlier time, sociologists C. Wright Mills, W. E. Du Bois, and Jane Addams loudly protested injustices and inequities in American society, provided critiques and analyses of systems of oppression, and challenged sociologists to be responsible critics and constructive commentators. These giants of American sociology would have applauded the 2004 meetings of the American Sociological Association. The theme of the meetings, Public Sociology, presided over by President Michael Burawoy, sparked lively debate and continues to be a spur for research and theory, and a focal point of ongoing discussions about what sociology is and should be. This volume advances these discussions and debates, and proposes how they can be further sharpened and developed. Some authors in this volume clarify the distinctive roles that Public Sociologists can play in the discipline, in the classroom, and in larger society. Others provide critical analyses, focusing, for example, on aspects of American society and institutions, global corporate actors, sweatshop practices, international neoliberal organizations, migration policies, and U.S. environmental policies. Others advance new ways of thinking about global interdependencies that include indigenous groups, peasants, as well as societies in industrialized and developing states, and international organizations. Still others propose visions of transformative processes and practices that are progressively affirmative, even activist --- in the spirit of 'A Better World is Possible!!' This volume provides an overview of some of the major debates in sociology today and places emphasis on the importance of human rights in the 'One (globalized) World' we live in today. Authors engage these debates with spirited enthusiasm and write exceptionally clearly about those topics that may be new to American readers.

Review Quotes

Blau and Smith have collected 17 papers that demonstrate ways in which sociological imagination can be applied to many of the most relevant/significant social/political issues of the period. The introduction, "A Public Sociology for Human Rights," is a continuation by Michael Burawoy of his 2004 presidential address to the American Sociological Association. The appendix is a valuable annotated guide to over 100 online resources. Blau and Smith have provided professors with an outstanding vehicle through which to stimulate and inform sociology students about the potential of the discipline. Highly recommended.

In recent years Public Sociology has emerged as one of the most vibrant projects in the discipline. If you are looking for a volume that situates such work in a global context look no further than this engaging and wide-ranging collection from leaders in the field.

Judith Blau and Keri Iyall Smith have brought together a bracing collection of essays dealing with the mission of sociology in a neo-liberal global order. Each essay is different, yet each sets out to examine the challenges of developing a sociology that can tame our borderless capitalism and the brutalities it brings in its wake.

About the Author

Judith Blau is professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is author of Architects and Firms, The Shape of Culture, Social Contracts and Economic Markets, Race in the Schools, and is coauthor, with Alberto Moncada of Human Rights: Beyond the Liberal Vision and Justice in the United States: Human Rights and the U.S. Constitution. She is past-president of the Southern Sociological Society and president of the U.S. chapter of Sociologists without Borders.

Keri E. Iyall Smith is assistant professor of sociology at Stonehill College in Easton, MA. She teaches on the subjects of globalization, race and ethnicity, indigenous peoples, social problems, and introductory sociology. She has published articles in the fields of human rights and teaching sociology.