Sociology of culture
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Sociology of culture, or cultural sociology, is a field of sociology. Cultural sociology is a methodology that incorporates culture theory into interpretations of social life. Cultural sociologists are influenced by many social and cultural theories. More than other fields of sociology, cultural sociologists tend to explore interdisciplinary social and cultural theories including, but not limited to, postmodern and poststructural theory. Scientific investigation and the production of empirically verifiable analysis (especially in terms of testable theories) is considered taboo among many, but not all self proclaimed cultural sociologists. [1] [May 2007]
The College of Sociology ("Collège de Sociologie" in French) was a loosely-knit group of French intellectuals, named after the informal discussion series that they organized. The College was founded in 1937 in Paris and continued operating until 1939, when it was disrupted by the war.
Founding members include some of France's most well-known intellectuals of the interwar period, including Georges Ambrosino, Georges Bataille, Roger Caillois, Pierre Klossowski, Pierre Libra, and Jules Monnerot. Participants also included Michel Leiris, Alexandre Kojève, Jean Paulhan, and Jean Wahl.
The members of the College were united in their dissatisfaction with surrealism. They believed that surrealism's focus on the unconscious privileged the individual over society, and obscured the social dimension of human experience.
In contrast to this, the members of the College focused on "Sacred Sociology, implying the study of all manifestations of social existence where the active presence of the sacred is clear." The group drew on work in anthropology which focused on the way that human communities engaged in collective rituals or acts of distribution such as potlatch. It was here, in moments of intense communal experience, rather than the individualistic dreams and reveries of surrealism, that the College of Sociology sought the essence of humanity.
The group met for two years and lectured on many topics, including the structure of the army, the Marquis de Sade, English monarchy, literature, sexuality, Hitler, and Hegel. This focus, and in particular their interest in indigenous cultures, was part of a wider trend towards primitivism of the time.
César Graña César Graña (1919 - 1986) was a Peruvian anthropologist who received his Ph.D. of sociology from the University of California. In 1942, he came to the United States.
César Graña's best known work was based on the sociology of art. He wrote Bohemia vs. Bourgeois: French Society and the French Man of Letters in the Nineteenth Century, which was published in 1964, this work is also known as Modernity and its Discontents. In 1989, he released Meaning and Authenticity. On Bohemia: The Code of the Self Exiled was published in 1990. In 1994, Fact and Symbol was published and it was nominated for a National Book Award. Graña died on August 24, 1986 in a car crash.
Bibliography
- Marigay Graña, César Graña : On Bohemia. The Code of the Self-Exiled. Transaction Paperback, New Brunswick, New Jersey 1990, ISBN 0-88-738292-4
