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This book presents the first comprehensive and critical account of Jeffrey Alexander's cultural sociology. Alexander has proposed a "strong program" in cultural sociology that analyses the cultural pragmatics of social performance. His hermeneutical approach connects meaningful political action with deeper symbolic structures of social life.Rooted in a rereading of classical sociology, Alexander's cultural sociology focuses on the aesthetics of political expressions and their relation to the civil sphere. His highly original account of the civil sphere, as an institutionalized domain that is shaped by the discourse of liberty and solidarity and that sustains universalizing cultural aspirations, provides an illuminating perspective on how democracy functions, and fails to function, in contemporary societies.This book charts the development of Alexander's thought in all its complexity. Through its critical readings, the book also opens up a dialogue with other contemporary approaches in sociology, situating Alexander's work in relation to others and highlighting alternative views that challenge his ideas. The book offers both a critical introduction and a deepening of different aspects of the cultural sociology developed by Alexander. It is the first work of its kind.

Jeffrey Alexander and Cultural Sociology

PrefaceIntroductionChapter 1: The "strong program" of cultural sociologyAlexander's "post-positivist" approach to sociologyFrom Parsons to neofunctionalismFrom Neofunctionalism to Cultural SociologyA new analysis of the relative autonomy of culture based on reflexivityChapter 2: A rereading of Durkheim: social ritual and cultural significanceThe presence of the religious in cultural lifeA sociology of religion in social life: politics and technologySymbolic forms of meaning in contemporary societyChapter 3: A critique of Marx, Cultural Studies, and BourdieuThe rejection of Marxian critiqueCritique of Cultural StudiesCritique of Bourdieusian determinismCritical theory and reflexivity: the power of representationChapter 4: Culture, Politics and Civil Religion: Weber and beyondWith Weber and beyond: a sociology of religion in modernityWeberian analysis reassessed by pragmatics and hermeneuticsThe civil sphere and political debates: reconstruction of civil religionChapter 5: The Civil Sphere and the "Societal Community:" beyond ParsonsFrom Parsons to Touraine and beyond: analysis of performative social movementsCultural pragmatics and the challenges of symbolic codificationSocial and cultural trauma theory: social claims of identityChapter 6: The power of representation and the representation of powerEmpirical analysis of political life: the representation of powerPower of representation: performance and dramatic action in the civil sphereThe power of the symbolic and the iconicA generalized social theatricality: the dramatic aesthetics of social actionConclusion