"The ... volume ... examines one significant political phenomenon--Suku in revolutionary China through a matrix of western social theory: Freud, Marcuse, Arendt, and Ricoeur. Suku is the practice of confessing individual suffering in a political context and in a collective public forum. By interpreting Suku from the joint perspectives of political identity and subjective psychological identity, the book presents a new paradigm for discussing social suffering and collective confession in a context of revolutionary change in China's modern history."--P. [4] of cover.

In this book Jeffrey Alexander develops the view that cultural sociology and “cultural pragmatics” are vital for understanding the structural turbulence and political possibilities of contemporary social life. Central to Alexander’s approach is a new model of social performance that combines elements from both the theatrical avant-garde and modern social theory. He uses this model to shed new light on a wide range of social actors, movements, and events, demonstrating through striking empirical examples the drama of social life. Producing successful dramas determines the outcome of social movements and provides the keys to political power. Modernity has neither eliminated aura nor suppressed authenticity; on the contrary, they are available to social actors who can perform them in compelling ways. This volume further consolidates Alexander’s reputation as one of the most original social thinkers of our time. It will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology and cultural studies as well as throughout the social sciences and humanities.

This book is rooted in an epistemological approach to sociology in which the boundaries between Western and non-Western sociologies are acknowledged and built on. It argues that knowledge is organised in conceptual spaces linked to paradigms and programmes which in turn are linked to ethnocentred knowledge processes; that until recently Western approaches, including Post-Colonial, French Social Science and American approaches, have dominated non-Western theories; and that Western theories have sometimes seemed incapable of explaining phenomena produced in other societies. It goes on to argue that the blurring of boundaries between Western and non-Western sociologies is very important; and that such a Post-Western approach will mean co-production and co-construction of common knowledge, the recognition of ignored or forgotten scientific cultures and a "global change" in sociology which imposes theoretical and methodological detours, displacements, reversals and conversions. The book brings together a wide range of Western and Chinese sociologists who explore the consequences of this new approach in relation to many different issues and aspects of sociology.

Perkins, a former chief economist at a Boston strategic-consulting firm, confesses he was an "economic hit man" for 10 years, helping U.S. intelligence agencies and multinationals cajole and blackmail foreign leaders into serving U.S. foreign policy and awarding lucrative contracts to American business.

Who has the right to speak about trauma? As cultural products, narratives of social suffering paradoxically release us from responsibility while demanding that we examine our own connectedness to the circumstances that produce suffering. As a result, the text's act of "speaking havoc" rebounds in unsettling ways. Speaking Havoc investigates how literary and cinematic fictions intervene in the politics and reception of social suffering. Amitav Ghosh's modernist novel The Shadow Lines (1988), A Fine Balance (1995) by Rohinton Mistry, the short stories of Saadat Hasan Manto, Salman Rushdie's postmodernist novel Shame (1983), and the "spectacular" films of Maniratnam: each bears witness to social violence in South Asia. These works confront squarely a number of ethical dilemmas in representations of social suffering--the catastrophes and innumerable minor tragedies that arise from clashes among religious and ethnic communities. Focusing on central events such as the Partition of 1947, the assassination of Indira Gandhi in 1984, and more recent religious conflicts between India and Pakistan, Nagappan demonstrates the differing ways that narratives engage--often in ambiguous and problematic ways--the political violence that has marked the last fifty years of South Asian history. Is it possible to tell fully the stories of those who have died and those who have survived? Can writing really act as a counter to silence? In his compassionate engagement with these concerns, Nagappan demonstrates the relevance of literature and literary studies to fundamental sociological, anthropological, and political issues. With its interdisciplinary scope, historical perspective, and lucid style, Speaking Havoc is destined to become a foundational text for scholars of South Asian studies and postcolonial and cultural studies, and for readers interested in trauma and social suffering as well as in the literature, films, and histories that take this field as their topic.

"Explores the role of the sacrament of penance in the religion and society of early modern Spain. Examines how secular and ecclesiastical authorities used confession to defend against heresy and to bring reforms to the Catholic Chiurch"--Provided by publishers.

Paralleling his friend Alexis de Tocqueville's visit to America, Gustave de Beaumont traveled through Ireland in the mid-1830s to observe its people and society. In Ireland, he chronicles the history of the Irish and offers up a national portrait on the eve of the Great Famine. Published to acclaim in France, Ireland remained in print there until 1914. The English edition, translated by William Cooke Taylor and published in 1839, was not reprinted. In a devastating critique of British policy in Ireland, Beaumont questioned why a government with such enlightened institutions tolerated such oppression. He was scathing in his depiction of the ruinous state of Ireland, noting the desperation of the Catholics, the misery of repeated famines, the unfair landlord system, and the faults of the aristocracy. It was not surprising the Irish were seen as loafers, drunks, and brutes when they had been reduced to living like beasts. Yet Beaumont held out hope that British liberal reforms could heal Ireland's wounds. This rediscovered masterpiece, in a single volume for the first time, reproduces the nineteenth-century Taylor translation and includes an introduction on Beaumont and his world. This volume also presents Beaumont's impassioned preface to the 1863 French edition in which he portrays the appalling effects of the Great Famine. A classic of nineteenth-century political and social commentary, Beaumont's singular portrait offers the compelling immediacy of an eyewitness to history.