What can sociological theory tell us about the basic forces that shape our world? With clarity and authority, Theoretical Sociology: A Concise Introduction to Twelve Sociological Theories, by leading theorist Jonathan H. Turner, seeks to answer this question through a brief, yet in-depth examination of twelve major sociological theories. Readers are given an opportunity to explore the foundational premise of each theory and key elements that make it distinctive. The book draws on biographical background, analysis of important works, historical influences, and other critical insights to help readers make the important connections between these monumental sociological theories and the social world in which we live. This concise resource is a perfect complement to any course that seeks to examine both classic and contemporary sociological theory.

This groundbreaking book moves beyond the conventional association of dramaturgy with plays to consider the substance and process of dramaturgy for dance and movement performance. Focusing on text and language, research, audience, movement, and interculturalism, the author provides vivid, practical examples from her collaboration with renowned choreographer Ralph Lemon.

In this brilliant study, Marc Robinson explores more than two hundred years of plays, styles, and stagings of American theater. Mapping the changing cultural landscape from the late eighteenth century to the start of the twenty-first, he explores how theater has--and has not--changed and offers close readings of plays by O'Neill, Stein, Wilder, Miller, and Albee, as well as by important but perhaps lesser known dramatists such as Wallace Stevens, Jean Toomer, Djuna Barnes, and many others. Robinson reads each work in an ambitiously interdisciplinary context, linking advances in theater to developments in American literature, dance, and visual art. The author is particularly attentive to the continuities in American drama, and expertly teases out recurring themes, such as the significance of visuality. He avoids neatly categorizing nineteenth- and twentieth-century plays and depicts a theater more restive and mercurial than has been recognized before. Robinson proves both a fascinating and thought-provoking critic and a spirited guide to the history of American drama.

This book discusses the semiotic and ethnographic bases for organizational analysis, including the related fieldwork issues confronting the investigator. It explains the importance of rhetorical-dramaturgic and phenomenological strategies for the study of organizations. The arbitrary and culturally based connections in which organizations abound require an understanding of the particulars of cultural scenes, first observed, later conceptualized through semiotic theory. Organizational Communication includes a series of examples from applied semiotics research in nuclear regulatory policy making, truth telling, regulatory control (by, among others, the police), and risk analysis. These data provide the basis for a critique of the limits of earlier analyses of organizational change, such as those offered by structuralist theories. Dr. Manning concludes with an assessment of the postmodernist ethnographic strategies that have evolved as a response to a larger representational crisis, and of the implications of these strategies for the study of organizational culture.

THE ART OF THEATRE: A CONCISE INTRODUCTION, Third Edition, explores issues of cultural diversity and creativity, presents a full day-in-the-life of theatre, and offers briefer coverage of theatre history. Timely and relevant connections between theatre and the familiar world of television and film help students understand how the living art of theatre relates to and influences today's screen entertainment. For flexibility in the way you teach, THE ART OF THEATRE is available in two versions. This Concise version contains 12 chapters, paring back historical coverage to one chapter on theatre's key movements (such as realism and absurdism) and then offers one chapter featuring musical theatre. THE ART OF THEATRE: THEN AND NOW contains 17 chapters, including six chapters covering theatre history in Western and non-Western contexts, and concluding with a chapter on musical theatre. Important Notice: Media content referenced within the product description or the product text may not be available in the ebook version.

This concise introduction to American drama gives readers an overview of how American drama developed from the end of the Second World War to the turn of the twenty-first century. Provides a balanced assessment of the major plays and playwrights of the period. Shows how these dramatists broke new ground in their contribution to political, economic, social and cultural debates, as well as in their dramaturgical strategies. Organized chronologically, with plays, playwrights and movements clustered around different movements such as realism and experimentalism. Gives readers a sense of the development of American drama over time.