Sociology

LETTERIA GRAZIA FASSARI

1. Knowledge and understanding: after having passed the exam students should demonstrate knowledge and understanding of: analytical and critical conceptual tools for culture and cultural and communication processes in contemporary societies; cultural and communicative phenomena and processes concerning contemporary societies, with respect to the themes such as cultural change, pluralism of values, multiculturalism, religion, media and digital languages, symbolic systems of communication, cultural industries interpreted throughout classical and contemporary texts of sociological thought and analysis of mass culture products, subcultures and practices of cultural distinction
2. Applying knowledge and understanding: after having passed the exam students should possess adequate and useful skills to: analyse, compare, sustain and criticize key-tools and arguments related to the decoding of ideologies, common sense, styles and tastes in the dimensions of cultural consumptions, institutionalised culture, youth cultures and ethnic minorities; address problems related to social inequalities in accessing to education, knowledge and to apply techniques and methods for interpreting cultural processes. Students should also be able: to analyse contemporary cultural products and objects along processes of creation, production, distribution, reception, consumption and re-appropriation; to update and apply the sociological and anthropological contributions and the logical and epistemological foundations to the concept and study of culture; to identify and decode the various topics related to culture in contemporary societies and in particular to address the meanings of subcultures, mass culture, production, reception and cultural resistance, political culture and economic culture.
3. Critical faculties, that is being able to analyse, process and interpret quantitative data and qualitative information useful to develop judgments and evaluations in an autonomous form, should be developed through group work activities, laboratory activities in the composition of hypertexts, critical discussions and in-depth analysis of examples and the capacity to understand the key elements of theoretical and empirical literature in English and use it appropriately.
4. Communications skills. The ability to communicate what was learned should be developed through group work activities aimed at delivering PowerPoint presentations, through tasks performed in extra-classroom moments but delivered also via moodle and discussed in the classroom and through oral communications.
5. Learning skills. The ability to continue studying the topics should make concretely possible for the students to acquire scientific knowledge in a reflective and competent manner in order to undertake further studies not only in the degree programs in LM87 (Social Service and Social Policies) and LM88 (Sociology and Social Research); but also in LM01 (Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology), LM19 (Information and Publishing Systems), LM37 (European and American Modern Languages and Literature), LM39 (Linguistics); LM49 (Planning and Management of Touristic Systems); LM57 (Educational Sciences of Adults and Continuing Education); LM59 (Sciences of Public Communication, Business and Advertising); LM65 (Performance Sciences and Multimedia Production); LM76 (Economics for the Environment and Culture); LM92 (Communication Theories).

The program will provide a solid foundation for subsequent studies allowing the development of a competence that links the study of theories with that of cultural practices in contemporary society and will enable students to learn the definition and conduct of small research projects.
In particular, the expected learning outcomes concern the following:
- the ability to map debates around the term culture in diachronic and synchronic perspectives;
- the ability to define an interpretative model that takes into account the different conceptions;
- the ability to analyze cultural practices
- conducting a micro-research (laboratory for evaluation purposes)

This program will enable the student to define the role that culture plays in the definition of the social world. In particular, the student will be directed to build a map of sociological approaches that revolve around the question of culture. The program provides an understanding of the different perspectives belonging to the sociological tradition, as well as of theories and cultural practices that define the contemporary world. The last part of the course will aim in exploring in-depth the issue of cultural differences through an analysis of culture as an area of more tensions: social, communitarian, oriented to subjectivity.
The program will provide a solid base for further studies allowing the development of competencies to link the study of theories with the cultural practices in contemporary society and will enable students to learn the conduction of small research projects. In particular learning outcomes are related to the following abilities:
- to map the debates around culture in terms of diachronic and synchronic perspectives
- to define an interpretative model
- to analyze the cultural practices
- to conduct a micro-research (laboratory for evaluation) in the following areas:
Affective societies, cultures for sustainability, young people and the future, sustainability and radical spaces.

Study program

1. Piccone Stella, S. e Salmieri, L. (2018), Il gioco della cultura. Attori, processi, prospettive, 2nda EDIZIONE, Carocci, Roma.
2. Fassari, L. (2014), Poplife: Il realiyismo tra mimetismo e chance sociale, Collezione Biblioteca di testi e studi, Carocci (studiare approfonditamente i primi 2 capitoli)
+ un testo a scelta tra:
3. Fassari L. G., Pompili G. (2019), Corpi, performance e immaginari. La riflessività estetica delle musulmane in Italia, Edizioni Altravista
4. Salmieri L. (2018), Studi culturali e scienze sociali. Fatti, testi e contesti. Carocci Editore

Students who do not speak Italian, please contact the professor by email.

Bibliografia di riferimento (inglese)
Back, L. et al. (2012) Cultural Sociology: An Introduction. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Bonnell, V.E. and Hunt, L. (1999) Beyond the Cultural Turn. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Born, G. (2010) ‘The Social and the Aesthetic: For a Post-Bourdieuian Theory of Cultural Production’, Cultural Sociology, 4(2): 171–208.
Chaney, D. (2002) The Cultural Turn. London: Routledge.
Crane, D. (1994) ‘Introduction: The Challenge of the Sociology of Culture to Sociology as a Discipline’, in
D. Crane (ed.), The Sociology of Culture: Emerging Theoretical Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 1–20. Crane, D. (2010) ‘Cultural Sociology and Other Disciplines: Interdisciplinarity in the Cultural
Sciences’, Sociology Compass, 4(3): 169–79.
De la Fuente, E. (2007) ‘The Place of Culture in Sociol- ogy: Romanticism and Debates about the “Cultural Turn”’, Journal of Sociology, 43(2): 115–30.
Friedland, R. and Mohr, J. (eds) (2004) Matters of Culture: Cultural Sociology in Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Goldfarb, J.C. (2005) ‘Dialogues, Culture, Critique: The Sociology of Culture and the New Sociological Imagination’, International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society, 18: 281–92.
Göttlich, U. (2013) ‘Cultural Studies and Sociology of Culture in Germany: Relations and Interrelations’, Culture Unbound, 5: 33–41.
Griswold, W. (1987) ‘A Methodological Framework for the Sociology of Culture’, Sociological Methodology, 17: 1–35.
Heinich, N. (2010) ‘What Does “Sociology of Cul- ture” Mean? Notes on a Few Trans-Cultural Mis- understandings’, Cultural Sociology, 4(2): 257–65. Jacobs, M.D. and Spillman, L. (2005) ‘Cultural Sociology at the Crossroads of the Discipline’, Poetics, 33(1): 1–14.
Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lizardo, O. (2011) ‘Pierre Bourdieu as a Post-Cultural Theorist’, Cultural Sociology, 5(1): 1–22.
Patterson, O. (2014) ‘Making Sense of Culture’, Annual Review of Sociology, 40(1): 1–30.
Prior, N. (2011) ‘Critique and Renewal in the Sociology of Music: Bourdieu and Beyond’, Cultural Sociology, 5(1): 121–38.
Robbins, D. (2008) ‘French Production and English Reception: The International Transfer of the Work of Pierre Bourdieu’, Sociologica, 2: doi: 10.2383/ 27720.
Rojek, C. and Turner, B.S. (2000) ‘Decorative Sociology: Towards a Critique of the Cultural Turn’, The Sociological Review, 48(4): 629–48.
Sato¯ , K. (2013) ‘Sociology of Culture in Transition’, International Journal of Japanese Sociology, 22: 32–40.
Schwarz, O. (2013) ‘Bending Forward, One Step Backward: On the Sociology of Tasting Techniques’, Cultural Sociology, 7(4) 415–30.
Spillman, L. (2002) ‘Introduction: Culture and Cultural Sociology’, in L. Spillman (ed.), Cultural Sociology. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 1–15.
Swidler, A. (2001) Talk of Love: How Culture Matters. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Williams, R. (1976) Keywords. London: Croom Helm. Wolff, J. (1999) ‘Cultural Studies and the Sociology of Culture’, Contemporary Sociology, 28(5):
499–507.
Wolff, J. (2008) The Aesthetics of Uncertainty. New York: Columbia University Press.

Cultural sociology addresses contemporary culture in more theoretical and analytical ways, seeing them in a broader global and historical context. The first part of the course focuses on enhancing the classical contribution of sociology in providing tools for the theoretical and methodological understanding of cultural issues. In the second part, we introduce the cultural issues that characterize contemporaneity. The teaching methods include constant interaction between teacher and student, presentation of essays and books individually or in groups, discussions in the classroom with privileged informants.

Cultural sociology addresses contemporary culture in more theoretical and analytical ways, seeing them in a broader global and historical context. The first part of the course focuses on enhancing the classical contribution of sociology in providing tools for the theoretical and methodological understanding of cultural issues. In the second part, we introduce the cultural issues that characterize contemporaneity. The teaching methods include constant interaction between teacher and student, presentation of essays and books individually or in groups, discussions in the classroom with privileged informants.

Attending students with a minimum of 75% attendance at the end of the course may choose to take the written and oral exam. The first one is based on the manual (open questions), the second on a text chosen from a list previously provided to them. This second method involves the presentation of the text chosen to the others attending the course and the activation of a debate. Non-attending students take the oral exam based on the full list of books.