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Chris Shilling
I am Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent. Over the past three plus decades my writings have sought to understand the social and cultural implications of what it is to be an embodied being. Firstly, this has involved a critique of Cartesian influenced, ‘disembodied’ conceptions of sociology which marginalise the corporeal conditions of social action and the bodily consequences of social structures, and an excavation of those traditions that help us re-embody our conceptions of society. Secondly, I have contributed towards the establishment of an interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary field of ‘body studies’ which draws on the wide range of debates on corporality that have become increasingly prominent across the social sciences and humanities. Thirdly, my aim has been to develop original theoretical approaches which enable us to understand more adequately the significance of embodiment to the world in which we live.http://www.kent.ac.uk/sspssr/staff/academic/shilling.html
In pursuing this project I have written on embodiment in relation to a wide range of issues and my main books include The Body (2016, Oxford University Press), Sociology of the Sacred (2014, co-author with P.A. Mellor), Changing Bodies (2008, Sage), Embodying Sociology (Editor, 2007, The Sociological Review Monograph Series / Blackwell), The Body in Culture, Technology and Society (2005, Sage), The Body and Social Theory (2012 3rd edition. 1st edition 1993, Sage), The Sociological Ambition (2001, co-author with P.A. Mellor, Sage), and Re-forming the Body (1997, co-author with P.A. Mellor, Sage). My most recent book (with Philip A. Mellor) is entitled Uncovering Social Life. Critical Perspectives from Sociology and explores how contemporary institutional changes erode existing social relationships and identities but also create space for opposition to, or creative adaptation of, these broader shifts. It focuses on bodies and health. Most recently I have published a series of articles in two distinct areas: 1) advancing the study of what I have referred to as 'body pedagogics', and 2) exploring the importance of social character in the contemporary era (these are co-authored with P.A. Mellor). .
In pursuing this project I have written on embodiment in relation to a wide range of issues and my main books include The Body (2016, Oxford University Press), Sociology of the Sacred (2014, co-author with P.A. Mellor), Changing Bodies (2008, Sage), Embodying Sociology (Editor, 2007, The Sociological Review Monograph Series / Blackwell), The Body in Culture, Technology and Society (2005, Sage), The Body and Social Theory (2012 3rd edition. 1st edition 1993, Sage), The Sociological Ambition (2001, co-author with P.A. Mellor, Sage), and Re-forming the Body (1997, co-author with P.A. Mellor, Sage). My most recent book (with Philip A. Mellor) is entitled Uncovering Social Life. Critical Perspectives from Sociology and explores how contemporary institutional changes erode existing social relationships and identities but also create space for opposition to, or creative adaptation of, these broader shifts. It focuses on bodies and health. Most recently I have published a series of articles in two distinct areas: 1) advancing the study of what I have referred to as 'body pedagogics', and 2) exploring the importance of social character in the contemporary era (these are co-authored with P.A. Mellor). .
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Exploring the threats and opportunities confronting current social relationships and identities, this book identifies how sociology helps us understand the problems associated with social order and change before focusing on some of the most important institutional transformations to have occurred in the spheres of bodies and health; sex, gender and sexuality; employment; finance; the Internet and new social media; technology and artificial intelligence; religion; and governance. After a critical introduction placing these issues in their historical and sociological context, theoretical chapters analysing how sociology views the individual/society relationship, and the volatile processes endemic to the modern era, provide an innovative and comprehensive context for these explorations.
This book provides a clear and engaging account of social life. Covering a broad range of conventional and unconventional sociological topics, the diverse chapters are united in a concern with three major themes: the growing complexity of the current era, and the ‘doubled’ identities with which it is associated; the opportunities and constraints such developments pose to different groups; and the capacity of institutional changes to both erode existing social relationships, and create space for the emergence of new collective identities that oppose these structural shifts.
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/upm-data/63639_Mellor__Sociology_of_the_sacred.pdf
Comprising cutting edge contributions from Europe, America and Asia, this collection brings together a series of theoretical, methodological and empirical analyses by leading international exponents of body studies and a new generation of scholars concerned with exploring the structural, interactional, and phenomenological features of human embodiment.
Connecting the concerns of classical sociologists to new advances in social theory, anthropology, feminism and social research - and introducing for the first time the study of 'body pedagogics' - this volume takes the sociological study of the body in an exciting new direction and opens up new horizons for the sociological imagination.
Contributors include: Chris Shilling, Bryan Turner, Donald Levine, Kathy Davis, Judith Okely, Nick Crossley, Brian Lande, Anna Aalten, Erin O'Connor and Simon Williams.
In recent years, contemporary societies have been characterised by a heightened attention to the body, and by the growth of 'body projects', expressed in the changing relation of individual identity to health, sexuality and body image. Developments in areas as diverse as diet, genetic engineering, reproductive technologies, plastic surgery and sports science have made the body increasingly a site of social alternatives and individual choices. The rise of the body in consumer culture as a bearer of symbolic value has been reflected in the emergence of embodiment as a fundamental issue in sociology and related disciplines.
Surveying the range of social theories of the body, this monograph offers a comprehensive and innovative assessment of the field. It analyses naturalistic, social constructionist and feminist theories of the body, appraises the fundamental sociological contributions of Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias, and demonstrates the centrality of the body to the traditional concerns of sociology and social theory.
The second edition includes a new Foreword, certain revisions to the chapters, and a major new 15,000 word Afterword that seeks to establish an original basis for the consolidation of body studies around a framework that recognises corporeal difference and diversity, yet builds upon the fundamental problems that face us all as a single human species inhabiting a single planet.
Having situated sociology in its historical, philosophical and theological contexts, it examines how its major perspectives were based around competing views of the processes elementary to social and moral life. Individual chapters examine these through evaluations of Human, Sacred, Tragic, Heroic and Normative forms of sociology. Post-classical thought and the attempted reconstruction of sociology is dealt with in chapters concerned with Conflict, Feminist, Racial, Rational and Post-Modern sociology.
Sociology evidenced from its origins a concern with socially and culturally patterned responses to universal problems regarding life and death that confront embodied subjects and societies, and The Sociological Ambition concludes by demonstrating the importance of revisiting this ground in order to regenerate the analysis of society.
It places the relationship between embodiment and the sacred at the centre of social theory, and casts fresh light on the emergence and transformation of modernity. Re-forming the Body examines critically the thesis that the rational projects of modern bodies have 'died and gone to cyberspace' and suggests we are witnessing the rise of virulent, effervescent forms of the sacred that are changing how people sensorily engage with the world around them.
Grounded in classical and contemporary sociological and social theory, this study makes a new contribution to understanding the relationship between the sacred and the profane, the world of religious and moral sentiment, the creation and breakdown of social orders, and the centrality of the body.
In recent years, contemporary societies have been characterised by a heightened attention to the body, and by the growth of 'body projects', expressed in the changing relation of individual identity to health, sexuality and body image. Developments in areas as diverse as diet, genetic engineering, reproductive technologies, plastic surgery and sports science have made the body increasingly a site of social alternatives and individual choices. The rise of the body in consumer culture as a bearer of symbolic value has been reflected in the emergence of embodiment as a fundamental issue in sociology and related disciplines.
Surveying the range of social theories of the body, this monograph offers a comprehensive and innovative assessment of the field. It analyses naturalistic, social constructionist and feminist theories of the body, appraises the fundamental sociological contributions of Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias, and demonstrates the centrality of the body to the traditional concerns of sociology and social theory.
Exploring the threats and opportunities confronting current social relationships and identities, this book identifies how sociology helps us understand the problems associated with social order and change before focusing on some of the most important institutional transformations to have occurred in the spheres of bodies and health; sex, gender and sexuality; employment; finance; the Internet and new social media; technology and artificial intelligence; religion; and governance. After a critical introduction placing these issues in their historical and sociological context, theoretical chapters analysing how sociology views the individual/society relationship, and the volatile processes endemic to the modern era, provide an innovative and comprehensive context for these explorations.
This book provides a clear and engaging account of social life. Covering a broad range of conventional and unconventional sociological topics, the diverse chapters are united in a concern with three major themes: the growing complexity of the current era, and the ‘doubled’ identities with which it is associated; the opportunities and constraints such developments pose to different groups; and the capacity of institutional changes to both erode existing social relationships, and create space for the emergence of new collective identities that oppose these structural shifts.
http://www.uk.sagepub.com/upm-data/63639_Mellor__Sociology_of_the_sacred.pdf
Comprising cutting edge contributions from Europe, America and Asia, this collection brings together a series of theoretical, methodological and empirical analyses by leading international exponents of body studies and a new generation of scholars concerned with exploring the structural, interactional, and phenomenological features of human embodiment.
Connecting the concerns of classical sociologists to new advances in social theory, anthropology, feminism and social research - and introducing for the first time the study of 'body pedagogics' - this volume takes the sociological study of the body in an exciting new direction and opens up new horizons for the sociological imagination.
Contributors include: Chris Shilling, Bryan Turner, Donald Levine, Kathy Davis, Judith Okely, Nick Crossley, Brian Lande, Anna Aalten, Erin O'Connor and Simon Williams.
In recent years, contemporary societies have been characterised by a heightened attention to the body, and by the growth of 'body projects', expressed in the changing relation of individual identity to health, sexuality and body image. Developments in areas as diverse as diet, genetic engineering, reproductive technologies, plastic surgery and sports science have made the body increasingly a site of social alternatives and individual choices. The rise of the body in consumer culture as a bearer of symbolic value has been reflected in the emergence of embodiment as a fundamental issue in sociology and related disciplines.
Surveying the range of social theories of the body, this monograph offers a comprehensive and innovative assessment of the field. It analyses naturalistic, social constructionist and feminist theories of the body, appraises the fundamental sociological contributions of Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias, and demonstrates the centrality of the body to the traditional concerns of sociology and social theory.
The second edition includes a new Foreword, certain revisions to the chapters, and a major new 15,000 word Afterword that seeks to establish an original basis for the consolidation of body studies around a framework that recognises corporeal difference and diversity, yet builds upon the fundamental problems that face us all as a single human species inhabiting a single planet.
Having situated sociology in its historical, philosophical and theological contexts, it examines how its major perspectives were based around competing views of the processes elementary to social and moral life. Individual chapters examine these through evaluations of Human, Sacred, Tragic, Heroic and Normative forms of sociology. Post-classical thought and the attempted reconstruction of sociology is dealt with in chapters concerned with Conflict, Feminist, Racial, Rational and Post-Modern sociology.
Sociology evidenced from its origins a concern with socially and culturally patterned responses to universal problems regarding life and death that confront embodied subjects and societies, and The Sociological Ambition concludes by demonstrating the importance of revisiting this ground in order to regenerate the analysis of society.
It places the relationship between embodiment and the sacred at the centre of social theory, and casts fresh light on the emergence and transformation of modernity. Re-forming the Body examines critically the thesis that the rational projects of modern bodies have 'died and gone to cyberspace' and suggests we are witnessing the rise of virulent, effervescent forms of the sacred that are changing how people sensorily engage with the world around them.
Grounded in classical and contemporary sociological and social theory, this study makes a new contribution to understanding the relationship between the sacred and the profane, the world of religious and moral sentiment, the creation and breakdown of social orders, and the centrality of the body.
In recent years, contemporary societies have been characterised by a heightened attention to the body, and by the growth of 'body projects', expressed in the changing relation of individual identity to health, sexuality and body image. Developments in areas as diverse as diet, genetic engineering, reproductive technologies, plastic surgery and sports science have made the body increasingly a site of social alternatives and individual choices. The rise of the body in consumer culture as a bearer of symbolic value has been reflected in the emergence of embodiment as a fundamental issue in sociology and related disciplines.
Surveying the range of social theories of the body, this monograph offers a comprehensive and innovative assessment of the field. It analyses naturalistic, social constructionist and feminist theories of the body, appraises the fundamental sociological contributions of Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias, and demonstrates the centrality of the body to the traditional concerns of sociology and social theory.