Ruling Mindsets
The motivation behind blogging was for me the opportunity it afforded to ‘think aloud’. It was unnecessary to be concerned about reviewers and editors. I could say what I wanted, as it were,...
View ArticleA handful of new poems
Garibaldi Square Old men lean to each other gesticulating their opinions, each like a frustrated lover taunted by fretful minions. The shaded seats are gone, as if permanently selected, a citizen...
View ArticleA Sociological Autobiography: 108 – Another Book?
I have over time reached the conclusion that as a teacher I communicate best with undergraduates, and that as a writer I communicate best with academic colleagues. I rarely teach now, but I have...
View ArticleSociological Theorists: Arlie Russell Hochschild
Arlie Russell Hochschild is a pioneer of theory and research on ‘emotional labour’, in the process opening up a novel field of enquiry. Resisting any temptation to ‘reduce’ the emotions either to...
View ArticleSociological Theorists: Stuart Hall
While Stuart Hall was not a sociologist his work has a clear and lasting relevance to practitioners of the discipline, especially to those interested in culture. Along with Richard Hoggart and Raymond...
View ArticleA Sociological Autobiography: 109 – Books Read Over Seven Years
I have increased my rate of reading since retirement. I now read a couple a week on average. For anyone with nothing better to do, here’s my reading over the last seven years. 2017 Dexter: Ted Dexter...
View ArticleA Sociological Autobiography: 110 – Getting Old(er)
I recently posted a photo of myself on Twitter/X with the caption, ’on my way to the pro-Palestinian protest in London’. Unusually for me, it solicited quite some attention, with 7.6 thousand likes and...
View ArticleNeither ‘Either’, Nor ‘Or’
The title of this blog is one I’ve always wanted to deploy. All being well, I may possibly revisit it in a future publication. The crux of the issue for now is that not only do the theoretical...
View ArticleMaking Social Change Happen
In my forthcoming Healthy Societies: Policy, Practice and Obstacles, I pick up on the longstanding notion that radical change in the United Kingdom in general and England in particular is more than...
View ArticleA Sketch on Habermas and Modern Society
Jurgen Habermas was born in 1929 and raised by a father with Nazi sympathies. He was in the Hitler youth and was briefly sent to man the Western defences. The ‘liberation’ occasioned a reassessment....
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