The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory

The New Blackwell Companion to Social Theory builds on the success of The Blackwell Companion to Social Theory, second edition (2000) providing a comprehensive guide to the principal traditions of social theory, whilst also exploring critical contemporary issues and engaging sociology with other major areas of the social sciences.

Bringing together leading scholars from various branches of social theory, this authoritative collection covers areas from classical sociology to actor network theory and structuralism to the sociology of the body. The book also emphasizes certain key areas of sociology which have had an important impact in shaping the discipline as a whole, such as feminist social theory, economic sociology, and the sociology of religion.

The New Companion argues for a restoration and invigoration of the role of social theory in contemporary sociology, if the discipline is to remain dynamic, critical and relevant.

Bryan S. Turner is the Presidential Professor of Sociology and Director of the Mellon Committee for the Study of Religion, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York and Director of the Institute for Religion Politics and Society at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne). He was the Alona Evans Distinguished Visiting Professor at Wellesley College (2009–10). His most recent publications are Religion and Modern Society (Cambridge 2011) and The Religious and the Political (Cambridge 2013). With Oscar Salemink, he edited the Routledge Handbook of Religions in Asia (2014). He is the founding editor with John O Neill of the Journal of Classical Sociology (Sage) and with Irfan Ahmad the Journal of Religious and Political Practice (Routledge).He received the Max Planck Award in 2015 or research on secularization and modernity: social and religious pluralism and the host institution is Potsdam University.