Symbolic Interactionism and Cultural Studies: The Politics of Interpretation

Symbolic interactionism is one of the most enduring – and certainly the most sociological – of all social psychologies. In this landmark work, Norman K. Denzin traces its tortured history from its roots in American pragmatism to its present–day encounter with poststructuralism and postmodernism.

Arguing that if interactionism is to continue to thrive and grow it must incorporate elements of post structural and post–modern theory into its underlying views of history, culture and politics, the author develops a research agenda which merges the interactionist sociological imagination with the critical insights on contemporary feminism and cultural studies.

Norman Denzin′s programmatic analysis of symbolic interactionism, which develops a politics of interpretation merging theory and practice, will be welcomed by students and scholars in a wide range of disciplines, from sociology to cultural studies.

Series Editor′s Preface.

Preface.

1. The Interactionist Heritage.

2. The Interpretive Heritage.

3. Critique and Renewal: Links to Cultural Studies.

4. Enter Cultural Studies.

5. Communications as the Interactionist Problematic.

6. Interactionist Cultural Criticism.

7. Into Politics.

References.

Index.

Norman Denzin is Professor of Sociology, Communications and Humanities at the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign. He is the author of numerous books, including Sociological Methods: The Research Act; Interpretive Interactionism; The Recovering Alcoholic; and The Alcoholic Self, which won the Cooley Award from the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction in 1988. He is the editor of Studies in Symbolic Interaction: A Research Journal and The Sociological Quaterly.

"In this book, Denzin has saved a place for and makes reference to virtually every sociologist working under the rubric of SI today." Joseph A. Kotarba