Urs Stäheli: Spectacular Speculation: Thrills, the Economy, and Popular Discourse (2007/2013)
Filed under book | Tags: · economics, economy, finance, market, market economy, psychology, sociology, speculation
Spectacular Speculation is a history and sociological analysis of the semantics of speculation from 1870 to 1930, when speculation began to assume enormous importance in popular culture. Informed by the work of Luhmann, Foucault, Simmel and Deleuze, it looks at how speculation was translated into popular knowledge and charts the discursive struggles of making speculation a legitimate economic practice. Noting that the vocabulary available to discuss the concept was not properly economic, the book reveals the underside of putting it into words. Speculation’s success depended upon non-economic language and morally questionable thrills: a proximity to the wasteful practice of gambling or other “degenerate” behaviors, the experience of financial markets as seductive, or out of control. American discourses of speculation take center stage, and the book covers an unusual range of material, including stock exchange guidebooks, ticker tape, moral treatises, plays, advertisements, and newspapers.
Originally published in German as Spektakuläre Spekulation: Das Populäre der Ökonomie, Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2007
Translated by Eric Savoth
Publisher Stanford University Press, 2013
ISBN 0804788251, 9780804788250
312 pages
Jens Beckert, Patrik Aspers (eds.): The Worth of Goods: Valuation and Pricing in the Economy (2011)
Filed under book | Tags: · art, economy, fashion, finance, market, sociology, value
How do we place value on goods – and, importantly, why? Valuation and pricing are core issues in the market economy, but understanding of these concepts and their interrelation is weak. In response, The Worth of Goods takes a sociological approach to the perennial but timely question of what makes a product valuable.
Structured in three parts, it first examines value in the broader sense – moral values and how they are formed, and the relations between economic and non-economic values – discussing such matters as the value of an oil spill, the price of a scientific paper, value in ethical consumption, and imaginative value. The second part discusses the issues surrounding valuation in aesthetic markets, specifically wine, fashion models, art, and the creative industries. The third part analyzes valuation in financial markets – credit rating agencies, stock exchange markets, and industrial production.
This pioneering volume brings together leading social scientists to provide a range of theoretical tools and case studies for understanding price and the creation of value in markets within social and cultural contexts and preconditions. It is an important source for scholars in economics, sociology, anthropology, and political science interested in how markets work, and how value is established.
- Interdisciplinary contributions from sociology, economics, political science, and marketing
- Presents empirical studies of both financial and some unusual markets – wine, art, fashion
- Pioneering work at intersection of sociology, economics, and marketing
- Chapters by leading international scholars in economic sociology
- Revisits both established theories of value and current thinking
Publisher Oxford University Press, 2011
ISBN 0199594643, 9780199594641
346 pages
Georg Simmel: The Philosophy of Money (1900-) [German/English]
Filed under book | Tags: · labour, money, philosophy, sociology, value
In The Philosophy of Money, Georg Simmel puts money on the couch. He provides us with a classic analysis of the social, psychological and philosophical aspects of the money economy, full of brilliant insights into the forms that social relationships take. He analyzes the relationships of money to exchange, human personality, the position of women, and individual freedom. Simmel also offers us prophetic insights into the consequences of the modern money economy and the division of labour, in particular the processes of alienation and reification in work and urban life.
An immense and profound piece of work it demands to be read today and for years to come as a stunning account of the meaning, use and culture of money.
German edition: Philosophie des Geldes
Publisher Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig, 1900
554 pages
English edition
Translated by Tom Bottomore and David Frisby from a first draft by Kaethe Mengelberg
First published in 1978
With a Foreword by Charles Lemert
Publisher Routledge, London/New York, 2011
ISBN 9780415610117
596 pages
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Michel Maffesoli: O nomádství: Iniciační toulky (1997-) [CZ, ES]
Filed under book | Tags: · ethnology, migration, nomadism, sociology
Maffesoliho esej se nevrací jen k dějinám pojmu nomádství, jehož počátky tkvějí kdesi u Nietzscheho a který se odráží později jak u Artauda, tak především u Deleuze, ale pokouší se tento jev obohatit interpretačním kontextem fenoménu bloudění, hledání, migrace, touhy neustále unikat a vystavovat se riskantním setkáním. Maffesoliho nomádství je spíše zakotveno v sociologii a etnologii, aniž ztratilo svou funkci klíče, jímž lze odemykat zcela současné jevy, jako je například ztráta místa v postmoderním světě apod. Stěžejní část Maffesoliho knihy o „sociologii dobrodružství“ – dobrodružného bloudění po světě -, zkoumající z různých úhlů pluralitu, nahodilost a masovost, kterou chápe jako neodmyslitelný rys moderního společenství, vyúsťuje v překvapivou pointu závěrečné kapitoly, zabývající se problémy exilu a reintegrace.
Originally published in French as Du Nomadisme, Vagabondages initiatiques, La Table ronde, 1997
publisher (CZ)
O nomádství: Iniciační toulky (Czech, trans. Josef Fulka, 2002)
El nomadismo: vagabundeos iniciáticos, (Spanish, trans. Daniel Gutiérrez, 2004)
Gabriel Tarde: Social Laws: An Outline of Sociology (1898-) [FR, EN, CZ, SR]
Filed under book | Tags: · social psychology, sociology
This early work, originally published in 1899, contains the leading ideas of one of the most authoritative and distinguished writers in sociology and social psychology at the turn of the last century. Gabriel Tarde here outlines his three principal works on general sociology and the internal bond that unites them. A fascinating read for any sociologist, amateur or professional alike.
English edition
Translated by Howard C. Warren
With a Preface by James Mark Baldwin
First published in New York, 1899
Publisher Batoche Books, Kitchener, 2000
98 pages
Les Lois sociales. Esquisse d’une sociologie (French, 1898, other formats)
Social Laws: An Outline of Sociology (English, trans. Howard C. Warren, 1899/2000, other formats)
Zákony sociální: Nástin sociologie (Czech, trans. Břetislav Kalandra, 1901)
Socijalni zakoni: skica za jednu sociologiju (Serbian, trans. Vladimir Novosel, 2011, other formats)
Zygmunt Bauman: Liquid Modernity (2000-) [EN, PT, CZ, ES, PL, RU]
Filed under book | Tags: · community, labour, liquid modernity, modernity, sociology, space, time, work
In this book, Bauman examines how we have moved away from a ‘heavy’ and ‘solid’, hardware-focused modernity to a ‘light’ and ‘liquid’, software-based modernity. This passage, he argues, has brought profound change to all aspects of the human condition. The new remoteness and un-reachability of global systemic structure coupled with the unstructured and under-defined, fluid state of the immediate setting of life-politics and human togetherness, call for the rethinking of the concepts and cognitive frames used to narrate human individual experience and their joint history.
This book is dedicated to this task. Bauman selects five of the basic concepts which have served to make sense of shared human life – emancipation, individuality, time/space, work and community – and traces their successive incarnations and changes of meaning.
Liquid Modernity concludes the analysis undertaken in Bauman’s two previous books Globalization: The Human Consequences and In Search of Politics. Together these volumes form a brilliant analysis of the changing conditions of social and political life by one of the most original thinkers writing today.
Publisher Polity Press
ISBN 074562409X, 9780745624099
240 pages
Liquid Modernity (English, 2000)
Modernidade líquida (Portuguese, trans. Plínio Dentzien, 2001)
Tekutá modernita (Czech, trans. Blumfeld s.m., 2002)
Modernidad líquida (Spanish, trans. Mirta Rosenberg with Jaime Arrambide Squirru, 2003)
Płynna nowoczesność (Polish, trans. Tomasz Kunz, 2006)
Текучая современность (Russian, trans. С. А. Комаров, 2008)
Donald MacKenzie: Knowing Machines: Essays on Technical Change (1996)
Filed under book | Tags: · economics, machine, nuclear weapons, sociology, sociology of technology, tacit knowledge, technology
Ranging from broad inquiries into the roles of economics and sociology in the explanation of technological change to an argument for the possibility of “uninventing” nuclear weapons, this selection of Donald MacKenzie’s essays provides a solid introduction to the style and substance of the sociology of technology.
Two conceptual essays are followed by seven empirical essays focusing on the laser gyroscopes that are central to modern aircraft navigation technology, supercomputers (with a particular emphasis on their use in the design of nuclear weapons), the application of mathematical proof in the design of computer systems, computer-related accidental deaths, and the nature of the knowledge that is needed to design a nuclear bomb. Two of the articles won major prizes on their original journal publication. A substantial new introduction outlines the common themes underlying this body of work and places them in the context of recent debates in technology studies.
Publisher MIT Press, 1996
Inside Technology series
ISBN 0262133156, 9780262133159
338 pages
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