The civil sphere / Jeffrey C. Alexander.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alexander, Jeffrey C., 1947-

Contributor:

UPSO (University Press Scholarship Online)

John G. Hartman Memorial Library Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Civil society.

Cultural pluralism.

Social interaction.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xix, 793 pages)

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2006.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

How do real individuals live together in real societies in the real world? Jeffrey Alexander's masterful work, The Civil Sphere, addresses this central paradox of modern life. Feelings for others--the solidarity that is ignored or underplayed by theories of power or self-interest--are at the heart of this novel inquiry into the meeting place between normative theories of what we think we should do and empirical studies of who we actually are. A grand and sweeping statement, The Civil Sphere is a major contribution to our thinking about the real but ideal world in which we all reside.

Contents:

Possibilities of justice

Real civil societies : dilemmas of institutionalization

Bringing democracy back in : realism, morality, solidarity

Discourses : liberty and repression

Communicative institutions : public opinion, mass media, polls, associations

Regulative institutions (1) : voting, parties, office

Regulative institutions (2) : the civil force of law

Contradictions : uncivilizing pressures and civil repair

Social movements as civil translations

Gender and civil repair : the long and winding road through m/otherhood

Race and civil repair (1) : duality and the creation of a black civil society

Race and civil repair (2) : the civil rights movement and communicative solidarity

Race and civil repair (3) : civil trauma and the tightening spiral of communication and regulation

Race and civil repair (4) : regulatory reform and ritualization

Integration between difference and solidarity

Encounters with the other

The three pathways to incorporation

The Jewish question : anti-semitism and the failure of assimilation

Answering the Jewish question in America : before and after the Holocaust

Conclusion : civil society as a project.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 723-785) and index.

Electronic reproduction. Oxford Available via World Wide Web.

Description based on print version record.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the John G. Hartman Memorial Library Fund.

ISBN:

9780199943364

0199943362

Publisher Number:

99963212441

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.