Continuity in Discontinuity: The Recurrent Motif of Cultural Autonomy in the Development of Czech Sociology of Culture

2021 ◽  
pp. 174997552199963
Author(s):  
Marek Skovajsa
Keyword(s):  
Critical Mass ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
Relative Autonomy ◽  
Cultural Autonomy ◽  
Heterogeneous Landscape ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Prague School ◽  
Art And Society ◽  
Recurrent Motif

This article analyses the development of the sociology of culture in Czechia. Its focus is on the sociology of the arts and cultural sociology, which, it is argued, are connected through the notion of the relative autonomy of cultural structures. While the Czech sociology of culture may have been rendered less dynamic by the lack of a critical mass of sociologists specialising in this area and by the country’s frequent political upheavals and its isolation from the international circulation of ideas, it has experienced moments of considerable vitality. Three periods in the development of the field are identified here, each of them marked by a movement toward a stronger and more sociologically adequate conceptualisation of cultural autonomy: (1) from the diffuse culturalism of the field’s founding figures to the functionalist theory of the interwar sociologist Inocenc Arnošt Bláha, whose view of the relationship between art and society was influenced by the work of the Prague School of Structuralism; (2) from the cultural reductionism of Marxist-Leninist theory after 1948 to the eclectic sociology of culture and the arts of the late socialist period; (3) from the demise of this transitional form of a sociology of culture in the 1990s to the increasingly internationalised but also heterogeneous landscape of the 2010s, which is constituted by a semi-institutionalised centre of cultural sociology at Brno and small groups or individuals in Prague and other academic locales. The thread of continuity in an otherwise discontinuous historical development is found in the recurrent motif of the relative autonomy of culture which the Czech sociology of culture absorbed through its exposure to art and literary theory.

scholarly journals Success and failure of the sociology of culture? Bringing the arts back

2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 337-350 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera L. Zolberg
Keyword(s):  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Sociology Of Art ◽  
Sociological Studies ◽  
Sociology Of Arts ◽  
Crucial Part

This articles brings up the most recent, internal discussions among researchers in the field of the sociology of arts, more precisely the thiking of experts who participated in a forum of culture organized in 2001. In her writing, Vera Zolberg accentuates, overall, the need for sociology of art to retain both its humanistic and scientific roots. She reminds that sociology of culture has developed from the sociology of art in recent decades. Next, she summarizes the tendencies and interests of researchers in the forum, by showing the fluidity of its possibilities and creative capacities. She mentions the most recent production in the field, proving that aesthetic elements play a crucial part in the sociological studies about the arts. According to Vera Zolberg, it is time to bring the arts back.

Promoting Image and Identity in ‘Cultural Quarters’: the Case of Dundee

2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 280-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Mccarthy
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implication ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Local Identity ◽  
Related Activity ◽  
The Arts

Many cities in recent decades have encouraged the arts and cultural sectors as a means of achieving regeneration outcomes. Such strategies have been followed particularly by cities with perceived problems in relation to image and identity, linked to the need to promote inward investment and tourism. One policy implication has been the designation of ‘cultural quarters’, as areas where a ‘critical mass’ of culture-related activity is seen as providing the basis for further related uses. Dundee's Cultural Quarter follows this model, but evidence so far raises questions as to the extent to which relevant policy is embedded within local identity, history and culture. This implies that such quarters may promote homogeneity rather than distinctiveness, and may therefore prove to be counter-productive.

Art and Society. Readings in the Sociology of the Arts

1990 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 230
Author(s):  
Ivo Supicic ◽  
Arnold W. Foster ◽  
Judith R. Blau
Keyword(s):  
The Arts ◽  
Art And Society

scholarly journals Of Sound and Flavour – Revisiting the Notion of Material for the Cultural Sociological Analysis of Art Domains

2020 ◽  
pp. 174997552096960
Author(s):  
Isabelle Darmon
Keyword(s):  
Joint Attention ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Cultural Dynamics ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Sociology Of Art ◽  
Domains Of Life ◽  
Modes Of Engagement

This article proposes a possible path for a materialist cultural sociology of art, focusing on the dynamics of art(s) domains and harnessing Adorno’s dialectical notion of material anew. I seek to establish links between dynamics of the arts domains and the fostering of specific modes of engagement with them – and, potentially, stances in other domains of life. I argue that a return to Adorno’s notion of (musical) material allows for such connections to be made: the ‘material’ is where the dynamics of the specific arts domains are inscribed; but it is also what is engaged with – by composers and artists as well as by interpreters, performers and publics. A dialectical material lens seems well suited for the critical study of the dynamic of arts domains in the 20th and 21st centuries, given the multiple artistic ‘breaks’ proclaimed. Focusing on some well-known movements in music and cuisine which sought to ‘emancipate’, ‘democratise’, and ‘diversify’ sounds and flavours, I analyse the processes through which they produced sound and flavour anew. I suggest that sounds and flavours themselves have become the carriers of logics relevant to music and cuisine, and that they have come to imperiously command modes of commitment (from composers and chefs, performers, listeners and diners alike) that evince specific stances. Through this necessarily sketchy survey, I provide indications that broader, cross-cutting cultural dynamics may be at stake. Overall, I seek to make clear what theoretical steps are afforded by the joint attention to materiality and the dynamic of art domains.

Art and Society: Readings in the Sociology of the Arts.

1991 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 101
Author(s):  
Karen A. Hamblen ◽  
Arnold W. Foster ◽  
Judith R. Blau
Keyword(s):  
The Arts ◽  
Art And Society

A cultural sociology of the arts

2014 ◽  
Vol 63 (6) ◽  
pp. 896-915 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vera L Zolberg
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
The Arts

Recovering the primitive in the modern: The cultural turn and the origins of cultural sociology

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 072551362110328
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Human Sciences ◽  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Intellectual Revolution ◽  
New Research ◽  
Cultural Turn

This essay provides an intellectual history for the cultural turn that transformed the human sciences in the mid-20th century and led to the creation of cultural sociology in the late 20th century. It does so by conceptualizing and contextualizing the limitations of the binary primitive/modernity. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, leading thinkers – among them Marx, Weber, Durkheim, and Freud – confined thinking and feeling styles like ritual, symbolism, totem, and devotional practice to a primitivism that would be transformed by the rationality and universalism of modernity. While the barbarisms of the 20th century cast doubt on such predictions, only an intellectual revolution could provide the foundations for an alternative social theory. The cultural turn in philosophy, aesthetics, and anthropology erased the division between primitive and modern; in sociology, the classical writings of Durkheim were recentered around his later, religious sociology. These intellectual currents fed into a cultural sociology that challenged the sociology of culture, creating radically new research programs in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Introduction: Cultural Sociology Today

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey C. Alexander ◽  
Ronald N. Jacobs ◽  
Philip Smith
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Sociology Of Culture ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Cultural Turn

This article introduces the reader to the current status of cultural sociology as a specific mode of inquiry. It first discusses the pre-history of cultural sociology, tracing its origins in the demise of Parsonian functionalism from the mid-1960s onward, the cultural turn in sociology through the 1980s, and the emergence of an increasingly confident cultural sociology as an alternative paradigm to the once dominant sociology of culture. The article then considers the impact of cultural sociology, especially on well-established research areas such as economic sociology. It also examines the tensions marking “best practices” in contemporary cultural sociology as a dimension of social life, including the tension between discourse and materiality, the link between public ritual and everyday life, and the question of method and epistemology.

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