For sociologists, making, distributing, and using art and cultural products constitute social practices, yet, sociologists disagree on how to investigate these practices. Organized around three main schools of thought - critical sociology, symbolic interactionism and social systems theory - Sociology About Art serves as an introduction to and a self-reflective discussion about how sociologists study the Arts.
Providing a wide spectrum of approaches in art sociology, the book focuses on examining not only the famously cited theorists (notably Bourdieu, Becker and Peterson) but also offers an overview of the sociologists who are often overlooked (Hennion, Heinich, Luhmann and Van Maanen, among others). In presenting these various approaches, the crux of discussion concerns the status of art in sociological analyses. Following a critical assessment of the classical theories and assessing the risks of failing to observe the function of art, the authors contend that the pers
