Today, churches, political parties, trade unions, and even national sports teams are no guarantee of social solidarity. At a time when these traditional institutions of social cohesion seem increasingly ill-equipped to defend against the disintegration of sociability, K. Ludwig Pfeiffer encourages us to reflect on the cultural and literary history of social gatherings-from the ancient Athenian symposium to its successor forms throughout Western history.
From medieval troubadours to Parisian salons and beyond, Pfeiffer conceptualizes the symposium as an institution of sociability with a central societal function. As such he reinforces a programmatic theoretical move in the sociology of Georg Simmel and builds on theories of social interaction and communication characterized by Max Weber, George Herbert Mead, J-rgen Habermas, Niklas Luhmann, and others. To make his argument, Pfeiffer draws on the work of a range of writers, including Dr. Samuel Johnson and Diderot, Virginia Wool
