Max Gerson

Theodore Adorno and Walter Benjamin were both theorists associated with the Frankfurt School of Social Research. They proposed the idea of mass cultural marketing in the modern era but differed on the purpose of the culture industry. Adorno believed that culture had developed into a consumer good where profit was made and Benjamin saw culture, specifically artistic creativity such as music, to play a role in political ideology. Although differing views on the function of culture separated the…

“Discuss why we can call the parent’s shop in Ernaux’s La Place a real micro-cosmos.” Annie Ernaux’s La Place concerns itself with the large and small scale of human existence in equal measure. As a narrative it tells of a father-daughter relationship, but as a sociological piece it discusses broader relationships: the relationships of people within a social system, the interactions between the stratum of society, and the roles and functions which are demanded of each person by society. Per the…

The title which Daniyal Mueenuddin has chosen for the story ‘Nawabdin Electrician’ is symbolic in itself. We see that this words i.e. Nawab is used for the people of aristocratic class, for the ones who have authority. When we analyze this title through the story it is seen that the electrician didn’t belong to the upper class infact electricians never use ‘Nawab’ with themselves. We see a theme of ‘Appearance vs. Reality’ at this point. Title is a perfect example of an oxymoron. It reflects the…

The violence of power is used to oppress citizens and maintain authority. A society functions with a base and superstructure, the superstructure in turn consists of two parts “Ideological State Apparatus” and “Repressed State Apparatus”. To place people in their proper place in society, Althusser argued that assimilation happens in two ways, through repressive means, and through ideological means where one happens through force, the other through ideas. The Repressed State Apparatus functions as…

1. We can see that Acme uses the mechanistic style of management and Omega uses the organic style of management. In Acme they have a very rigid structure and the hierarchy is clearly defined. All employees have their individual specializations and they have clearly defined tasks. All authority is very centralized and most of the decisions are taken by higher authority, or in this case the President. There is always a written form of memos and communication passed around so that no confusion…

Symbolic Interactionism (SI) is a micro level theoretical perspective where the focus of interest is how individuals create, negotiate, modify, or refute meanings between themselves and others (Rohall, Milkie, & Lucas, 2014). Herbert Blumer, the theorist who coined the term “Symbolic Interactionism” established three premises of this theory. The first premise is that meanings emerge from social interaction. During social interaction we undergo a process of intersubjectivity – groups in society…

Pierre Bourdieu’s “The Peculiar History of Scientific Reason” is a brief article full of lengthy words and complex notions. Throughout the paper, Bourdieu seems to be making multiple arguments when he is in fact making a single assertion: despite the preferred view that science is created in a vacuum, there are numerous social factors that define the essence and history of science, and the study of these social definitions is perhaps the best way for sociologists to discover the nature of social…

This research aims to understand the concept of borders and boundaries, their implications in the lives of common people and how it builds the national identity in the novel The Shadow Lines by Amitav Ghosh. Most often than not we are identified by the countries or for that matter the states we come from. These fragmentations brought about by the physical demarcations characterize our behavior in society. But the problem arise when…

In order to answer this question, a background setting of the period of time in which Baudelaire lived must be acknowledged. Baudelaire critiqued art in the mid 19th century where two opposed ideological worlds and value systems of art and society were formed: The Bohemia and the Bourgeois. These two groups in society were present in a period known as modernity. Calinescu describes these two value systems in his book called ‘The five faces of modernity’. The Bourgeois view of modernity was…

Mohsin Husnain 13-10065 PLSC 302 A Final Project Socialism stresses more on society rather an individual. It means that the individual interests are not important than the society interests. The purpose of socialism is to eliminate the competition among the different classes of the society means it is opposed to the capitalism. The capitalists are regarded as the real enemies of the working class. It worships the equality in classes of the societies and the…