Table of Contents

Contents: Critique of Action Theory and Phenomenological Sociology: Meaning and Rational Action in Weber's Sociology - Quarrelling Heirs: Parsons and Schutz - Meaning and Intentional Acts: Schutz's Phenomenological Sociology - Ethnomethodology: Garfinkel's Reconstruction of Schutz and Parsons - From Intentional Action to Structuralism - Neostructuralist Theory of Culture: Saussure's Structuralism Reconstructed - The Specificity of the Saussurean Approach - Neostructuralist Semiotics - Towards a Neostructuralist Social Theory: The Levels of Cultural Analysis - Beyond the Culture/Society Split - Symbolic Signs, Socialization, and the Sacred - Power - Conclusion.

About the Author

The Author: Risto Heiskala is a professor at the University of Jyvaeskylae and a docent at the University of Helsinki. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the European Sociological Association and the editor of Sosiologia, the journal of the Finnish Sociological Association. His main research areas are social theory, cultural theory, modernization and globalization.