Taking It Big : Developing Sociological Consciousness in Postmodern Times

Sociology, or, imaginative reflections from empirically damaged life. What is this book about? Is this book depressing? Max Weber and the classical view of modernity. Sociology as critical theory. Developing an orientation to self and society -- The big picture, or, a brief survey of our dying world. More life, more death. More sun, less fun.

For use as a primary or supplemental text for Introductory Sociology, Social Theory, and senior "capstone" courses. An unabashedly "critical" text for those who want to connect their students' personal experiences with what is happening at the societal, global level today. The emphasis is on teaching "the sociological imagination" (i.e., to instill in students a unique and radical form of consciousness that will allow them to conceptualize today's chief global and individual problems and the relations between them). Dandaneau adopts a perspective like that of C. Wright Mills and argues that the sociological imagination is the "most needed" type of consciousness in the world today. The author encourages students to think through a wide variety of topics - from ecological crises to panic disorder, from hyperreality to the sociology of disability, from Generation X to Generation Next. As Dandaneau says, "The point ... is not so much to learn the truth, but to learn how to think about essential issues and troubles as sociologists themselves try to do, to become a participant with others in facing down the challenges of our present epoch." "It is an elegant and profound meditation on thinking sociologically. Written with a rare panache one seldom finds in sociology... it's the product of a view of contemporary social life that is profoundly troubling... What this adds up to is a distinctive sociological and moral voice." - Peter Kivisto, Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois