1st Edition
Reading Talcott Parsons A Re-Assessment of His Legacy
Chapter 1. “How Great a Stir he Made in the World…”: The Stages in Talcott Parsons’ Life and Career
Chapter 2. Post-Classical Sociology: Parsons’ Synthesis
Chapter 3. Why Systems of Action?
Chapter 4. Functional Analysis: A Methodology for Living Systems
Chapter 5. The Many Forms of (Dis)Obedience: Money, Power and the Theory of Symbolic Media
Chapter 6. Society and Societal Change
Chapter 7. Are We SOcial Constructions? The Link between Character and Society
Chapter 8. The Reason of Culture
Biography
Helmut Staubmann is Professor Emeritus of Social Theory and Cultural Sociology at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. His research focuses on aesthetics and foundational issues of sociological theory. He is the author of Sociology in a New Key. Essays in Social Theory and Aesthetics (2022) and editor (with A. Javier Treviño) of The Routledge International Handbook of Talcott Parsons Studies (2022). Together with Victor M. Lidz, he edits the book series Studies in the Theory of Action.
(www.helmut-staubmann.info)
“We owe Helmut Staubmann a major debt of gratitude for reviving Parsons’ core legacy namely his foundational action theory”.
Bryan S. Turner, ACU, CUNY, the Edward Cadbury Centre Birmingham and the Australian Academy
“A variety of reasons might explain why Parsons isn’t read much anymore, but Helmut Staubmann’s book elegantly shows that Parsons deserves his place in all courses on sociological theory”.
Raf Vanderstraeten, University of Ghent
