First published in 1983 Which Way is Up presents a selection of Bob Connell’s writings on three key issues of modern social analysis- sex and gender, class and power, and culture. The essays range from psychoanalysis and contemporary feminism to the role theory, from the analysis of class and culture to the debate about intellectuals and the ‘new class’. In critically reviewing contemporary thought on these issues, the author has developed a perspective centred on the analysis of social practice.
Easy to read, often witty, the essays represent an attempt to shift social theory into the real world of the late twentieth century, to go beyond the limits of orthodox sociology and radical dogmas, to think through theoretical questions without losing touch with practical politics. This is a must read for students and scholars of sociology.
Preface Part I 1. Dr Freud and the course of history 2. Men’s bodies 3. Crisis tendencies in patriarchy and capitalism 4. How should we theorise patriarchy? 5. Class, gender and Sartre’s theory of practice Part II 6. Logic and politics in theories of class 7. Complexities of fury leave…A critique of the Althusserian approach to class 8. The black box of habit on the wings of history: reflections on the theory of social reproduction 9. Class formation on a world scale Part III 10. The concept of role and what to do with it 11. ‘The glory of God and the permissible delectation of the spirit’. J. S. Bach- some sociological notes 12. The Porpoise and the elephant: Birmingham on class, culture, and education 13. Intellectuals and intellectual work References Name Index Subject Index
Biography
R. W. Connell
