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Culture and Meaning summary
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A summary of all the class notes from the lesson of Culture and Meaning from Houtman in 2025
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Culture and MeaningCulture and Meaning.............................................................................................. 1
1. College 1: What is Cultural Sociology?...............................................................6
1.1. What is culture?............................................................................................ 6
1.2. So what does culture capture (examples)?......................................................6
1.2.1. Cultural change: beauty standards........................................................7
1.2.2. Culture as ‘mental programming’..........................................................7
1.3. What does culture not capture?...................................................................7
1.4. What is cultural sociology?...........................................................................8
1.5. Culture’s ‘hardness’.................................................................................... 10
1.6. The ‘hardness’ and ‘scienticity’ of cultural sociology.................................11
1.7. Summary for dummies............................................................................... 11
2. College 2: Why Cultural Sociology?..................................................................11
2.1. Positivist sociology versus Cultural sociology.............................................12
2.1.1. Positivist sociology............................................................................... 12
2.1.2. Cultural sociology................................................................................. 12
2.2. Positivism in sociology: enlightenment roots..............................................13
2.3. Essentialism in Marx and Durkheim...........................................................14
2.4. Essentialism and authentication.................................................................14
2.5. What’s wrong with positivist sociology?.....................................................16
2.6. Quantitative Analysis in Cultural Sociology: Why It Should Be Done, How It
Can Be Done..................................................................................................... 16
2.7. Max Weber: “Verstehen” and Motives in Survey Research.........................16
2.8. Emile Durkheim.......................................................................................... 18
2.8.1. Cultural Worldviews and Perception (Mary Douglas, 1921-2007).........18
2.8.2. Cultural Worldviews and Perception (Dan Kahan)................................18
2.8.3. Cultural Worldviews in Experimental Research....................................18
2.9. Quantitative Weberian and Durkheimian Cultural Sociology......................19
3. College 3: Whence the Cultural Turn in Sociology?...........................................19
3.1. The 1960s and the crisis of sociology.........................................................19
3.2. The counterculture of the 1960s................................................................20
3.3. A First Influential Critique: Alvin W. Gouldner (1920-1980)........................21
3.3.1. “The Myth of a Value-free Sociology” (1962).......................................21
3.4. A Second Influential Critique: Howard Becker (1928-2023)........................21
3.4.1. “Whose Side Are We On?” (1967)........................................................22
3.5. A First Critique Expressed by Gouldner and Becker Alike...........................22
3.6. A Second Critique Expressed by Gouldner and Becker Alike......................23
, 3.7. Two Directions of Sociology’s Reconstruction Since the 1960s...................23
3.8. The Ironies of Contemporary Cultural Sociology........................................23
3.9. How and Why Did This Happen?.................................................................23
3.10. Contents of Classes 4-9............................................................................23
4. College 4: Manifestations of the Cultural Turn in Sociology..............................24
4.1. The Sociological study of social problems..................................................24
4.2. Cultural sociology and constructionism......................................................24
4.3. The positivist critique of constructionism...................................................25
4.3.1. Charge 1: Denying reality beyond culture?..........................................25
4.3.2. Charge 2: Politically Quietist, dangerous, useless................................26
4.4. Cultural sociology between ontological agnosticism and reductionism......27
4.4.1. Postmodernism/poststructuralism (Michel Foucault)............................27
4.4.2. Critical Theory (Frankfurt School) (1930s – present)............................28
4.4.3. Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (Birmingham, UK, 1964-
2002).............................................................................................................. 29
4.4.4. Bourdieu (1930-2002): Cultural Taste as a Dimension of Social Class..29
4.4.5. The Cultural Turn and the Yale ‘Strong Program’..................................29
4.5. Weak Programs Echo the Logic of Conspiracy Theory................................30
5. Guest lecture: Contemporary Conspiracy Culture (Stef Aupers).......................31
5.1. Introduction................................................................................................ 31
5.1.1. Popular conspiracy theories.................................................................31
5.1.1.1. 9/11 – 30% in the Netherlands (2014)...............................................31
5.1.1.2. Fake moon landing – 13% in the Netherlands (2014)........................32
5.1.2. Popularization....................................................................................... 32
5.1.3. Normalization....................................................................................... 32
5.2. Studying conspiracy theories in the social science....................................33
5.2.1. What are conspiracy theories?.............................................................33
5.2.2. Beyond pathologicalization. Why?........................................................33
5.2.3. Conspiracy culture – an ideological and diverse group........................34
5.3. The cultural transformation of conspiracy theories in the West.................34
5.4. Modernization and conspiracy culture........................................................35
5.4.1. The truth is out there........................................................................... 35
5.4.2. Nothing is what it seems......................................................................35
5.4.3. I want to believe................................................................................... 36
5.5. Conclusion.................................................................................................. 36
6. College 6: Emile Durkheim’s Cultural Sociology...............................................36
6.1. Emile Durkheim (1985-1917).....................................................................36
, 6.2. A Conservative Sociology?.........................................................................37
6.2.1. Conservatism or Moralism?..................................................................38
6.3. Durkheim’s central question......................................................................38
6.3.1. The answer of the early Durkheim.......................................................38
6.3.2. The answer of the late Durkheim.........................................................39
6.3.3. The late Durkheim on religion..............................................................39
6.4. A modern religion of humanity...................................................................40
6.5. From Sociology of Religion to Cultural Sociology........................................42
6.5.1. Making men and women......................................................................43
6.5.2. Making nature...................................................................................... 43
6.6. Cultural framing: playing the binaries........................................................44
6.7. Conclusion.................................................................................................. 45
7. College 7: Contemporary Durkheimian Cultural Sociology...............................45
7.1. Community and The Sacred: Solidarity and Conflict..................................45
7.2. First article: Michèle Lamont......................................................................47
7.2.1. The relationship between the two types of boundaries........................47
7.2.1.1. Example 1: The Sacred in Contemporary Populism...........................47
7.2.1.2. Example 2: The Sacred in Rightist Populism.....................................48
7.3. Science as the Modern Sacred...................................................................48
7.4. “Boundary Work” and the Sacred...............................................................49
7.5. Conclusions................................................................................................ 50
8. College 8: Max Weber’s Cultural Sociology.......................................................51
8.1. Max Weber (1864-1920)............................................................................. 51
8.2. Basics of Weber’s cultural sociology...........................................................51
8.3. Interpretive and explanatory sociology......................................................52
8.3.1. Ideal types............................................................................................ 53
8.3.2. Causality and elective affinity (Wahlverwandtschaft)...........................53
8.3.3. ‘Ideal’ and ‘material’ factors................................................................54
8.3.4. Weber’s ‘switchman’ metaphor............................................................54
8.4. The logic of Weberian cultural sociology....................................................55
8.5. Social realms and value spheres................................................................55
8.6. Rationalization and rationality....................................................................56
8.6.1. Charisma.............................................................................................. 56
8.6.2. Culture and science.............................................................................. 57
8.6.3. Science and disenchantment...............................................................58
9. College 9: Contemporary Weberian cultural sociology.....................................59
9.1. Colin Campbell: How to understand the rise of modern consumerism?.....59
, 9.1.1. Problems in Weber’s Analysis...............................................................60
9.1.2. Campbell’s question............................................................................. 60
9.1.3. Modern consumer ethic........................................................................60
9.2. Margaret Canovan: How to understand resistance to rationalization?.......62
9.2.1. Two faces of democracy.......................................................................62
9.2.2. Two faces of democracy: formal versus substantive rationality...........63
9.3. Joahn Roeland et al.: How to Understand Religious Change in the West?...64
9.3.1. Post-Christian Spirituality.....................................................................64
9.3.2. Evangelicalism in contemporary Protestantism...................................64
9.3.3. Salafism............................................................................................... 64
9.3.4. Similarity beyond Differences..............................................................65
9.3.5. A Weberian Account of Religious Change.............................................65
10. College 10: Decline of Religion?.....................................................................65
10.1. What is Secularization (theory)?...............................................................65
10.2. Luckmann: The Invisible Religion (book)..................................................66
10.2.1. Luckmann on Sociology of Religion and Secularization Theory..........66
10.2.2. Luckmann on Sociology of Religion and Secularization Theory in
1950s/1960s.................................................................................................. 66
10.3. Religious change since the 1960s............................................................67
10.4. Book from Houtman and others (FIND NAME)..........................................69
10.5. Conclusion................................................................................................ 73
11. College 11: Disenchantment by science?.......................................................73
11.1. Scientism: Science as Secular Religion.....................................................74
11.2. Max Weber on Science and Disenchantment...........................................76
11.3. Science and disenchantment...................................................................77
11.4. Heterodox Science and Religion...............................................................78
11.5. Campbell: Cultic Milieu (Ernst Troeltsch)..................................................80
12. College 12: A Romantic Turn in the West........................................................82
12.1. Romanticism gives new answers to old questions....................................84
12.2. Romanticism in all kind of places.............................................................85
12.2.1. Politics................................................................................................ 85
12.2.2. Consumption...................................................................................... 85
12.3. The Romantic Turn since the 1960s..........................................................86
12.4. Colin Campbell......................................................................................... 87
12.5. The Significance of Emotions: Therapy Culture........................................89
12.5.1. Encouraging disclosure of negative emotions....................................91
12.5.2. The counterculture of the 1960s has profoundly transformed the
cultural mainstream....................................................................................... 92
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