• Cambridge Scholars Publishing

    "[Second Thoughts on Capitalism and the State is a] profoundly reflective book shows a pathway forward for academics and activists alike who are stymied by the disconnect between deep critical scholarship and emancipatory social change, yet who will still not give up the good fight."

    - Professor Diane E. Davis, Harvard University

Embodiment and Cultural Differences

Embodiment and Cultural Differences focuses on the body as the equilibrium limit between the memory of time already passed and the dynamic where of unexpected happenings. The body’s ecology is fulfilled in the surrounding environment within this variable limit. Each embodiment operation is, in fact, an experimental setting that consists of the unrepeatable executive instants through which, like a musical score, the body synchronises human consciousness with the context of action.

What distinguishes the architecture of this book is that, collectively, it constitutes a challenge to the digital media paradigm, in which the body is treated simply as a two dimensional icon of space and time; a relatively “free form” with all kinds of narratives generated by the multimedia.

The volume demonstrates how fundamentally different ways of experiencing time are also determined by the differing cultural use of bodily rhythms. Central to the understanding of this interdependence is the study of synchronisation – increasing knowledge through the investigation of how rhythm, music, chants, dance, prayer and other harmonising practices support social integration. The book also touches upon the anxieties, fears, and ambivalences affecting contemporary European societies, particularly those that have followed in the wake of terrorist attacks and the influx of refugee populations. The participating authors are all members of the International Sociological Association, and part of the Research Committee 54 “The Body in the Social Sciences”. This is, in short, a book that will attract wide interest, especially from social scientists, researchers and academics in the social sciences, sociology, and digital studies, in addition to further afield, for example, in health, philosophy, education, and anthropology.


Bianca Maria Pirani is Professor of Sociology of Cultural Networks at the Department of Social Sciences at the Faculty of Political Sciences, Communication, and Sociology of “Sapienza”, University of Rome, and is President and Program Coordinator of the Research Committee 54 “The Body in the Social Sciences” of the International Sociological Association. She is a Member of the Editorial Board of “Current Sociology Monograph” and of the Board of Research Advisors for the journal Global Sociology. She has published extensively on the ever-increasing insights into the relationship between human bodies and social knowledge.

Thomas Spence Smith is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Rochester, New York, USA. He received his BS from Johns Hopkins University in Illinois. His work has appeared in leading sociological journals and in his much-praised theoretical monograph Strong Interaction (1992). His interests range from the study of interaction and attachment behavior to the sociology of culture and computational modelling.

“The volume has a truly global composition and will likely foster lively discussions.”
—Markus Shutz, Vice-President of Research, International Sociological Association

Rachael Burke

Craig Cook

Anirudda Das

Aniruddha Das

Hazama Itsuhiro

Nithila Kanagabasai

Taina Kinnunen

Jaana Parviainen

Thomas Spence Smith

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-4438-9467-2

ISBN13: 978-1-4438-9467-8

Release Date: 11th July 2016

Pages: 255

Price: £47.99

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