Welcome to Social Theory

Book excerpt: Welcome to Social Theory is exactly what students want: a lucid and engaging introduction to social theory that carefully uses images, examples and quotations to illustrate new ways of examining contemporary social life. Tom Brock’s comprehensive and accessible style produces an indispensable guide to social theory that examines the major theoretical traditions from Marxism through to poststructuralism, and from feminism through to postcolonial theory, new materialism and posthumanism. Welcome to Social Theory gives careful appraisal of classical ideas and debates in social theory and traces their impact through discussion of major contemporary theorists – including Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, Margaret Archer, Judith Butler, bell hooks, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, Bruno Latour, Gilles Deleuze and Rosi Braidotti. Social theory matters and this book shows why through relevant and compelling examples, including the gig economy, everyday sexism, digital black feminism, animal and environmental activism, stigma and discrimination against migrants, the need to decolonise the sociology curriculum and many more. Welcome to Social theory is an indispensable text for undergraduate students who are new to social theory. Dr. Tom Brock is a Senior Lecturer of Sociology at Manchester Metropolitan University.