Simon Carter

Sunshine plays an important role in all aspects of life but there has been little social analysis of the sun and its place in our world. Recently experts have warned us that the sun's rays are dangerous. Yet, a suntan can still be taken as a sign of health. How did we arrive at this ambivalent relationship to the sun and what does this say about our changing attitudes to the human body and environment? Rise and Shine takes as its starting point a view of sunlight as part of our material and social culture. How did the use of sunlight to treat tuberculosis and rickets in the early twentieth century alter our relationship with the sun? When was suntan lotion invented? By drawing on a range of archival and historical sources, Rise and Shine traces the network of social and medical forces that constitute our current, sometimes problematic, relationship with sun and sunlight.

Sunlight, Technology and Health

Rise and Shine

John Allen

Steve Hinchliffe

Nick Bingham

Pandemics, epidemics and food borne diseases are a major global challenge. Focusing on the food and farming sector, and mobilising social theory as well as empirical enquiry, Pathological Lives investigates current approaches to biosecurity and ask how pathological lives can be successfully ‘regulated’ without making life more dangerous as a result. Uses empirical and social theoretical resources developed in the course of a 40-month research project entitled ‘Biosecurity borderlands’ Focuses on the food and farming sector, where the generation and subsequent transmission of disease has the ability to reach pandemic proportions Demonstrates the importance of a geographical and spatial analysis, drawing together social, material and biological approaches, as well as national and international examples The book makes three main conceptual contributions, reconceptualising disease as situated matters, the spatial or topological analysis of situations and a reformulation of biopolitics Uniquely brings together conceptual development with empirically and politically informed work on infectious and zoonotic disease, to produce a timely and important contribution to both social science and to policy debate

Disease, Space and Biopolitics

Pathological Lives

Paul du Gay

Liz McFall

Elizabeth Rose McFall

"This book offers perspective on how individual behaviour is ordered in social worlds. Through an examination of topics such as self-service shopping, personal finance, drunkenness, crime and extreme situations of violence, it explores how forms of individual conduct are tied to particular social worlds. As fundamental questions about the social character of both mundane and exceptional conduct continue to challenge social norms, this book shows that sociology can clarify the ways individuals learn to act and the tools and props they use to help them."--BOOK JACKET.

Sociology and Social Worlds

Conduct

Jessamy Perriam

Understanding Digital Societies provides a framework for understanding our changing, technologically shaped society and how sociology can help us make sense of it. You will be introduced to core sociological ideas and texts along with exciting global examples that shed light on how we can use sociology to understand the world around us. This innovative, new textbook: Provides unique insights into using theory to help explain the prevalence of digital objects in everyday interactions. Explores crucial relationships between humans, machines and emerging AI technologies. Discusses thought-provoking contemporary issues such as the uses and abuses of technologies in local and global communities. Understanding Digital Societies is a must-read for students of digital sociology, sociology of media, digital media and society, and other related fields.

Simon Carter

Books

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