Mary Douglas Memorial Lecture 2015
14 April 2015
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This year's Mary Douglas Memorial Lecture will be held on 3 June in the Mary OlgilvieÌýLecture Theatre at St Anne's College at 6pm, followed by a drinks reception.
The Societalization of Social Problems: Recent Social Crises and the Civil Sphere
Professor Jeffrey Alexander, Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology and Co-Director of the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University
Drawing from cultural sociology, this lecture develops a theory of "societalization" to explain social reaction to three recent, globally significant upheavals - the financial crisis, church pedophilia, and media phone-hacking. While these problems were endemic for years and even decades, they had failed to generate broad crises: Reactions were confined inside institutional boundaries and handled by intra-institutional elites according to the cultural logics of their particular spheres. When intra institutional strains become interpreted as challenges to civil discourse and interests, there is societalization.Ìý Inter-sphere boundaries become tense and there is widespread anguish about social justice and the future of democratic society. A war of the spheres ensues and, eventually, there is movement back to steady state. Societalization cannot prevent the future eruption of social strains. In a differentiated and plural society, tensions between spheres is endemic, and civil repair dependsÌýupon the possibilities generated byÌýsocietalization.
The annual lecture, in memory of Dame Mary Douglas (1921-2007), is sponsored by the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at University of Oxford, Ïã¸ÛÁùºÏ²Ê Anthropology, the Royal Anthropological Institute, and St Anne's College.
For queries or to register to attend please contact stacey.richardson@insis.ox.ac.uk
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