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The article focuses on the personal and professional relationship between the author, Chris Rojek, and Peter Beilharz, highlighting their encounters, conversations, and shared interests in sociology. Topics include their meetings, Peter's scholarly orientation, and the significant role Thesis Eleven played in bridging Australian sociology with the academic community and Chris Rojek reminisces about his interactions with Peter, highlighting their common ground as first-generation nationals.

The Belle Gibson scandal that broke in 2015 is a testament to the growing phenomenon of lifestyle gurus in the 21st century. In this article, our aim is not to explain the psychology behind Gibson's lies. Rather, we focus on the social, cultural and technological conditions that enabled Gibson's persona to flourish and their impact on contemporary understandings of the self. Lifestyle gurus embody the para-social, trading off the appeal of intimacy, authenticity and integrity. We demonstrate how social media have increased the levels of emotional investment, trust and attention capital in para-social relationships by providing ubiquitous access to native experts and creating the platform to achieve influence and micro-celebrity status. Finally, we contend that the growing number of lifestyle gurus providing the public with health advice and scientific knowledge points to the need to examine critically the social and cultural landscape that enables micro-celebrities to emerge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spengler’s The Decline of the West was a major publishing success in Weimar Germany. The study presents the end of Western civilization as an inevitable process of birth, maturity and death. Civilization is conceived as an inflexible ‘morphology’. Spengler’s thinking was influenced by a profound distaste with the optimism of the Belle Epoque, which he found to be complacent. The argument had a good deal of attraction to readers, especially German readers, who were suffering under the ‘Carthaginian Peace’ of the Treaty of Versailles of 1919. Adorno and others were critical of Spengler’s thesis. The article examines Spengler’s thesis and its implications for the West today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the political crowd as a World Historical Event (WHE). Historians define the latter as an episode, incident or emergency that transforms the course of history. The article analyses Hayden White's discussion of the WHE and the grounds he submits for separating it from pseudo-events: namely, the identification of collective trauma and the attribution of the episode as the fulfilment or 'filling out' of an historical sequence. The article offers a preliminary taxonomy and concentrates on the non-violent political crowd protest. It examines Occupy (2011) as a World Historical Event. It draws comparisons between Occupy, the Paris Commune (1871) and the May Spring in Paris (1968). The aim is to set the evidence for Occupy as a World Historical Event against claims made on its behalf by the media of the day and leading political and social commentators, notably David Harvey, Todd Gitlin, Cornell West and Noam Chomsky. The concept of 'Event inflation' is introduced and the claim that World Historical Events can only be determined by retrospective (historical) wisdom is advanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American society was transformed by the expansion of capital Westward and the explosion in opportunities for land-grabbing and agricultural and industrial investment. F.J. Turner’s ([1893] 1961) frontier thesis portrays this transformation as the fulfilment of American character. The tensions between character and personality are examined following the ideas of Carl Schmitt on the significance of ‘the occasion’ in acquiring competitive advantage. Schmitt indicated the significance of a ‘vertical’ frontier in challenging social conventions and this constitutes a counterpoint to the ‘horizontal’ frontier developed in the frontier thesis of Turner. The importance of the occasion and personality in developing the American way of life is presented by an examination of the vaudeville and celebrity traditions in American entertainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural Studies has not devoted much notice to one of the keynote developments in modern culture over the last 30 years: namely, the rise of various charity projects fronted and, in the public mind, defined by celebrities. Celanthropy – the transformation of causes into cause celebres via the public involvement of celebrities – is striking for the subtle shift in devolving the responsibilities of the state onto the shoulders of the citizens. It purports to offer ‘stateless solutions’, articulated by ‘Big Citizens’ (celebrities), for domestic problems and the ills of the world (hunger, inequality, injustice, corruption, pollution). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the professional Event Management literature considerable claims have been made for Event Management. Investment in the area and student enrolments has risen dramatically. In some circles, Event Management is portrayed as challenging Leisure Studies and even undermining it. However, if one examines the professional literature, one quickly finds that it is overwhelmingly uncritical and self-congratulatory. The relationship between Events, manipulation, corruption and social control has not been rigorously examined. This paper distinguishes the main types of Global Event (Single Issue and Cyclical). It attempts a balanced account of the claims made by Event Management. It examines data from Live Aid, the FIFA World Cup and the Sydney Olympics to test the claims against practice. It also includes two longer examinations of Global Event Management, namely the Sydney Mardi Gras and the Live 8 (2005) concert. The paper concludes that Event Management is based in principles from neo-liberalism and communitarianism. This produces an attitude to Events and leisure which is Reformist. This perspective is contrasted with the critical tradition in Leisure Studies which supports a more radical perspective on leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is an attempt to reaffirm the relevance of Marxism for Leisure Studies. It is motivated by the view that the influence of Marxism on the field was late and short lived (primarily through Clarke and Critcher’s bookThe Devil Makes Work(1985)). Marxism in Leisure Studies was rapidly eclipsed by the revival of neo-liberal approaches and the ascent of post-structuralism which privileged ‘discourse’, ‘coding’ and ‘representation’ over economics and class. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the so-called ‘velvet revolution’ in Eastern Europe seemed to expose Marxism as passé and wrong headed. The serious Western economic crisis following the banking collapse (2008) and its effects on employment, work prospects, public investment in welfare, education, health and leisure, together with the persistence of the development gap between the economically advanced countries and the emerging/developing world, and the threat to the environment and society of competitive industrial production, combine (with many other features) to put Marxism back on the agenda. This paper aims to examine the impact of Marxism upon Leisure Studies. It offers a rationale for why this influence was short lived. It moves on to evaluate some aspects of Marxism that are indispensable in the analysis of leisure today. The point is not to claim that Marxism was right all along. More modestly, the purpose of this article is to suggest that flight from Marxism in the field was premature and that, while by no means having all of the answers, Marx and his followers still have much to teach students of leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explains the pedagogic and publishing success of the book "The McDonaldization of Society" by George Ritzer. The publishing of the academic book that is a pedagogic success in academic sociology is organized into four categories including research monographs, modular texts and textbooks. The article presents notes on the four categories and the reasons for the success of the book "The McDonaldization of Society" is explained. The article defines public intellectuals as the people possessing special media skills.

This article is a response to Bill Scharz's review of my book, Stuart Hall (Polity, 2003). The circumstances of his 'review' and my response to it are outlined in the first two pages of the article. My book was the first full-length treatment of the published work of Stuart Hall. Hall's Directorship of the Birmingham Centre is widely agreed to be courageous and the source of an exciting and stimulating intellectual and political environment. As such it bred unusually strong ties of loyalty to both Hall and the project of Cultural Studies that he inspired. Schwarz's 'review' richly illustrates this loyalty and pays fulsome tribute to the intellectual debt that Schwarz owes to Hall. My article tries to rescue the central arguments that I made in the book from the spin Schwarz puts upon them. It also tries to give an interpretation for the approach he adopts and to show why I believe it possesses insuperable limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines P2P (file sharing) culture as a novel leisure form. P2P raises significant issues about the ownership and control of intellectual and artistic property, access and the regulation of leisure choice. The paper examines the efforts of the recording industry to suppress file‐sharing technology. It examines the limitations on this strategy associated with globalized leisure culture. Following the World Leisure and Recreation Association’s ‘Sao Paulo Declaration’ (1998), it is possible to interpret P2P as a leisure form that fosters social inclusion, empowerment and distributive justice. This leaves the recording industry in the awkward position of seeking both to impose limitations on the functionality of computer exchange technology and to regulate participation in a mass popular cultural and leisure form. The culture of down‐loading is located in relation to the tradition of social banditry. Down‐loading is presented as part of much more long‐standing, deeply rooted traditions of leisure practice in which identity formation and resistance to regimes of power are mediated. Net technology and the corresponding supply of intellectual and artistic property on the net is regarded as weakening the orthodox distinction between licit and illicit consumption and leisure. The paper closes by speculating upon the theoretical implications of these social and cultural developments for the study of leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a position paper. It seeks to set a new and distinctive approach to the study of leisure that combines theory, practice and ethics. It stands on the shoulders of 'action sociology', as represented in the Weberian tradition, and symbolic interactionism. But it offers a radical renewal of this perspective by relating action to 'embodiment', 'emplacement', 'location' and 'context', and repositioning leisure studies in relation to 'care for the self' and 'care for the other'. The paper is concerned to elucidate a renewed action approach and to demonstrate its value for the study of leisure. It does not aim to compare or contrast this approach systematically with other positions in the field. The action approach identifies 'testing' to be a duty of all theoretical propositions. It regards leisure to be intrinsically political. The paper distinguishes the differences between postmodernism and the action approach. The paper ends with a suggested research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This interview examines the relations between production and consumption and the significance of what Bauman calls 'the consumerist syndrome'. The latter is defined by the desire for instant satisfaction. The article distinguishes the consumerist syndrome from Veblen's concept of conspicuous consumption. It breaks with the 20th century practice of regarding consumer preoccupations and activities as derivative of needs and suggests that consumption is now driven by infinite desire. Bauman sets the consumer syndrome in relation to his concept of liquid modernity. The choices of the modern consumer are set against unfulfilled options. The notion of using consumption as a form of resistance is examined and criticized. The article concludes with some reflections on the condition of sociological activity today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on Leicester School of Sociology, and presents an interview of Eric Dunning, professor at Leicester School of Sociology. Eric Dunning is a prominent figure in the sociology of sport and has lectured widely throughout the world. Eric Dunning enrolled as a student in Leicester in 1956 and remains there to this day as an emeritus professor of sociology. His position as probably the best known advocate of the figurational/process perspective in Great Britain, together with his career connections with the Department of Sociology at Leicester, makes him uniquely placed to comment on the rise of the Leicester School. This interview sheds light on an important chapter in the development of British sociology, and attempts to assess the Leicester tradition of sociological activity. The British tradition in sociology has always tended to be more insular than its continental counterparts. The article further focuses on the interview where Dunning shares several facts regarding Leicester School of Sociology.

Argues that former U.S. president Bill Clinton is the first post-auratic president, a leader who presented himself as being an exalted representative of the people. Age of media-based celebrities; Appetite in office; Electronic mass communication.

From the debate on the transformation of society, two theses have emerged which are of central relevance to social thought regarding leisure. First, the post work thesis argues that society is moving into a condition in which the cybernation of labor dramatically reduces the working week and the concomitant notion of the work career. One task of social theory is therefore the review of resource distribution, notably time allocation, in the light of the radically revised demand for labor. The second thesis is that the established institutions of politics, especially party politics, are of declining significance in everyday life and that they are being replaced by life politics, that is, a syncretic, non-party form of social and cultural orientation focusing on issues of lifestyle, environment, and globalization. This article shows the relevance of the life politics and post work arguments for understanding the future of leisure. It examines the concept of civil labor and points to tensions with traditional ideas of leisure. It is a contribution to the debate on leisure policy and the projection of trends in leisure practice. Finally, it concludes that the relationship between leisure and citizenship rights will be of dominant importance in the unfolding debate on the future of leisure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we outline a critique of 'decorative sociology' as a trend in contemporary sociology where 'culture' has eclipsed the 'social' and where literary interpretation has marginalized sociological methods. By the term 'decorative sociology' we mean a branch of modernist aesthetics which is devoted to a politicized, textual reading of society and culture. Although we acknowledge slippage between the textual and material levels of cultural analysis, notably in the output of the Birmingham School, we propose that the intellectual roots of cultural studies inevitably mean that the textual level is pre-eminent. In emphasizing the aesthetic dimension we seek to challenge the political self-image of decorative sociology as a contribution to political intervention. We argue that while the cultural turn has contributed to revising approaches to the relationships between identity and power, race and class, ideology and representation, it has done so chiefly at an aesthetic level. Following Davies (1993), we submit that the greatest achievement of the cultural turn has been to teach students to 'read politically'. The effect of this upon concrete political action is an empirical question. Without wishing to minimize the political importance of cultural studies, our hypothesis is that, what might be called the 'aestheticization of life' has not translated fully into the politicization of culture. We argue that an adequate cultural sociology would have to be driven by an empirical research agenda, embrace an historical and comparative framework, and have a genuinely sociological focus, that is, a focus on the changing balance of power in Western capitalism. We reject the attempt to submerge the social in the cultural and outline the development of an alternative, integrated perspective on body, self and society. We conclude by briefly commenting on three sociological contributions to the comparative and historical study of cultural institutions which approximate... [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper calls for a revisionist reading of the thesis of the leisure class. Veblen's great work The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899) argued that society is ruled by a leisure class. The primary identifying characteristics of this class are prodigious wealth, voluntary abnegation from pecuniary labour and conspicuous consumption. Veblen's argument suggested the decomposition of the work ethic because the characteristics cultivated by the rich would be emulated by the lower orders. Schor's The Overworked American (1991) work suggests that overwork, not leisure is one of the primary identifying characteristics of postwar culture. The article uses statistical and biographical data on the rich today to provide a counterpoint to Veblen's thesis. It is argued that the rich are not characterized by a rejection of work. On the contrary the richest people in the world typically work longer hours than the average. For these individuals work adopts a play form which probably contrasts sharply with wider social experience. Data on the leisure of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Richard Branson is examined to assemble a position on leisure and the rich which contrasts with the Veblen thesis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reviews the 1899 work of Thorstein Veblen, `The Theory of the Leisure Class,' regarding rich people. Public invincibility of the rich; Information on Bill Gates, founder and owner of Microsoft, and Warren Buffett, chief executive officer of Berkshire-Hathaway, two of the richest people in the world; Three developments that have combined to transform the dynamic emulatory conduct of the rich that Veblen failed to anticipate.

Ideology is the central principle of classification in the dominant sociology of comparative education. It occupied an unchallenged a priori status in thought and research. This exaggerates the differences between capitalist and socialist education systems. The two systems do not exist and develop self-referentially. The faults of analysis which treats the two education systems as polarized types are illustrated by juxtaposing it with a world system approach. This is used as the basis of proposing that advanced socialist socities are fully integrated into the capitalist core. Their education systems operate to both subvert and reproduce the characteristic division of power in the world system between core, periphery and semi-periphery. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elias's great work, The Civilizing Process (2 vols), was originally published in the inauspicious year of 1939. Elias wrote it as an associate of Mannheim's Frankfurt circle. The Second World War, and his fraught attempts to establish himself in British academic sociology in the first two decades after 1945, plunged his works into obscurity. Only now, as his early publications are starting to become available in English, is the resonance and insight of his sociological method coming to be widely appreciated. This paper considers the main features of the figurational approach and critically assesses its value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Walter Benjamin has achieved belated recognition in the social sciences as one of the most prescient accounts of modernity. However, it is not generally recognized that Benjamin also provides the first theory of leisure as an inevitably politicized type of activity. By tying the expansion of leisure to the rise of consumer culture and the development of modernity, Benjamin showed why leisure is fated to become beset with conflict. At the root of this is the idea that the increasing reflexivity produced by the growth of leisure time and space exposes the political fetters on leisure experience in capitalist society. In this paper the essential features of Benjamin's analysis as they pertain to understanding and studying leisure are considered. These are taken to be his concepts of modernity, phantasmagoria, aura and flanerie. The meaning of each concept is addressed and related to the wider theme of leisure experience. An attempt to show the value of Benjamin's approach compared with current influential positions in the field of leisure theory is made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author offers a prediction of social change. He mentions that people have failed in predicting changes or even commanding it, such as the financial crisis in 2008 wherein few had just predicted the event. He states that world has lived in a place where social development has been controlled over class politics. He says that the people have several ways to interpret the world and to propose changes which may seem meaningless.

This article introduces the concept of designer notoriety to refer to calculated attempts to derail aspects of normative order so as to garner media attention. The objective is for otherwise unexceptional people to gain celebrity. The case of the alleged sabotage of Germanwings Airbus A320 Flight, by the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, in 2015, is used as a case study. Drawing on the methods of content analysis from various media sources and historical sociology, the article examines the media claim that Lubitz sought celebrity and planned the crash as a means to acquire media interest. Public receptivity to the notion of designer notoriety is investigated. It is related to three key concepts: 'the demotic turn', 'mediatization' and the 'world historic event'. The application of each concept to designer notoriety is set out and justified. The article ends by expanding the Lubitz case to refer to other examples of designer notoriety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article offers the author's insights on Zygmunt Bauman, a retired sociology professor of the University of Leeds in Leeds, England. Topics include the achievement of Bauman in the field of sociology, his contribution to sociological thinking, and how his work on modernity captures the dialectic of contemporary life and changes the outlook and the lives of many people.