New book by Prof Mellor: Uncovering Social Life

We are pleased to announce that Philip Mellor, Professor of Religion and Social Theory at the University of Leeds, and member of the CRPL, has just published a new book. Entitled Uncovering Social Life: Critical Perspectives from Sociology, he co-authored the book together with Chris Shilling from the University of Kent.

Uncovering Social Life engages the classical sociological problem of how peaceful societies can be created and maintained. As a result of rapid social change, the disappearance of traditional communities, the rise of political populism and the threat posed by radical religious movements, this problem has assumed renewed urgency. The book explores how contemporary institutional changes erode existing social relationships and identities but also create space for opposition to, or creative adaptation of, these broader shifts.

Exploring the threats and opportunities associated with the contemporary age, Uncovering Social Life identifies how sociology helps us understand the problems associated with social order and change before focusing on the most important institutional transformations to have occurred in:

• bodies and health;
• sex, gender and sexuality;
• employment;
• finance;
• the Internet and new social media;
• technology and artificial intelligence;
• religion;
• governance and terrorism.

After a critical introduction placing these issues in their historical and sociological context, theoretical chapters analysing how sociology views the individual/society relationship, and the volatile processes endemic to the modern era, provide an innovative and comprehensive context for these explorations.

Chris Shilling and Philip A. Mellor, Uncovering Social Life: Critical Perspectives from Sociology. Abingdon and New York: Routledge 2018.