In Other Words: Essays Toward a Reflexive Sociology

This volume of interviews, lectures and informal talks provides an introduction to Bourdieu’s work and highlights some of the issues which are at the forefront of the sociology of culture today. Bourdieu situates his work in relation to those thinkers who were influential in the formation of his views, from Marx and Durkheim to Levi-Strauss and Wittgenstein and retraces the development of his ideas from his early ethnographic studies to his most recent work on the sociology of cultural fields. He responds to some of the criticisms which have been made of his work and offers his own criticisms of some of his contemporaries, including Althusser, Foucault and Habermas. The volume also contains contributions to the sociology of symbolic forms of religion and of sport, as well as Bourdieu’s inaugral lecture at the College de France.