In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology

Pierre Bourdieu has established himself as one of the leading social thinkers in the world today and his work is increasingly influential throughout the social sciences and humanities. This volume of interviews, lectures and informal talks provides an excellent introduction to his 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 important contributions to the sociology of symbolic forms, of religion and of sport, as well as Bourdieu's inaugural lecture at the College de France.