Undoing the Social: Towards a Deconstructive Sociology

What are the possibilities for a different sociology - a sociology concerned with the immediate experience of everyday life; a sociology of human possibilities which takes up themes that have been excluded from the discipline - desire, memory, time and the body? Ann Game explores these possibilities, and attempts to redefine the discipline of sociology in the light of contemprary cultural and feminist theory. She juxtaposes analyses of theoretical texts (including Foucault, Bergson, Irigaray, Benjamin, Freud, Hegel, Lacan, Cixous and Barthes) against "texts" from daily life. The "social texts" examined include boss-secretary relations, Bondi beach, English heritage and the Cronenberg film "Dead Ringers". Ann Game unsettles sociological assumptions, and shows that a deconstructive strategy is just as relevant in (and valuable to) sociology as in literary, cultural or philosophical studies.