Constructing a Sociology of the Arts

Vera L. Zolberg

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511557712

At a time when a pile of bricks is displayed in a museum, when music is composed for performance underwater, and the boundaries between popular and fine art are fluid, conventional understandings of art are strained in describing what art is, what it includes or excludes, whether and how it should be evaluated, and what importance should be assigned the arts in society. In this book, Vera Zolberg examines diverse theoretical approaches to the study of the arts. Ranging over humanistic and social scientific views representing a variety of scholarly traditions, American and European, she then develops a sociological approach that evaluates the institutional, economic, and political influences on the creation of art, while also affirming the importance of the question of artistic quality. The author examines the arts in the social contexts in which people become artists, the institutions in which their careers develop, the supports and pressures they face, the publics they need to please, and the political forces with which they must contend. Particular subjects covered include the process by which works are created and 're-created' at different times, with changed meanings, and for new social uses; the role of the audience in the realization of artistic experiences; the social consequences of taste preferences; the reasons for change in artistic styles and for the coexistence of many art forms and styles.

"This should be the choice, hands down, to represent the study of the arts from a sociological perspective." Choice

"The book is...enormously useful as a core text for upper-division and graduate students ...Zolberg unfolds her argument well...she reviews the work of most of the major figures in the field with an even hand... Writing always with clarity and respect for her past and present colleagues in the field (if not always in full agreement), Zolberg's voice remains her own: self-possessed and never soft, yet always gentle, low--and excellent." Contemporary Sociology

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Constructing a Sociology of the Arts

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Contents

Frontmatter
pp i-vi

Contents
pp vii-viii

Preface
pp ix-xii

1 - What is art? What is the sociology of art?
pp 1-28

2 - Why sociologists have neglected the arts and why this is changing
pp 29-52

3 - Studying the art object sociologically
pp 53-78

4 - The art object as social process
pp 79-106

5 - Are artists born or made?
pp 107-135

6 - Structural support, audiences, and social uses of art
pp 136-161

7 - How the arts change and why
pp 162-191

8 - Where does the sociology of art stand, and where is it going?
pp 192-216

References
pp 217-236

Index
pp 237-252

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