Iconic Power Materiality and Meaning in Social Life [Hardcover]

A?collection of original articles that explore social aspects of the phenomenon of icon. Having experienced the benefits and realized the limitations of so called 'linguistic turn', sociology has recently acknowledged a need to further expand its horizons.Materiality and Meaning in Social Life: Toward an Iconic Turn in Cultural Sociology; D.Bartmanski  & J.Alexander   PART I  Representation, Presentation, Presence: Tracing the Homo Pictor; G.Boehm  Iconic Power and Performance: the Role of the Critic; J.Alexander   PART II  Inconspicuous Revolutions of 1989. Culture and Contingency in The Making of Political Icons; D.Bartmanski   The Making of Humanitarian Visual Icons. On the 1921-1923 Russian Famine as Foundational Event; F.Kurasawa   Seeing Tragedy in the News Images of September 11; W.Bowler  The Emergence of Iconic Depth. Secular Icons in a Comparative Perspective; W.Binder   PART III  Shifting Extremism: On the Political Iconology in Post-socialist Serbia; D.`uber  & S.Karamanic   The Visualization of Uncertainty: HIV Statistics in Public Media; V.Rauer  How To Make an Iconic Commodity: The Case of Penfolds' Grange Wine; I.Woodward  & D.Ellison   Becoming Iconic. The Cases of Woodstock and Bayreuth; P.Smith   PART IV  Body and Image; H.Belting Iconic Difference and Seduction; B.Giesen   Iconic Rituals. Towards a Social Theory of Encountering Images; J.Sonnevend   Visible Meanings; P.Sztompka   Afterword; B.Giesen

'Iconic Power is the strongest theoretical statement to yet come out of the 'Strong Program' in Cultural Sociology. Arguably, more than any other trope, including those of ritual and performance, the concept of 'iconicity' promises to break free of the economistic, linguistic and other kinds of reductionisms that plague the cultural sciences. ThilÒ