2011. vol. 10. No. 1-2

Theory of social events is a new attempt to create a general sociological theory. Now it should be better substantiated than it was done on the initial states of the research. One has to pay more attention to the different modes of use of the concept event in a few schools of sociological methodology.

The space of the modern megapolis is treated in the paper in terms of environmental perspective — as a consistent and active environment following its inner logic of ordering and exercising its orderly influence on the human behavior. The “creativity of the environment”, as a focal point of the paper, is rendered through the context of the counterfinality and heterotopia.

In the paper an attempt is made to find a points of contact between new mobilities paradigm and a sociological theory of money with the purpose of developing a satisfactory model for explanation of the crisis phenomena in the spatial constitution of the networks and flows. It is suggested that using only its inner resources of analysis mobility paradigm is incapable to account for fluctuations and disruptions of mobilities rhythms. This problem is solved with the help of sociological theory of money, that shed an additional light on the motivational factors of the spatial mobility in modern societies.

The paper provides an outline of the Durkheimian cultural sociology of the body as a particular program in corporeal sociology. Rapid development of the sociological theories of body, which takes place during the last quarter century, indicates that body somehow appears to be an arena for the events which are particularly important for the changes in contemporary social life. The problems of bioethics, prominent shifts in lifestyles, wider distribution of the new forms of body care, the new meanings of the sport, transformations in sexual behavior, and the new kinds of violence — all those and many other events and tendencies shape particular “enclaves” of the corporeality as well as huge shifts in the representations of the “natural” with respect to the body. The paper proceeds from the presupposition that the fundamental cause for the mentioned changes to be recognized is that the body remains as most stable, shared and generally valid locus of the sacred, which is being progressively fragmenting and achieving all the more fluid shapes. If the presupposition is correct, then cultural sociology, based on the Durkheimian theory of the sacred, obtains a certain epistemic priority in the field of the sociological studies of body, which is to be resulted in future researches. Accordingly, the paper is to be seen as an invitation to such researches as well as discussions and the argument development. The preliminary outline is performed that situates the suggested program of the cultural sociology of the body in the context of contemporary sociological theory. The statements and hypotheses are made, and the most promising research areas are suggested.

Peter Snow dedicates his critical essay to Alexander's cultural sociological theory of social events as performances. Being adopted from a variety of disciplines the notion of performance lacks two key features: imagination and creativity. Performances bring into being alternative ways of social change and thus a particular performance imagines and procreates future social world. Following this understanding Snow assumes that society is composed of performances which make it possible. Thereby Snow attempts to frame cultural sociological theory of performances as a theory of society and places it in the core of the fundamental discussions of the possibility of society.

Marta Herrero employs the Collins’ theory of interaction rituals in her study of art auctions. By the example of the Irish sales in London the author demonstrates the influence of a pre-existing group membership on the creation of collective emotions during the performance of an auction ritual, on functioning of objects of art as material symbols representing a group and on the success of an auction as such.

The paper presents a study of the usage of the frame analytical language of description in contemporary policy analysis. Tracing a genealogy of the frame theory from the Gregory Bateson's writings to the studies of political scientists Donald Schön and Martin Rein, authors indicate a critical differences between the use of the frame-analytical optics at the studies of political decision making and its use for the analysis of the social movements (D. Snow, R. Benford). Authors develop one of the possible approaches to the understanding of framing processes — one that they call “dynamic”, and illustrate its applicability using the case of Utrecht mayor elections. The paper proposes an original treatment of the framing as a process which include an elements of selection, naming and categorization. Special attention is paid to connections between framing and storytelling.

The paper is a frame-analytical generalization of the observations made by the author at the polling stations in Albania, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (2005–2007). The paper considers a mechanics of the electoral activity transformation: the remaking of voting into “consecration”, “carnival” and “fake”. With the help of some theoretical arguments author tries to show how the study of the structures of face-to-face interaction allows to rethink a models of electoral conduct conventional in contemporary political studies.

This is another fragment of the continued publication of Carl Schmitt’s “Glossarium” — a posthumously appeared diary of the great German lawyer and political thinker. His main theme by the end of the August and the beginning of September, 1947 is the re-thinking of the concepts of war and international law in connection with some new events in politics and the development of military technology. Schmitt also mentions important themes of political theology: the concept of wonder and (through his references to Rudolf Sohm) the concept of charisma.

The review is devoted to one of mainstreams within conversation analytic perspective — multimodal interaction analysis, and is based on the materials of the CA conference (ICCA 10) which was devoted to multimodal interaction studies. Some key topics and research problems being discussed during conference panels are described in this paper as well as main research directions within contemporary CA sphere.

In the paper two forms of human dealing with the notion of the sacred are compared — manifestation (a display of the sacred in events, objects, etc., surrounding human beings) and proclamation (communication about the sacred thought texts). Author suggests that proclamation is a characteristic for modern monotheistic religions based on the Old Testament theology. In particular, a vivid example of proclamation is a teaching of Jesus Christ, as presented in synoptic Gospels. In Ricouer’s view, a decline of the sacred in modern Western civilization is connected with an unjustified absolutization of the scientific and technical achievements and must be overcome in the course of the further social development.

Analyzing and confronting different 20th century theories proposed to explain the manifestation of the sacred (Ricoeur, Otto, Heidegger, Gumbrecht, Godelier, Freud, Zizek, Caillois), the author points out an opposition of two approches: the acknowledgement of pure phenomenality and irrationality of the numinosum (which is suppposed to be only descriptable), and the attempts to rationalize it by reducing to combinative semantic processes. The attitude of contemporary sciences towards the manifested sacred hesitates between a synthetical contemplation and an analytical deconstruction.

Well-known Russian urban researcher Elena Trubina presented her new book on the theories of the city. From the classical theory of Simmel to the newest globalization theories, from the ecological to the economical approach — the author describes this field of research in its diversity.

The paper, based on Eric Livingston’s book “Ethnographies on Reason”, considers a problem of descriptive analysis. Descriptive analysis is understood as a way of description of the social order phenomena that presuppose a constant juxtaposition of the proposed description with the real practices in actual situation of activity. That means that sociological description must be instructive in character, that is, it have to teach reader how to analyze a social practices’ ordinariness and observability. This approach allows to make a subject of sociological analysis even such an unaccustomed for sociological view things as checkers or origami.

The publication of the anniversary issue of the “Sociological Review” almost coincides with the first year anniversary of the death of our friend and journal's editorial board member, remarkable scholar Andrei Vladimirovich Poletaev. Due to the particularities of the publishing cycle, we were a little bit late, but as far back as year ago we decided this time to continue our tradition — to pay the tribute to the memory of our colleagues not only and not so much by obituaries but by extensive articles about their life and work. We are deeply grateful to Irina Maksimovna Savelieva who formed with Andrei Vladimirovich a unique creative alliance of scholars and science organisers. Her narrative permits us to reestimate and in many ways evaluate anew Poletaev's contribution to the changes that social sciences in our country have undergone during last decades. Poletaev's important achievments comprise the main line of the story. To talk about him means to talk about his work. But for us who knew and loved him, this is also one more occasion to remember Andrei, his voice and his reliability as a friend.