The book ‘Bourdieu: A Critical Introduction’, authored by Prof Tony Schirato and Prof Mary Roberts from the University of Macau (UM) Department of Communication, has been published by the respected academic publisher Allen & Unwin. The book provides a critical introduction to, and account of, the work of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.
Bourdieu’s work has been hugely influential in disciplines across the social sciences and humanities for decades, yet Schirato and Roberts argue that few scholars are using Bourdieu’s work to its full potential. They offer a systematic account of Bourdieu’s full body of work, from his early research in Algeria to his last lectures in Paris. This critical introduction to Bourdieu is essential reading for all Bourdieu scholars, and for researchers and thinkers using Bourdieu’s work in their own social and cultural analysis.
What makes this book particularly valuable is that it provides a contextualised account of Bourdieu’s major sociological works and the developments that his scholarly career undergoes, starting from his ethnographic writing in Algeria, then across his highly influential educational work, his ‘cultural turn’ where he analyses the logics, values and imperatives that inform the fields of art and literature, and finally through to his more politically oriented and polemical work directed against global capitalism. The other significant aspect of this book is that it traces and explains, in detail, the development of the theoretical ideas and concepts – reproduction, the habitus, cultural field, cultural capital, distinction, symbolic power – for which Bourdieu is best known. These two features are unique to the scholarship in Bourdieu studies. The prominent and highly regarded cultural theorist Prof John Frow from Sydney University,described it as ‘The best book in English on Bourdieu’s work’.
澳門大學社會科學學院傳播系系主任Tony Schirato和客座助理教授Mary Roberts的合著《Bourdieu: A Critical Introduction》，獲澳大利亞權威學術出版社艾倫與昂溫出版社出版。該書從批判性思維的角度，介紹了法國著名社會學家皮耶˙布迪厄的主要理論及其思考，對研究布迪厄的學者以及研究社會科學和人文學方面的學者和思想家提供了寶貴的參考資料。
布迪厄的研究近年在社會科學及人文學興起，並對該領域產生了巨大的影響，而Schirato和Roberts教授發現，很少學者能充分將布迪厄的理論價值呈現，因此他們從布迪厄早期對阿爾及利亞人的研究，到晚期他在巴黎講課的內容，有系統地和全面地分析了布迪厄的學術成果。
《Bourdieu: A Critical Introduction》敍述了布迪厄主要的社會學研究及他在學術生涯的發展過程，內容包括布迪厄對阿爾及利亞人的民族誌研究，具影響力的教育工作，並記錄他在西方“文化轉向”時期，對藝術和文學所進行的邏輯、價值和迫切性的分析，以及他的政治意識形態和具爭議性的反全球資本主義的研究。此外，該書的另一個特點是詳述了布迪厄最著名的思想理念：再生產、慣習、文化場域、文化資本、區隔、象徵權力，這些資料都蘊含豐富的研究布迪厄的素材。著名文化研究理論家，悉尼大學教授John Frow推薦此書為“研究布迪厄的最佳英文書籍”。