The Global Sociology Blog

BBC NEWS | Health | Pious ‘fight death the hardest’ via kwout I was thinking of making a few tasteless jokes, but I’ll spare you.

Financial help now or spending peacekeepers later… that is the alternative put on the table by Liberia President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as the effects of the economic downturn are deeply felt in Africa, with dramatic reductions in investments, trade and tourism. Countries that, not too long ago were embroiled in civil wars might find themselves again [...]

Fan kills player as he goes for goal – Middle East, World – The Independent via kwout And it’s not like it’s the first time this happened. Maybe the Grumpy Sociologist can provide one of his brilliant sociological analysis on the relationship between sports and (identity-based AND masculine) violence.

Josef Fritzl’s daughter’s cellar hell: locked up for 24 years; raped 3,000 times | World news | The Guardian via kwout

David L. Andrews and George Ritzer, The Grobal in The Sporting Glocal, Global Networks, Vol. 7, No. 2 (2007), 135 – 153. In this article, Andrews and Ritzer apply Ritzer’s concepts of grobalization and glocalization (originally from Roland Robertson) developed in Ritzer’s book The Globalization of Nothing to sports. The article repudiates the dominant dichotomy [...]

Via Avedon, this is one of the best explanation of the current crisis I have seen and it is the necessary antidote to the misleading narrative spread by the media that "we all share the blame on this"… no, we don’t. The corporate class did it: at-Largely: I called it a corporate coup, they call [...]

Picture This: Taxi Graveyard – SPIEGEL ONLINE – News – International via kwout

Now Coca-Cola feels force of Chavez’ colourful revolution | World news | The Observer via kwout The title of the post refers, of course, to Michael Billig’s essential book, Banal Nationalism. It is not uncommon to find nationalism mixed together with socialism, and anti-corporate globalization and certainly, Chávez has based his popularity and legitimacy in [...]

So says Richard Sennett in an interview for the Economic Sociology Newsletter published by the Max Planck Institute for The Study of Societies in Germany. More specifically, he said this: "The more I’ve studied the effect of modern capitalism on ordinary workers the more I feel I return to the radical roots of my childhood. [...]

Le chanteur Alain Bashung est mort, Culture – NouvelObs.com via kwout He earned awards for his 2005 album but I still prefer the older stuff.

Witch hunt: Africa’s hidden war on women – Africa, World – The Independent via kwout This is a fairly long article but it is well worth everybody’s time. Between cutting and witch-hunting, there is no peace not justice to be found for many women.

Since I have created a new sociology of violence course at my college, I am always on the lookout for interesting pieces. Today, I noted two insightful posts out of the soc blogosphere. First, in light of the shootings in Alabama and Germany, Jay Livingstone offers the following analysis: Montclair SocioBlog: More Guns, More Killing [...]

Sad news indeed: Brian Barry is dead — Crooked Timber via kwout

Via the (to me, already indispensable) Kevin Moore… Also check out his blog. Click on the image for a bigger version at Kevin’s site. In Contempt » Archive » Selective Attention Span via kwout

Yes, Saudi Arabia and the Taliban share Sunni fundamentalism. This means this: “Illegal Mingling”: Seventy-Five Year Old Woman Sentenced to 40 Lashes and Jail for Merely Speaking With Two Young Men « JONATHAN TURLEY via kwout But how did the sex police hear about this? The nephew’s father is the one who snitched: 75-year-old widow [...]