Our very own text book on Art Sociology has appeared!

Quirijn van den Hoogen

One of my tasks at the Arts, Culture and Media programme has been to introduce students to the field of art sociology providing them with the theoretical concepts they need to successfully navigate our field of study. Over the years, we have felt increasingly dissatisfied with how introductory text books describe art sociology. Therefore, we have set out to write our own text book which has now appeared in print and as e-book with Routledge. The book is titled: Sociology About Art. An Introduction to how Sociologists Study the Arts. It covers arts in all of its forms and shapes, from the fine arts, to street art, to memes and TikTok-videos, introducing all different strands of sociology.

For sociologists, making, distributing and using art and cultural products constitute social practices. This view differs from that of scholars in the humanities who traditionally pay close attention to the composition and internal meaning of art and cultural objects.

From a sociological perspective, art is made by the relations it exists within, and hence art sociology entails looking into the institutions and social worlds that surround art works, artists and consumers of art. Yet, this focus also risks leaving a blind spot when it comes to the function of art, its affective capacities and value. This book serves as an introduction to and self-reflective discussion about how sociologists study the arts, presenting the work of the most famous and frequently cited scholars in the field (Bourdieu, Becker and Peterson) as well as European sociologists not often included in textbooks (Hennion, Heinich, Luhmann and Van Maanen, among others).

The book starts with a presentation of how sociologists define what art is, most often based on the institutionalization of art rather than the function of art. As the core of the text, the book introduces the main art sociological theories from three perspectives: critical sociology, symbolic interactionism and social systems theory. Students need to understand these basic theories in order to take part in art sociological discourses and set up their own research projects. The book closes with a discussion of the shortcomings of the classical theories, claiming that the perspective on art works, their forms, affordances and meanings, can and should be integrated into sociological research for it to become a sociology that is truly about art.

We are proud of the fact that in this book we have included the perspective of many female scholars who are now setting the standards of the field of art sociology. Furthermore, integrating the social systems perspective to the arts allows paying due attention the meaning of art experiences in and for society. Lastly, the book uses a host of art objects and events to explain the theoretical perspectives, from the novel Girl, Women, Other by Bernardine Evaristo, to the country track “Old Town Road” by Lil Nas X, and the movie Milk by screenwriter Dustin Lance Black.

For more information go here.