Joseph A. Kotarba

This book illustrates how social meanings provided by music are experienced throughout the course of life. To this end, the author examines in depth the concepts of self, identity, socialization, and the life course itself. Social scientists have traditionally focused on music experiences among different generations, one at a time, with an emphasis on young audiences. This book explores appreciation for and use of music as a dynamic process that does not begin when we enter adolescence, nor end when we become adults. It demonstrates the relationship between the experience of music and the experience of self as a fundamental feature of the more general relationship of the individual to society. Music completes the circle of life. The author bases his analysis on observations made through a variety of qualitative studies and methodologies, as well as his own music autobiography. Clear and jargon free, this book is a timely application of key concepts from the everyday life sociologies for scholars and students in the sociology of music and culture and other related disciplines such as anthropology and ethnomusicology. It will be of interest for upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses in culture, music, symbolic interaction, social psychology, and qualitative research methods.

This book illustrates how social meanings provided by music are experienced throughout the course of life. To this end, the author examines in depth the concepts of self, identity, socialization, and the life course itself. Social scientists have traditionally focused on music experiences among different generations, one at a time, with an emphasis on young audiences. This book explores appreciation for and use of music as a dynamic process that does not begin when we enter adolescence, nor end when we become adults. It demonstrates the relationship between the experience of music and the experience of self as a fundamental feature of the more general relationship of the individual to society. Music completes the circle of life. The author bases his analysis on observations made through a variety of qualitative studies and methodologies, as well as his own music autobiography. Clear and jargon free, this book is a timely application of key concepts from the everyday life sociologies for scholars and students in the sociology of music and culture and other related disciplines such as anthropology and ethnomusicology. It will be of interest for upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses in culture, music, symbolic interaction, social psychology, and qualitative research methods.

Hverdagen spiller en afgørende rolle, hvis man vil forstå samfundet i sin helhed og kompleksitet, og de seneste årtier har studier af hverdagen spillet en stadig større rolle inden for sociologien. Hverdagslivet – sociologier om det upåagtede giver en bred introduktion til hverdagslivssociologien som et samlet felt. Bogen beskriver hverdagslivssociologiens ophav i Chicago-skolen og den amerikanske pragmatisme samt udviklingen mod nyere teoridannelser. Der stilles skarpt på marxisme, fænomenologi, eksistentialisme, emotionssociologi og nyere fransk hverdagslivssociologi, der ikke er eksplicit sociologiske skoler, men som på hver deres måde kaster et perspektivrigt blik på hverdagslivet. Endvidere præsenteres centrale hverdagslivstænkere som Goffman, Garfinkel, Sacks og Schegloff. Bogen er rettet mod studerende og undervisere på universiteter og højere læreanstalter. Bogen foreligger her i en gennemrevideret og ajourført udgave med til føjelse af to kapitler: fransk hverdagssociologi og emotionssociologi. Indhold: 1. Chicago-sociologi: Anja Jørgensen 2. Amerikansk pragmatisme: Antje Gimler 3. Symbolsk interaktionisme: Jan Trost, Irene Levin 4. Marxisme, modernitet og utopi: Michael Gardiner 5. Fænomenologisk sociologi: Dan Zahavi og Søren Overgaard 6. Erving Goffmann: Søren Kristiansen 7. Fransk hverdagssociologi: Michael Hviid Jacobsen 8. Eksistentiaistisk sociologi: Joseph A. Kotarba 9. Etnometodologi og det absurdes sociologi: Michael Hviid Jacobsen 10. Samtaleanalyse: Søren Peter Olesen 11. Emotionssociologi: Emma Engdahl og Michael Hviid Jacobsen Redaktion: Michael Hviid Jacobsen, professor ved Institut for Sociologi og Socialt Arbejde, AAU. Søren Kristiansen, lektor i sociologi ved Institut for Sociologi og Socialt Arbejde, AAU, samt prorektor sammesteds.

Rock ‘n’ roll infuses the everyday life of the American adult, but for the first, complete generation of rock ‘n’ roll fans—baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964—it holds a special kind of value, playing a social personality-defining role that is unique to this group. Based on 18 years of sociological research and 52 years of rock ‘n’ roll fandom, Baby Boomer Rock ’n’ Roll Fans: The Music Never Ends draws on data collected from participant observations and interviews with artists, fans, and producers to explore our aging rock culture through the filter of symbolic interactionist theory. As author Joseph Kotarba notes, the “purpose in writing this book is to describe sociologically the many ways people in our society who were raised on rock’n’roll music and its cultural baggage have continued to use the rock’n’roll idiom to make sense of, celebrate, and master everyday life—through adulthood and for the rest of their lives.” Sociological concepts of the “self” are the key organizing feature of this book, as each chapter engages with sociological ideas to explain how baby boomers use popular music to explore, sculpt, fulfill, and ultimately make sense of who they are in different contexts. Kotarba looks at baby boomers as individuals and parents, as political actors and religious adherents, social beings and aging members of American society, detailing throughout how rock ‘n’ roll provides a groundwork for establishing and maintaining both private and public sense of self. Baby Boomer Rock ’n’ Roll Fans will interest scholars and students of music and sociology and American popular culture.

Rock ‘n’ roll infuses the everyday life of the American adult, but for the first, complete generation of rock ‘n’ roll fans—baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964—it holds a special kind of value, playing a social personality-defining role that is unique to this group. Based on 18 years of sociological research and 52 years of rock ‘n’ roll fandom, Baby Boomer Rock ’n’ Roll Fans: The Music Never Ends draws on data collected from participant observations and interviews with artists, fans, and producers to explore our aging rock culture through the filter of symbolic interactionist theory. As author Joseph Kotarba notes, the “purpose in writing this book is to describe sociologically the many ways people in our society who were raised on rock’n’roll music and its cultural baggage have continued to use the rock’n’roll idiom to make sense of, celebrate, and master everyday life—through adulthood and for the rest of their lives.” Sociological concepts of the “self” are the key organizing feature of this book, as each chapter engages with sociological ideas to explain how baby boomers use popular music to explore, sculpt, fulfill, and ultimately make sense of who they are in different contexts. Kotarba looks at baby boomers as individuals and parents, as political actors and religious adherents, social beings and aging members of American society, detailing throughout how rock ‘n’ roll provides a groundwork for establishing and maintaining both private and public sense of self. Baby Boomer Rock ’n’ Roll Fans will interest scholars and students of music and sociology and American popular culture.