Culture

Goldsmiths Sociology is renowned for theoretical and empirical scholarship in the sociology of culture, cultural sociology and cultural theory.  This grouping represents a range of some of the most influential approaches, and includes some of the foremost exponents of these approaches in the world.  These include technology and object-based studies, the ethnographic study of culture and the embodied realm of social experience, and the theorisation of culture as process, performance and flow.  There are a series of ongoing projects exploring the potential of social science collaborations with design, and the department is playing an important role in the development of visual sociology. Members of the group have made major contributions to the analysis of the cultural economy, with empirical studies of the new media, design and culture industries, and a theoretical engagement with questions of value, cultural capital and contemporary capitalism. There is a shared engagement with questions of ethics, including studies in science, biomedicine and the media. Other members contribute to debates on the relations between culture and humane citizenship.