It's Christmas week, and you still haven't had time for gifts? What better occasion than giving sociology books for Christmas ? As usual, here are our #readingtips , a short list of books to consider as we await the new year.
Sociology Books for Christmas: Kairòs
The first text we offer is the latest work by Claudio Tognonato, sociologist and professor at the University of Rome TRE: " Kairos. Unity and Multiplicity of Existence ." The text is a journey through three dimensions of humanity: history, reality, and the individual. An essay in existential sociology that explores the category of the universal-singular to affirm the uniqueness of history, reality, and the individual, and then, the multiplicity in every circuit that recurs and gives meaning, constructing the kaleidoscope of the human condition. Kairos, the Greek deity who represents time as opportunity, the necessary time, the appropriate moment, the consonance that makes the impossible possible, is a qualitative representation, contrasted with the quantitative standardization of Chronos. Kairos aims to demonstrate how the purpose of the human sciences is to offer new horizons , new spaces of freedom. Because to know is to change, and perhaps this is the right time.
Sociology for Christmas? A book on how to represent data.
The second text in this #readingtips series is "Statistical Visualizations: How to Represent Quantitative Information to Decipher Data and Recognize Trends" by Roberta Roncati. The graphical representation of data of any size (small and big data), nature, and origin allows us to see phenomena, trends, and relationships that could never be observed by looking at numbers aligned in a table. If a statistical visualization encodes information in a way that our eyes can discern and our brains can understand, then it is certainly an effective visualization. Its validity therefore depends on its ability to fulfill the purpose for which it was created: presenting data, demonstrating causality between phenomena, making comparisons across space, and/or showing trends over time. But that's not all.
A good visualization must allow for in-depth exploration while also being clear and understandable. It must also be accurate and pleasing. And it must make sense. The goal is to translate abstract information into visual representations that can be easily, effectively, accurately, and meaningfully decoded. Achieving this result is much more of a science than an art. Understanding the workings of optical illusions and pre-attentive processes, mastering the construction of effective graphs and infographics, and being aware of the latest trends and innovative forms of visualization are essential to producing valid representations of statistical observations. Foreword by Giovanni Alfredo Barbieri.
Sociology of Italian Catholicism
The next book we recommend is " A Faith on Trial: Sociology of Italian Catholicism " by Vincenzo Bova. The book traces the transformations of Italian Catholicism from the birth of the Republic to the present day: its transition from "common sense" to a free option adopted by an ever-shrinking minority; a belief system moving from homogeneity to differentiation; the Church's leaders and the organized Catholic laity facing the challenges posed by the uncertain beliefs of a plural society. Between the deposit of faith and strategies of adaptation , a religion that has helped guide our country's strategic choices and which today seems destined for near-political irrelevance.
Addressing cultural dislocation
The last text we recommend is " Healing with the Body: An Applied Sociology Model for Addressing Cultural Discomfort " by Francesca Rossetti. The text addresses the issues of distress caused by cultural syndromes through an integrated sociological approach that uses the body and sensorimotor activity as environments for learning and processing experience. The fruit of twenty years of fieldwork, 1,800 case studies, and approximately 10,000 hours of classroom time, the text is useful for understanding the potential of applied sociology in the fields of preventive therapy, education, and ethics, and for drawing attention to the social causes underlying individual syndromes. The flowing presentation and wealth of examples drawn from fieldwork make this text useful for both professionals and the general public interested in understanding the mechanisms of symbolic formation and the normalization of distress.
Lecturer in Communications and HR Management. Journalist with a degree in Sociology (cum laude). Editor-in-Chief of Sociologicamente.it.
PUBLICATIONS | LINKEDIN
