The Strange Music of Social Life: A Dialogue on Dialogic Sociology

By Michael Bell and Ann Goetting

The Strange Music of Social Life presents a dialogue on dialogic sociology, explored through the medium of music. Sociologist and composer Michael Mayerfeld Bell presents an argument that both sociology and classical music remain largely in the grip of a nineteenth-century totalizing ambition of prediction and control. He provides the refreshing approach of "strangency" to explain a sociology that tries to understand not only the regularities of social life but also the social conditions in which people do what we do not expect.

Nine important sociologists and musicians respond-often vigorously-to the conversation Bell initiates by raising pivotal questions. The Strange Music of Social Life concludes with Bell's reply to those responses and offers new insight into sociology and music sociology.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Release date: Jul 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781439907252

Michael Bell

The author, Michael A. Bell graduated from Hillcrest High School in Memphis, Tennessee. He immediately joined the military, and served four years in the U.S. Army. He is the oldest of four children by the late Dr. Jewell Bell Jr. and his mother died this year of 2021. Michael attended the Memphis School Of Preaching, where he and his wife Ruby studied the word of GOD. They both enjoy teaching children in Sunday school, and are involved in the ministry of visiting the sick, the elderly, and shut-in. Presently, they reside in Bartlett, Tennessee. Occasionally, Michael preaches the word of GOD whenever, and wherever the LORD leads.

Book preview