This is a cultural sociology of some controversial aspects of contemporary popular culture. The book rereads disparaged and vilified cultural objects ranging from gangsta rap and death metal to violent video games, using cultural theories on transgression, the sacred, and the tragic as the interpretive lens.

This is a cultural sociology of some controversial aspects of contemporary popular culture. The book rereads disparaged and vilified cultural objects ranging from gangsta rap and death metal to violent video games, using cultural theories on transgression, the sacred, and the tragic as the interpretive lens.

David Émile Durkheim, life and times -- Moral solidarity and the new social science: Durkheim's study of the individual in society and society in the individual -- Morality, law, the state, and politics -- Establishing a social science -- Education as social science and cultural politics -- The "revelation" of religion -- Odds and ends: Durkheim's unfinished works on morality and the family and his war writings -- Further readings.