Looking for a new book to update your social theory course or one to simply jumpstart your first time teaching it? Former Contexts Graduate Editors Wesley Longhofer and Daniel Winchester have created a new book, Social Theory Re-Wired: New Connections to Classical and Contemporary Perspectives (Routledge), which offers a new and exciting way to teach social theory to today’s students.  Full disclosure here: due to their work on TSP, we’re not exactly unbiased.  We’re proud!

The book combines a print reader with an impressive website that provides a wide variety of innovative material including interactive annotations of key readings, summaries of key concepts, biographies of theorists and schools, writing activities with interactive capabilities, and an array of supplemental texts and videos. The reader itself is organized around five vignettes, which range from the financial crisis to our Facebook profiles, and includes original excerpts from Durkheim, Weber, Marx, and Simmel, as well as Judith Butler, Patricia Hill Collins, Pierre Bourdieu, Zygmunt Bauman, and many more. The combination of a print reader with a truly interactive website make this book a useful contribution to any social theory class, whether it is online, in person, or somewhere in between. You can order an exam copy of the book here and peruse portions of the website here.

Wes is currently an assistant professor in the business school at Emory University. Dan is finishing his PhD in sociology at the University of Minnesota.