Microverses: Observations from a Shattered Present

In response to the lockdown conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic, Dylan Riley produced a series of notes exploring how critical sociology can speak to the troubled decade. The notes cover a range of topics, including the intellectual situation, the political crisis of Trump's last months in office, and love and illness in the era of the coronavirus. Riley uses the tools of critical sociology to analyze these issues, working through various theorists to weigh sociology's relationship to Marxism, class, race, and gender, and to recover a sense of the present as history. The notes are intended as invitations to think about society and social theory in new ways.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 160 pages
Publication date: 13 September 2022
Publisher: Verso Books

Microverses is a collection of over a hundred short essays that challenge us to rethink society and social theory in innovative ways. The lockdown conditions created what Adorno once referred to as enforced contemplation, and Dylan Riley responded with his unique tools, producing an extraordinary trail of notes exploring how critical sociology can speak to this turbulent decade.

Microverses delves into various aspects of the intellectual situation, the political crisis during Trump's last months in office, and the complexities of love and illness in the context of the coronavirus public emergency. Riley employs the theoretical canon of Weber, Durkheim, Parsons, Dubois, Gramsci, Lukács, MacKinnon, and Fraser to examine the relationship between sociology and Marxism, as well as the workings of class, race, and gender. He also engages in discourses on the operations of an orchestra and the challenges of navigating a pandemic while taking a walk.

Rather than presenting definitive arguments, the notes in Microverses aim to reclaim the comprehensive perspective of sociology, allowing us to see society as a whole, akin to an outsider's view. This perspective seeks to recover what Paul Sweezy described as a sense of the present as history. By offering invitations rather than conclusive conclusions, Riley encourages readers to engage in thoughtful reflection and exploration of these critical topics.

Weight: 142g
Dimension: 129 x 197 x 16 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781839768408