13 hod., optionally

1. Process of modernization, reflexive or high modernity and postmodernism. Classical thematizations of the society from the end of the last millennium (what is still valid today?)
2. Analysis of the transformations of the contemporary society (especially in the dimension of perception of time and space: the concept of space-time unloading) with an emphasis on trust and risk issues.
3. Variability (uncertainty of events) as key aspects of contemporary societies. Strategies (institutional and individual) to deal with uncertainty.
4. Individual and society. The economic dimension of individual existence and its political conditions (consumer vs. citizen, erosion of public). Thematization of trust and cooperative practices from below.
5. Thematization of modern culture as a "culture of crisis" – the dilemma of form and life. In his essayistic writing from the beginning of the last century Simmel was recognized as the precursor of postmodern relativism (essays such as Adventure, Frame, Bridge, and Gateway are an Introduction to Art Sociology).
6. Society and knowledge I. Constructivist approach in sociological thought (aesthetics represented, for example, by Goodman); critique of essentialism and the concept of relationalism (Bourdieu).
7. Society and knowledge II. Knowledge as power (discourse, or Foucault's episthemic concept) in the polarity of critique, affirmation, and eschatology. The loss of utopia, which is emphasized by contemporary thinking, is usually associated with aesthetics.
8. Social action as a key concept of the analysis of society and its culture. In addition to Weber's theme of rationality and criticism of instrumental reason, Durkheim's anomie and concept of externality, developed in structural functionalism, is an important subject.
9. The concept of the game as one of today's most influential solutions to the "structure-negotiation" dilemma. Introductory concepts for Bourdieu's arts field analysis (habitus / field, ilusio, cultural reproduction, capital). Alternatively, play in a philosophical and aesthetic context (Schiller-Gadamer), in culturology (Huizinga, Callois).
10. The breakdown of the traditional structure of society (atomization) described by previous authors (Beck) has some solutions in sociology of culture, for example in the notion of "neotribe" and nomadic constitution of the actor (Maffesoli vs. subculture theorists from Hebdige to Thornton).
11. The specific features of modernity include the division of culture and society. The brilliant theorist of the "post-industrial society" demonstrates it on historical material. An unusually critical (or skeptical) view of modern art from the perspective of sociology raises the issue of the function of art and the role of subjectivity.
12. With the growth of possibilities (by science and technology, especially communication and media, new forms of discussion of political culture are taking place.) Habermas' communication rationality as an attempt to read the inheritance of the Enlightenment predominantly positively.
13. Actant-network theory (as well as the concept of social capital) is one of the most discussed concepts of the late 1990s. Latour’s texts are extraordinarily inspiring by their ability to amalgamate scientific and theological thinking with aesthetic concepts and erudition of the history.