Peter Snow. “Performing Society”

Abstract

Peter Snow dedicates his critical essay to Alexander's cultural sociological theory of social events as performances. Being adopted from a variety of disciplines the notion of performance lacks two key features: imagination and creativity. Performances bring into being alternative ways of social change and thus a particular performance imagines and procreates future social world. Following this understanding Snow assumes that society is composed of performances which make it possible. Thereby Snow attempts to frame cultural sociological theory of performances as a theory of society and places it in the core of the fundamental discussions of the possibility of society.