A Methodological Framework for the Sociology of Culture

Drawing on analytic techniques from the humanities and social sciences, I propose a framework for research in the sociology of culture that is both sczentific and sensitive to the particular characteristics of cultural data. In this paper, I maintain that to be complete and persuasive, cultural analysis must include (1) the intentions of creative agents, (2) the reception of cultural objects over time and space, (3) the comprehension of cultural objects in terms of intrinsic and heuristic genres, and (4) the explanation of the characteristics of objects with reference to the social and