Introduction: New Perspectives for the Sociology of the Arts

Abstract

Rodríguez Morató offers a complete overview of the sociology of the arts in its present state, focused on its most innovative developments. This presentation shows how the field of the sociology of the arts has been shaped in recent decades—through successive renovations, to reaching full maturity. It also clarifies the nature of the new stage in which the discipline currently finds itself, characterised by its effervescent theoretical creativity and empirical expansion. The discussion on the current state of the field is complemented with a presentation of new areas and focus of interest (globalisation, materiality, evaluation or creativity, among others), which provides a broad vision of the potential of this specialism. Finally, Rodríguez Morató reflects on the desirable horizon of future development for this discipline.