Outline of transformations in the problem field of the sociology of culture in Slovenian

The article outlines the main topics and problems elaborated in the sociology of culture in the Slovenian language since 1980. It delineates three grand conjunctures that have been successively produced within its problem field. The first phase of this period polemically situated itself within the Marxian field as proposed by Boris Ziherl: it integrated certain procedures of structural semiotics, while basically articulating its theoretical work onto Althusserian historical materialism and to Lacanian psychoanalysis. During the first phase, sociology of culture in Slovenian, mostly analysing ideological mechanisms and cultural artefacts, articulated their immanent mechanisms onto macro social structures and processes. The next phase (during the 1990s) introduced the study of articulation of heterogeneous practices and the analysis of structures with differing internal logics. In the present phase (after 1999), sociology of culture in Slovenian analyses ideological practices and the relations of production and circulation within which these practices are performed; ideological ("cultural") practices and relations are conceptually articulated to processes and structural configurations within social formations on one side, and to immanent ideological mechanisms within ideological ("cultural") products on the other.