The concept of “form,” and the associated problem of the relationship between “forms” and “contents” is a central theme in Simmel’s overall work. This paper shows that recent work in cultural sociology has taken a “Simmelian turn” in conceptualizing how cultural goods can serve as the primary engines of sociation in (post)modern societies. In this, they serve as the most common type of minimal formal content featured in domains characterized by Simmelian sociability. At the same time, there has been a renewed concern with rethinking the dynamics of cultural spread diffusion and their link to cultural identity along Simmelian lines. Here, formal features of cultural goods and consumption styles, such as their quantitative spread, are transmuted into contentful forms, capable of performing semiotic work.

中文翻译：

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齐美尔近期文化社会学著作形式与内容的辩证法

“形式”的概念以及“形式”与“内容”之间关系的相关问题是齐美尔整体作品的中心主题。本文表明，文化社会学最近的工作在概念化文化产品如何成为（后）现代社会中的主要社会引擎方面采取了“西美尔式转向”。在这种情况下，它们作为以 Simmelian 社交性为特征的领域中最常见的最小正式内容类型。与此同时，人们重新关注重新思考文化传播扩散的动力及其与沿 Simmelian 线的文化认同的联系。在这里，文化商品和消费方式的形式特征，例如它们的数量传播，被转化为内容形式，能够执行符号学工作。