What is the role of sociology in society? How can -- and should -- sociology contribute with insights relevant and useful to the outside world? Is sociology attuned to accommodate the demands of the wider public and of surrounding society? Who benefits from the knowledge produced and provided by sociology? What are the social implications and cultural effects of the knowledge sociology provides and creates? All of these questions, and many others, concern and centre on sociology's relationship to the surrounding society, in short to the 'public'. The chapters included in this book are all manuscripts presented by invited keynote speakers at the tenth year anniversary conference of the Sociology Program at Aalborg University. The collection of essays in this book is complied and edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen (b. 1971), Associate Professor and Director of Studies of the Sociology Program at Aalborg University. He has for several years been involved in writing on and debating the relevance of sociology to the public. (Bookdata)