Pub Date : 2024-03-20DOI: 10.1177/1468795x241239297
Charles Crothers
For a period of some three decades (1940s–1970s) the faculty and graduate students at the Department of Sociology at Columbia University, and its associated research unit (the Bureau of Applied Social Research: BASR), successfully produced a stream of innovative sociological studies which was particularly important in building on the foundations of classical sociology to establish modern sociology. Modern Sociology was produced as a theoretically sophisticated scientific enterprise firmly based on a solid empirical foundation produced by appropriate social research methods (as master-minded by Paul F. Lazarsfeld). The ‘Columbia Tradition’ is an approach, rather than being focussed on any particular subject matter, involved the development of ‘middle-range theory’, often broken-out from classic theory (as propounded by Robert K. Merton), and backed up by efforts at knowledge cumulation and institution building. But the School included a glittering array of important sociologists and hosts of others who extended the work of the two leaders, developing it in further directions, as is expected of any school. This school was sustained by the vision of a developing scientific sociology propounded by its founders, but it faltered as its founders retired from active leadership roles, in addition to being impacted by changes in Columbia University and broader Sociology environments.
{"title":"The postwar Columbia tradition in sociology: Its cognitive commonalities and social mechanisms","authors":"Charles Crothers","doi":"10.1177/1468795x241239297","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795x241239297","url":null,"abstract":"For a period of some three decades (1940s–1970s) the faculty and graduate students at the Department of Sociology at Columbia University, and its associated research unit (the Bureau of Applied Social Research: BASR), successfully produced a stream of innovative sociological studies which was particularly important in building on the foundations of classical sociology to establish modern sociology. Modern Sociology was produced as a theoretically sophisticated scientific enterprise firmly based on a solid empirical foundation produced by appropriate social research methods (as master-minded by Paul F. Lazarsfeld). The ‘Columbia Tradition’ is an approach, rather than being focussed on any particular subject matter, involved the development of ‘middle-range theory’, often broken-out from classic theory (as propounded by Robert K. Merton), and backed up by efforts at knowledge cumulation and institution building. But the School included a glittering array of important sociologists and hosts of others who extended the work of the two leaders, developing it in further directions, as is expected of any school. This school was sustained by the vision of a developing scientific sociology propounded by its founders, but it faltered as its founders retired from active leadership roles, in addition to being impacted by changes in Columbia University and broader Sociology environments.","PeriodicalId":44864,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Classical Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-03-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140205293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-03-08DOI: 10.1177/1468795x241237783
David L Swartz
{"title":"On formalizing Bourdieu for urban studies & beyond","authors":"David L Swartz","doi":"10.1177/1468795x241237783","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795x241237783","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44864,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Classical Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-03-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140072704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-02-23DOI: 10.1177/1468795x241230518
Dmitri Shalin
The present study starts with the premise that corpus classicus is a font of ideas irreducible to a neat formula and marked by the ambivalence toward reigning theories. The founder’s disciples and adherents often lose this perspective, fighting to suppress alternative readings and undermining the theoretical synthesis attempted by a classic thinker. To flesh out this thesis, the paper examines the place of Erving Goffman in Chicago sociology and the ingenious way he blended various strands comprising this tradition. The discussion starts with the debate on what constitutes the Chicago school, after which it moves to the knotty relationship between Goffman and symbolic interactionism and his determined effort to accommodate structuralist premises within process-oriented sociology. An argument is made that Goffman followed the lead of his mentor, Everett Hughes, in casting social institutions as “going concerns” that run the gamut from large scale formal organizations to taken-for-granted collective enterprises which are honored in the breach. Several empirical studies developing Goffman’s theory of total institutions are reviewed to flesh out his brand of structural interactionism. The paper concludes with reflections on the retroactive nature of reconstructing a school’s origins, problematic practice of assigning sociologists to a specific paradigm, and the affinity of Goffman’s sociology with the classical inquiry into a dialectical relationship between agency and structure. The case is made that Goffman’s research on the institutional moorings of human subjectivity places him firmly in the classic sociological canon and forms the core of his intellectual legacy.
{"title":"Goffman, Chicago sociology, and the classical canon","authors":"Dmitri Shalin","doi":"10.1177/1468795x241230518","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795x241230518","url":null,"abstract":"The present study starts with the premise that corpus classicus is a font of ideas irreducible to a neat formula and marked by the ambivalence toward reigning theories. The founder’s disciples and adherents often lose this perspective, fighting to suppress alternative readings and undermining the theoretical synthesis attempted by a classic thinker. To flesh out this thesis, the paper examines the place of Erving Goffman in Chicago sociology and the ingenious way he blended various strands comprising this tradition. The discussion starts with the debate on what constitutes the Chicago school, after which it moves to the knotty relationship between Goffman and symbolic interactionism and his determined effort to accommodate structuralist premises within process-oriented sociology. An argument is made that Goffman followed the lead of his mentor, Everett Hughes, in casting social institutions as “going concerns” that run the gamut from large scale formal organizations to taken-for-granted collective enterprises which are honored in the breach. Several empirical studies developing Goffman’s theory of total institutions are reviewed to flesh out his brand of structural interactionism. The paper concludes with reflections on the retroactive nature of reconstructing a school’s origins, problematic practice of assigning sociologists to a specific paradigm, and the affinity of Goffman’s sociology with the classical inquiry into a dialectical relationship between agency and structure. The case is made that Goffman’s research on the institutional moorings of human subjectivity places him firmly in the classic sociological canon and forms the core of his intellectual legacy.","PeriodicalId":44864,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Classical Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139950725","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-25DOI: 10.1177/1468795x241227638
Bryan S. Turner
{"title":"Book Review: Norbert Elias’s African Processes of Civilization. On the Formation of Survival Units in Ghana","authors":"Bryan S. Turner","doi":"10.1177/1468795x241227638","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795x241227638","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44864,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Classical Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2024-01-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139598106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-21DOI: 10.1177/1468795x231219755
Richard Swedberg
This paper has two main goals: to make an exploratory study of the use of notes and note-taking in social science, with a special emphasis on sociology, and to suggest a few ways in which this practice can be improved. By note-taking is here meant the writing of notes to observe, to remember, and to work and think with. It is suggested that most forms of note-taking represent a kind of private writing, in the sense that the notes are written exclusively for the writer and not for other people to read as in public writing. The quality of being private changes the structure as well as the content of the note which is often hard to understand for others. The approach in the paper is historical as well as material. Early forms of note-taking by social scientists are discussed, and also its use today in such areas as fieldwork, participant observation and qualitative sociology. The paper concludes with a discussion of a few ways in which the note-taking practices in social science can be improved.
{"title":"On the use of notes and note-taking in social science: A study of private writing","authors":"Richard Swedberg","doi":"10.1177/1468795x231219755","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795x231219755","url":null,"abstract":"This paper has two main goals: to make an exploratory study of the use of notes and note-taking in social science, with a special emphasis on sociology, and to suggest a few ways in which this practice can be improved. By note-taking is here meant the writing of notes to observe, to remember, and to work and think with. It is suggested that most forms of note-taking represent a kind of private writing, in the sense that the notes are written exclusively for the writer and not for other people to read as in public writing. The quality of being private changes the structure as well as the content of the note which is often hard to understand for others. The approach in the paper is historical as well as material. Early forms of note-taking by social scientists are discussed, and also its use today in such areas as fieldwork, participant observation and qualitative sociology. The paper concludes with a discussion of a few ways in which the note-taking practices in social science can be improved.","PeriodicalId":44864,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Classical Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138953274","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-12-16DOI: 10.1177/1468795x231219506
Thomas Kemple
{"title":"Book Review: Vincenzo Mele, City and Modernity in Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin: Fragments of Metropolis","authors":"Thomas Kemple","doi":"10.1177/1468795x231219506","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795x231219506","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":44864,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Classical Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-12-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"138995827","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-24DOI: 10.1177/1468795x231212418
Veridiana Domingos Cordeiro
This paper discusses how Elisian ideas on memory could have changed the history of Memory Studies ideas. The history of the phenomenon of memory inside the sociological field reflects the foundational dichotomies of the discipline: macro × micro dimensions and biological × social realms. Many of the hurdles and discussions of Memory Studies still lie upon these dichotomies. Although Elias has never investigated this topic properly, he has a rich discussion on relationality, interdisciplinarity, and processuality. These three aspects would dissolve many of the actual hurdles faced by Memory Studies.
{"title":"Dissolving dichotomies: Norbert Elias’s legacy for thinking “memory” sociologically","authors":"Veridiana Domingos Cordeiro","doi":"10.1177/1468795x231212418","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795x231212418","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses how Elisian ideas on memory could have changed the history of Memory Studies ideas. The history of the phenomenon of memory inside the sociological field reflects the foundational dichotomies of the discipline: macro × micro dimensions and biological × social realms. Many of the hurdles and discussions of Memory Studies still lie upon these dichotomies. Although Elias has never investigated this topic properly, he has a rich discussion on relationality, interdisciplinarity, and processuality. These three aspects would dissolve many of the actual hurdles faced by Memory Studies.","PeriodicalId":44864,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Classical Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-11-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139240491","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-16DOI: 10.1177/1468795x231212348
Ellie Smolenaars
Harriet Martineau’s early sociological publication, How to observe Morals and Manners (1838a) has received attention as one of the works that provided a more diverse foundation for the social sciences. This article examines the content of this pre-disciplinary text and explores the value of a simple and valuable concept Martineau offers: the Traveller. It is argued that theorisation of this concept contributes to a more diverse foundation for the history of the social sciences by (1) highlighting the subject of the researcher, (2) rediscovering a set of requisites for research inspired by skilled scepticism and (3) opening up more communicative knowledge production, that is, knowledge that is in line with 21st century dialogical sociology and public understanding of science.
{"title":"Diversity and classic sociologists: Theorising the concept of the Traveller by Harriet Martineau","authors":"Ellie Smolenaars","doi":"10.1177/1468795x231212348","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795x231212348","url":null,"abstract":"Harriet Martineau’s early sociological publication, How to observe Morals and Manners (1838a) has received attention as one of the works that provided a more diverse foundation for the social sciences. This article examines the content of this pre-disciplinary text and explores the value of a simple and valuable concept Martineau offers: the Traveller. It is argued that theorisation of this concept contributes to a more diverse foundation for the history of the social sciences by (1) highlighting the subject of the researcher, (2) rediscovering a set of requisites for research inspired by skilled scepticism and (3) opening up more communicative knowledge production, that is, knowledge that is in line with 21st century dialogical sociology and public understanding of science.","PeriodicalId":44864,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Classical Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.7,"publicationDate":"2023-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139267363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-10DOI: 10.1177/1468795x231212328
Nicole Holzhauser, Stephan Moebius
This introductory article to the special issue ‘Classical Sociology from the Metropolis’ provides a comprehensive exploration of the profound influence of metropolises, particularly Berlin, on the development and discourse of classical sociology. Emphasizing the metropolis as a social space and promoter of sociological thought, it delves into the lives and works of key figures such as Georg Simmel, Robert E. Park, W.E.B. Du Bois, Frieda Wunderlich and Rose Laub Coser. Their interactions, perspectives and transnational exchanges, particularly between Berlin and other urban centres such as Chicago and New York, are highlighted, illustrating the global interconnectedness of sociological discourse. While acknowledging established sociological icons, the article also highlights the often overlooked contributions of women and scholars of colour, challenging and expanding the traditional understanding of the ‘classical’ in sociological thought. The narrative travels from the early urban sociological and feminist theories that emerged in the metropolis of the 1920s to the complexities of Marxist sociology in a divided Berlin after the Second World War. Through a curated selection of articles in the special issue, the work underlines the central role of the metropolis in shaping foundational sociological concepts and the thinkers who championed them.
{"title":"Classical sociology from the metropolis","authors":"Nicole Holzhauser, Stephan Moebius","doi":"10.1177/1468795x231212328","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795x231212328","url":null,"abstract":"This introductory article to the special issue ‘Classical Sociology from the Metropolis’ provides a comprehensive exploration of the profound influence of metropolises, particularly Berlin, on the development and discourse of classical sociology. Emphasizing the metropolis as a social space and promoter of sociological thought, it delves into the lives and works of key figures such as Georg Simmel, Robert E. Park, W.E.B. Du Bois, Frieda Wunderlich and Rose Laub Coser. Their interactions, perspectives and transnational exchanges, particularly between Berlin and other urban centres such as Chicago and New York, are highlighted, illustrating the global interconnectedness of sociological discourse. While acknowledging established sociological icons, the article also highlights the often overlooked contributions of women and scholars of colour, challenging and expanding the traditional understanding of the ‘classical’ in sociological thought. The narrative travels from the early urban sociological and feminist theories that emerged in the metropolis of the 1920s to the complexities of Marxist sociology in a divided Berlin after the Second World War. Through a curated selection of articles in the special issue, the work underlines the central role of the metropolis in shaping foundational sociological concepts and the thinkers who championed them.","PeriodicalId":44864,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Classical Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135138362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-11-06DOI: 10.1177/1468795x231208952
Hans-Peter Müller
Georg Simmel is the sociologist of the city. He spent almost his entire life in Berlin where he tried to make an academic career at his home town university. He had from early on remarkable success and published a number of classical books, most well-known among them his “Philosophy of Money.” But the intellectual merits did not translate into professional success. In Berlin he remained a “Privatdozent”—a teaching person without salary—and an “Extraordinarius”—a professor not remunerated. Simmel’s status inconsistency—a globally famous philosopher and sociologist yet without a full professorship—expressed an interesting meritocratic formula: failure by success. Simmel could endure this complicated fate only by putting on a mask which made strangeness his home. This thesis is developed in three steps: First, by looking on young Simmel who combined intellectual success with critical reception, in short: philosophe maudit. Secondly, by referring to his private life and life style as far as this can be reconstructed at all because Simmel turned all matters private into a secret. Thirdly, by discussing his predominate topics (city, prostitution, sociability, secret, and the stranger) we try to show how he made his personal existence possible philosophically, sociologically, and psychologically.
{"title":"Strangeness as home. Georg Simmel in Berlin","authors":"Hans-Peter Müller","doi":"10.1177/1468795x231208952","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/1468795x231208952","url":null,"abstract":"Georg Simmel is the sociologist of the city. He spent almost his entire life in Berlin where he tried to make an academic career at his home town university. He had from early on remarkable success and published a number of classical books, most well-known among them his “Philosophy of Money.” But the intellectual merits did not translate into professional success. In Berlin he remained a “Privatdozent”—a teaching person without salary—and an “Extraordinarius”—a professor not remunerated. Simmel’s status inconsistency—a globally famous philosopher and sociologist yet without a full professorship—expressed an interesting meritocratic formula: failure by success. Simmel could endure this complicated fate only by putting on a mask which made strangeness his home. This thesis is developed in three steps: First, by looking on young Simmel who combined intellectual success with critical reception, in short: philosophe maudit. Secondly, by referring to his private life and life style as far as this can be reconstructed at all because Simmel turned all matters private into a secret. Thirdly, by discussing his predominate topics (city, prostitution, sociability, secret, and the stranger) we try to show how he made his personal existence possible philosophically, sociologically, and psychologically.","PeriodicalId":44864,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Classical Sociology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-11-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135682335","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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