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On formalizing Bourdieu for urban studies & beyond Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2024-03-08 David L Swartz
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Goffman, Chicago sociology, and the classical canon Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2024-02-23 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
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Multiplex colonial sociology Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2024-01-09 Gregor McLennan
This article assesses George Steinmetz’s The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire. Princeton University Press. Princeton and Oxford, 2023. ISBN 9780691237428 (hbk) xvi + 551. Expertly illuminating the neglected constellation of French colonial sociology, Steinmetz emphatically extends recent reconciliatory moves on the question of decolonizing sociology
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Abolishing division of labour or making it better? Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-05-02 Emmanuel Renault
In some of his latest publications, Honneth claims that what is problematic with the contemporary forms of division of labour is that they are not in tune with what the division of labour should be...
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Taking Care Seriously: Gendering Honneth’s The Working Sovereign – A Normative Theory of work Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-04-26 Christine Wimbauer
Axel Honneth’s latest work The Working Sovereign. A Normative Theory of Work states that the democratization of work and employees’ experience of democracy at work are important prerequisites for c...
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The contribution of meaningfulness to the work of democratic will formation Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-04-25 Ruth Yeoman
A response to Axel Honneth’s 2021 Walter-Benjamin Lectures on ‘The Working Sovereign’
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Introduction: Celebrating the life and work of André Gorz Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-04-21 Edward Granter, Graeme Gilloch, Jeremy Aroles, Ross Abbinnett
In this introduction, we thank those who supported and contributed to our special issue of Classical Sociology, on the work and life of André Gorz. We then provide a sketch of Gorz’s place in intel...
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Crisis and Utopia: André Gorz and the end of work Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-04-21 Edward Granter, Jeremy Aroles
In this paper, we are concerned with the role of André Gorz in the development of the concept of the end of work. We draw from Gorz’s stance on automation, utopia, capitalism and labour to reflect ...
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The contributions of the analysis of alienation to the social critique of labour in neoliberal capitalism Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-04-19 Nial Tekin
From a sociological perspective, this paper attempts to contribute to the discussion on work and democracy led by Axel Honneth. Through Honneth’s analyses, this text focuses particularly on the con...
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Embryonic intersectionality: W.E.B. Du Bois and the inauguration of intersectional sociology Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-03-23 Reiland Rabaka
As a brief exercise in the critical sociology of sociology, this article demonstrates W.E.B. Du Bois’s undeniable contributions to the history, discourse, and development of American sociology in p...
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A disenchanted world: Max Weber on magic and modernity Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-03-15 Mario Marotta
Despite its great popularity in both the scientific and non-scientific fields, Max Weber’s concept of “disenchantment” remains mostly obscure and in recent years it has become the center of an inte...
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Women of courage and the seedbed of autonomy in modernity: On the transnational influence of cultures on social structure in the work of Rose Laub Coser Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-03-14 Barbara Hoenig
This paper examines the contribution of Rose Laub Coser to sociological theory in the structural tradition. Laub Coser was one of the most successful women sociologists of her generation. She was b...
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The ‘Heron’: Nine steps for a past life Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-02-28 Graeme Gilloch
In Farewell to the Working Class,1 (1982), a book dedicated to his wife Dorine, André Gorz (1923–2007) offers the reader ‘Nine Theses for a Future Left’. Here, I borrow and play with this nomenclat...
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“For free and useless studies”: Critical reflections on the end of work and study Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-02-14 Nichole Marie Shippen
Revisiting Gorz’s Destroy the University (1970) offers an opportunity to analyze the community college as situated between the factory (vocational) and the prison (formal education’s “other”) in th...
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Things that endure: Community gardens and the post-work imaginary Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-02-10 Abigail Schoneboom, Daniel Mallo, Armelle Tardiveau
Using Gorz’s writing on cities and time as a starting point, this sensory ethnographic study uses pinhole photography to explore how time feels for ‘unemployed’ volunteers at a community garden in ...
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Toward a critical social theory of AI: Knowledge, information, and intelligence in the later works of André Gorz Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-02-10 Jaeho Kang
In his last scholarly work, L’Immatériel, André Gorz grapples with the emergence of the new cognitive capitalism based on immaterial labor and capital and, crucially, he seeks to comprehend how adv...
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“Confronting time out of joint. . . – On economic rationality and imagination” Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-02-01 Diana Stypinska
It is often suggested that today we are living in the “end times.” Confronted by a perpetual incursion of major global crises, we increasingly find ourselves incapable of meaningfully relating to t...
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Marcel Mauss and the magical agents of our time Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2023-01-21 Irene Skovgaard-Smith, Alison Hirst
This article revisits Marcel Mauss’s theory of magic in the context of contemporary capitalism. Mauss saw magic as the art of transforming, socially accomplished via processes of differentiation th...
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Hans Kelsen and sociology Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-11-30 Christopher Adair-Toteff
This review focuses on one major work of Hans Kelsen which was first published in 1922 and is now included in the most recent volume of Hans Kelsen Werke. While Kelsen’s reputation is as a legal ph...
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Gabriel Tarde and cultural evolution: The consequence of neglecting our Mendel Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-11-30 Marion Blute
After documenting Tarde’s neglect and placing him in the 19th-century sociological context, this paper argues that his concept of “imitation” was important because social learning (writ small) or c...
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“The heart has its reasons”: Elizabeth II and the post-colonial response Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-11-28 Stephen Turner, Edward Kissi
Edward Shils’ and Michael Young’s “The Meaning of the Coronation,” took up crucial aspects of Shils’ thinking about differentiating types of social bonds, which led to his distinction between primo...
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Monarchy and the peculiarities of the English Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-11-22 Bryan S Turner
This article describes how the monarchy has enjoyed historical continuity in a society that has not been invaded since 1066 and had no revolutionary experience unlike other European nations. The ot...
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The meanings of the monarchy Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-11-21 Peter Kivisto
Using two classic accounts of Elizabeth II’s Coronation, this article explores the potential meanings of the monarchy in the 21st century.
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Race, nation and empire; the forgotten sociology of Herbert Adolphus Miller Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-10-03 Jan Balon, John Holmwood
Herbert Adolphus Miller (1875–1951) is a neglected figure within North American sociology, yet he made a distinctive contribution to the sociology and politics of race relations. He was one of the ...
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Alchemizing social theory, remarks on Colonialism and Modern Social Theory Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-08-08 Karida L Brown
This review of Bhambra and Holmwood’s Colonialism and Modern Social Theory engages Chapter Six of the text, “Du Bois: Addressing the Colour Line,” as a site to contemplate broader questions about t...
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Reframing the classics? Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-07-15 Zophia Edwards
A number of recent works in sociology call for the decolonization of the discipline. Colonialism and Modern Social Theory adds a critical intervention to this recent body of work by deconstructing ...
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“Rethinking Tocqueville: White democracy or American democracy?” Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-06-27 Jennie C Ikuta
This piece makes two points about “Tocqueville: From America to Algeria.” First, while Bhambra and Holmwood rightly criticize the editorial practice of omitting the “Three Races” chapter from Tocqu...
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Weber: Religion, nation and empire Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-06-23 Sara R Farris
Colonialism figures in the work of Max Weber in multiple forms. While in his professorial address he supported internal colonialism as the antidote against the threat represented by the immigration...
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W.E.B. Du Bois and modern social theory Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-06-22 Nasar Meer
How might we move the current discussion of W.E.B Du Bois from a concern with omission to re-construction within modern social theory? Bhambra and Holmwood offer a novel means to do this through re...
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Within, beyond or against the canon: What does it mean to decolonize social and political theory? Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-06-22 Jeanette Ehrmann
Increasing calls to decolonize the university brought forward by student-led movements have raised the question regarding how to reassess the canon of European social and political thought. This ar...
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Durkheim and the possible connections between social theory and colonialism Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-06-20 Matt Dawson
In this piece I explore how Bhambra and Holmwood’s Colonialism and Modern Social Theory implies three different questions that can be asked concerning the connections between colonialism and social...
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Editorial: Writing (and righting) the ‘classics’: A symposium on Gurminder K Bhambra and John Holmwood’s Colonialism and Modern Social Theory, Polity 2021 Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-06-16 Gurminder K Bhambra, John Holmwood
We are grateful to the editors of the Journal of Classical Sociology for inviting this symposium on our recently published book, Colonialism and Modern Social Theory. In it, we call for an engagement with the past of European social thought and its legacies in the present. It is in this spirit that the various contributors to this symposium were approached. They were asked to consider the overall approach
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Habitus and personality in the work of Max Weber Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-06-07 Elisabeth Anderson
Weber’s critique of modernity centred on how it shaped the habitus – life-conduct and motivations – of the modern individual. I explicate six habitus-types that appear in Weber’s work: the early-modern Puritan Berufsmensch, the modern specialist, the modern industrial worker, the politician, the civil servant and the citizen voter. In doing so, I identify the main characteristics of each type and the
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Benjamin’s Baudelaire: Translation and modern experience Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-06-02 Esperança Bielsa
This article focusses on Walter Benjamin’s approach to the experience of modernity through his long-term engagement with the poetry of Charles Baudelaire. Benjamin translated Baudelaire and produced a theoretical reflection on translation based on this experience in his essay ‘The Task of the Translator’. Years later, he would place Baudelaire at the centre of his attempt to reconstruct the prehistory
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Max Weber and his conservative critics: Social science and the problem of value relativism Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-05-27 Martyn Hammersley
In this paper some fundamental criticisms of Max Weber’s conception of the vocation of science are addressed. These well-known criticisms focus on his admission that science cannot demonstrate its own value, and his broader claim that there can be no rational basis for committing oneself to one set of ultimate values as against another. Instead, he insisted that the adoption of such values is necessarily
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Adventure in the social world: Georg Simmel’s appeal to a theory of creative action Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-05-10 Simon Lafontaine
Reconstructing the logic of everyday action between reproduction and invention of forms is a growing concern in contemporary debates on the praxeological foundation of sociology. This article argues for a renewed understanding of action in its contingency and creativity. Building on current developments on the role of projectivity and imagination in the emergence of the new and unexpected in action
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Race and its reformulation in Max Weber: Cultural Germanism as political imperialism Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Jack Barbalet
Weber rejected the notion of race founded on innate characteristics, and instead developed one based on cultural and political factors. The importance of Weber’s distinctive characterization of race cannot be appreciated when consideration is given only to his treatment of minorities. Examination, however, of Weber’s account of the German people as a Herrenvolk, master race, consolidated by shared
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Max Weber and Charles Taylor: On normative aspects of a theory of human action Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Sebastian Raza
This paper seeks to make two distinctive sets of contributions through a supplementary reinterpretation of Max Weber in the light of Charles Taylor’s expressivist-hermeneutical theory of human agency. First, it offers a reinterpretation of Weber’s work. Focussing on the concept of stance, the paper highlights that Weber’s theorising on values and their relation to cognition, action and identity is
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Book Review: Spätmoderne in der Krise. Was leistet die Gesellschaftstheorie? Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-02-21 Alan Scott
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Book review: A Joyfully Serious Man. The Life of Robert Bellah Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-01-22 Bryan S. Turner
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Introduction to Max Weber’s article ‘The “Threatening” of the Reich Constitution’ Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2022-01-10 Sam Whimster
In May 1904 Max Weber published a short article in the Frankfurter Zeitung. It has gone unnoticed in the extensive Weber literature and it appears here in English translation for the first time. It is an important statement of Weber’s political views after his withdrawal from his active political engagement in the 1890s. He defends the Reich Constitution from attack and a possible coup d’état. He demands
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Veblen, Marshall and neoclassical economics Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-12-29 Stephen Pratten
Alfred Marshall is often depicted as a pioneer of neoclassical economics almost as if this is a label he embraces and promotes. Yet neoclassical economics is not a category Marshall deploys but a term Thorstein Veblen introduces in characterising Marshall. Veblen coins the term neoclassical to identify an ontological discrepancy in the work of a specific group of his contemporaries, a prominent figure
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At the intersection of existence, events, and milestones: A response to “Existence theory” Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Robin Wagner-Pacifici
This paper responds to Baert, Morgan, and Ushiyama’s article, “Existence theory: Outline for a theory of social behaviour,” by drawing out and examining the paper’s identification of the importance of existential milestones and the dangers of their elusiveness for some leading to a sense of incomplete lives. Alternative perspectives on frustrated existential milestones are proposed via a focus on the
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Existentialising existence theory and expanding the sociology of existential milestones Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-12-23 David Inglis
This paper responds to the ‘existence theory’ proposed by Baert, Morgan and Ushiyama. It considers their proposals in light of two main thematics: the general account of human existence, and the more empirical sociology of existential milestones. Both elements are appraised in light of existentialist philosophy and earlier attempts at ‘existentialist sociology’. It is suggested that the authors engage
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Existence as a predicament Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-12-23 William Outhwaite
This short critical commentary on the article raises some questions about the authors’ model of temporality and the linear conception of ‘milestones’, while endorsing this conception in cases where people feel deprived of something they might have expected to obtain.
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Vulnerability and existence theory in catastrophic times Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Bryan S. Turner
‘Existence theory’ is a bold and imaginative contribution to social theory. Baert, Morgan and Ushiyama (hereafter ‘the authors’) draw on a broad range of existing approaches from Heidegger to Schutz to build a social theory that draws attention to time, the stages of life and the unavoidably precarious nature of human existence. At the same time, they pay careful attention to the social context in
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Critical remarks on existence theory: Between existentialism and phenomenology Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Simon Susen
The main purpose of this paper is to examine the ‘existence theory’ proposed by Patrick Baert, Marcus Morgan, and Rin Ushiyama. To this end, it focuses on some key issues that could, and arguably should, be explored in more detail, especially if the authors decide to develop their project further, permitting them to establish a new interdisciplinary branch of inquiry. The comments and suggestions made
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Introduction to the special issue on existence theory Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Patrick Baert, Marcus Morgan, Rin Ushiyama
After exploring the main tenets of existence theory and the affinities between this theory and other philosophical traditions, this introduction lists the central points of each contribution to this special issue. In what follows, we provide a brief synopsis of the critical commentaries by David Inglis, Simon Susen, Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Bryan S. Turner, William Outhwaite, and Thomas Kemple.
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Existence theory revisited: A reply to our critics Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Patrick Baert, Marcus Morgan, Rin Ushiyama
In this essay, we provide a comprehensive reply to the critical commentaries by David Inglis, Thomas Kemple, William Outhwaite, Simon Susen, Bryan S. Turner, and Robin Wagner-Pacifici. Our reply is structured along three main pillars. Firstly, we clarify what we aim to achieve with existence theory. Drawing on neo-pragmatist philosophy, our aim is to present a new and useful perspective on a wide range
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Book Review: Ali Shariati: Expanding the Sociological Canon Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-11-27 Bryan S Turner
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Simmel’s Soziologie in translation: A critical analysis Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-10-06 Frank J Lechner
Using illustrative passages and comparisons with previous partial translations, this paper reports some problems of accuracy and tone in the complete English translation of Georg Simmel’s sociological magnum opus, Sociology: Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms. Placing these problems in the context of broader discussions of translation projects, it urges caution on the part of anglophone
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Charisma and social phenomenology: Gerda Walther, Herman Schmalenbach and Aron Gurwitsch Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-10-05 Dominik Zelinsky
This paper explores the contribution of early social phenomenologists working in the 1920s and 1930s in Germany to charisma theory. Specifically, I focus on the works of Gerda Walther, Herman Schmalenbach and Aron Gurwitsch, whose work is now being re-appreciated in the field of social philosophy. Living in the interbellum German-speaking space, these authors were keenly interested in the issue of
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Sociology: Fragmentation or reinvigorated synthesis? Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-09-21 Sylvia Walby
Does the discipline of Sociology need to be defended from fragmentation by the mobilisation of a canon derived from its classical legacy? The paper provides an exposition of the arguments of Turner, Susen and O’Neill concerning fragmentation of Sociology as a discipline. It investigates whether there is fragmentation or reinvigorated synthesis in three examples: inequality beyond class, posthumanism
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Book review: Book Wars: The Digital Revolution in Publishing Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-09-14 Stephen Turner
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The unrecognized genius of Durkheim Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-09-13 Paul Carls
Veblen T (1918) The Higher Learning in America: A Memorandum on the Conduct of Universities by Business Men. New York: B.W. Huebsch. Veblen T (1919) The Vested Interests and the Common Man: The Modern Point of View and the New Order. New York: B.W. Huebsch, Inc. Veblen T (1921) The Engineers and the Price System. New York: B.W. Huebsch, Inc. Veblen T (1923) Absentee Ownership and Business Enterprise
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On loyalty and betrayal in postwar social science, mainly in Chicago Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-08-23 Gary D Jaworski
This article examines the writings on loyalty and betrayal of sociologist Erving Goffman and political scientist Morton Grodzins. Both thinkers made unique contributions to the understanding of those topics while simultaneously offering critical appraisals of early Cold War America. Examining these writings in historical and intellectual context, and reading them against each other, reveals important
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Classics and classicality: JCS after 20 years Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-08-03 Simon Susen, Bryan S Turner
This article provides an introduction to the 20th Anniversary Special Issue of the Journal of Classical Sociology. It begins with some brief observations on the key developments that have shaped the disciplinary core of sociology over the past decades. It goes on to reflect on the role of classical sociology in Europe and beyond, drawing attention to its continuing presence in British and Anglo-American
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Sociology’s inescapable past Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-06-23 Steven Lukes
Why does sociology teaching uniquely require study of its classics? The answer, it is suggested, lies in the indeterminacy of the idea of what is social—what constitutes and exemplifies it, at different levels of abstraction, about which the classical sociologists diverge, as do their continuing legacies. Synthesis aiming at disciplinary-wide consensus is not, therefore, a promising path. Selective
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Moral regulation as status politics: A critical reconstruction of Joseph R. Gusfield’s theory Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-06-19 Hannu Ruonavaara
Sociology of moral regulation has been interested in different kinds of morally charged social movements, such as the temperance movement, to investigate the social reasons why people take part in such movements. One answer is provided by Joseph Gusfield’s classic analysis of the American temperance movement, The Symbolic Crusade, published in 1963. The status politics theory developed therein provides
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Epistemic justice for the dead Journal of Classical Sociology Pub Date : 2021-06-10 Stephen Turner
The classics of social theory have a peculiar status: our current list is the product of past academic strategizing, and the list of favored classics has changed. Currently there is a process of replacing them with older writers who better fit current concerns, and to cancel those who hold the wrong views, or are of the oppressor class, in order to provide epistemic justice for those who don’t deserve