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This introduction to a special section brings together three papers first presented at a panel, 'Medical Professions in South Asia: Historical and Contemporary Analyses', at the 26th European Conference on South Asian Studies, held in Vienna, Austria and online, in July 2021. All three papers deal with aspects of the professionalisation of biomedical doctors in India since its independence in 1947. The authors bring together historical and sociological approaches to illuminate the growth of specialisms, patterns of practitioner–patient interactions and efforts to maintain occupational closure and maintain status in the face of growing challenges. The introduction concludes with a discussion of the relevance of these papers for the sociology of health and illness in India and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Among the founders of sociology, it was Georg Simmel who provided the most thorough analysis and theory of space. This paper aims to reconstruct Simmel's spatial theory and his observations of spatial relations. The German sociologist engaged with spatiality in a threefold way. First, he tried to provide a systematic social theory of space; second, analyzing spatial relations was important for his diagnosis of modernity; third, he dealt with the subjective constitutions of space in his shorter, essayistic writings. This paper argues that the importance of the third strand for a sociological understanding of space has seldom been recognized in sociology. In addition, it also shows that despite the diversity in perspectives, there is an underlying coherence to Simmel's theory of space. As a result, it becomes evident that Simmel was not only ground-breaking in conceptualizing space from a sociological point of view, but that his theory of space continues to be inspirational and relevant to this day for interpreting the entanglement of social and spatial relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper charts the changing intersections between sociology and science and technology studies (STS) using computational textual analysis. We characterize this "quali-quantitative" approach as a Big Data method, as this calls attention to the commixture of textual and numeric data that characterizes Big Data. The term Big Data, too, calls attention to the increasing privatization of both data and data analytics tools. The data mining was done using a commercial analytics tool, IBM SPSS Modeler, that to the best of our knowledge has not yet been used for STS or sociological research. The identification of intersections occurred as part of a larger project to analyze political-economic and epistemic changes within STS, focusing on academic publishing. These epistemic changes were identified qualitatively, through 76 interviews with STS scholars, and quantitatively, through a computational analysis of three decades of STS journals (1990–2019). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution to the symposium focuses on those facets of Martin Bulmer's work that sought to analyse the role of race and ethnicity in the development of sociological research. It highlights, in particular, his continuing interest through much of his scholarship with the work of the Chicago School and of key figures within it in the development of both conceptual and empirical research agendas in this field. This interest was intimately linked to his long-standing curiosity about the origins of sociological research and the links between sociology and social and public policy. The paper also explores Bulmer's engagement with questions about race and ethnicity. It also highlights his contribution to the development of the journal Ethnic and Racial Studies as a key forum for the publication of empirical and theoretical research on race and ethnic issues, linking the contributions of diverse national scholarly traditions together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds to a vital international tradition of discussing the history of sociological theory by empirically investigating its structure, dynamics, and relationships. Our primary contribution to this tradition is to bring to the conversation a greater level of comparative and historical scope, a more systematic quantitative methodology, and a degree of reflexivity and synthesis. To do so, we examine some 670 editions of sociological-theory books geared toward students, published in English, German, and French between 1950 and 2020. Our empirical analysis highlights patterns, trends, and relationships among the theorists featured in these books, the narratives and approaches that define their visions of sociological theory, and the characteristics of the authors who wrote them. Our findings reveal some key intellectual as well as sociological factors associated with the changing composition of the canon. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this article is to provide some guidance and inspiration for the teaching of the classics in sociology by taking a close look at the way in which Robert K. Merton taught this topic at Columbia University. The course was entitled "History of Sociological Theory (Sociology 150)" and was given between 1958 and 1968. With the help of archival material, the article reconstructs what Merton said during his lectures, which texts he assigned, what kind of tests he gave, and what type of paper the students should write. Merton did not want the students to only study the texts of the classics but also try to figure out how these went about their research and were able to formulate their theories. This meant that he emphasized how the classics approached such activities as problem-finding, problem-solving and looking for strategic research sites. In the concluding section, the broad approach to theory in Merton's teaching is contrasted to the more narrow one he presented in Social Theory and Social Structure. Positive and negative aspects of Merton's approach to the classics are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of TESAM Academy Journal is the property of Tesam Academy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Classical sociology has long served as a locus for the discipline's self-understanding, and is a phenomenon increasingly studied in its own right. The growing literature is synthesised in Peter Baehr's renowned framework for scrutinising reception and formation processes. By theorising on the trajectories of multiple classics, Baehr has helped pave the way for sociology's understanding of how classicality becomes established. This paper deploys this framework in order to appraise neglected work with classicality potential in early sociology, namely the bulky production of Sweden's main candidate for a classic, Gustaf F. Steffen (1864–1929), with special attention given to his magnum opus Sociology: A general theory of society (1910–1911). The analysis exposes some of the conceptual ambiguity in Baehr's framework, while proposing that both the notion of a 'classic' and the sole focus on reception and formation need to be expanded. This article also argues that our understanding of classicality could be advanced if we were to distinguish between author, text, and theory, since each of these plays different roles in reception, formation, and neglection processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Socioloski Pregled is the property of Srpsko Sociolosko Drustvo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Through a detailed analysis of Alexander Szalai's career as a major transsystemic academic entrepreneur in the Kádár era, this paper has been written to discern and assess how such activities impacted the ways in which science and scholarship worked at both sides of the systemic divide (the "Iron Curtain"). The single most important finding is the emergence of transsystemic spaces (fields), the undoing of national and systemic boundaries. These transsystemic configurations tended to provide social (formal and informal) frameworks within which reputations are generated and distributed, reputational hierarchies are established and reproduced. For scholars in the East such transsystemic spaces brought with them a great deal of good news: they could mean increased freedom and/or an unbiased assessment and genuine acknowledgement for what one has accomplished. Transsystemic fields brought with them a whole array of new (kinds of) opportunities. Acting as a nod of networks that generated transsystemic spaces could yield increased reputation and power at home. As all structures in the social world, however, transsystemic spaces could enable as well as constrain, they could propel you to the skies and might also crush you. As any other resources constituting social capital in academia, the space spanning along transsystemic networks of scholars and scientists could also be weaponized for the wrong purposes: they could enable impostors to acquire a status and reputation way over and above the person's actual accomplishments, due to imperfect information available in foreign environments. Time would, of course, always show who they really are – but before that happens, they could bring havoc upon their field back home by distorted reputational hierarchies, by skewed distribution of competitive power between rivaling intellectual tendencies or "schools" and, eventually, by "paradigmatic" streamlining and contra-selection. This is, in a nutshell, what the story of A. Szalai shows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In January 2024, Florida’s Board of Education eliminated the sociology course, ‘Principles of Sociology’ as one of its core requirements for obtaining a general social science education in its college and university system. Florida’s Commissioner of Education, Manny Diaz, led the charge, claiming that sociology has been ‘hijacked by left wing activists’ and is a purveyor of ‘woke ideology’. Some within the profession would agree with Diaz, and certainly, many university administrators would as well. Of course, there are varying representations of sociology, and what Diaz and others are targeting is critical sociology and its commitment to the interrogation of power. However, these political dynamics are not new. The history of critical sociology has reflected a similar pattern that it is being played out currently. The ebbs and flows of critical sociology’s place within the discipline, the state and profession’s suppression of it, its resurgence linked to external social and political forces, and its precarious existence within the university have been true of critical sociology since its origins. This paper offers a historical context for better understanding the current attack on the field of sociology and raises the question, what should critical sociologists do about it? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of GENDER: Zeitschrift für Geschlecht, Kultur und Gesellschaft is the property of Verlag Barbara Budrich GmbH and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the teaching of the introductory course in sociology. The first section sets the context of the teaching of introductory sociology in American higher education. The second turns to an examination of the written materials of introductory sociology: the textbooks used in the vast majority of these courses. Their widespread use provides a window into how introductory sociology has evolved over time. These texts also provide a view of what certain stakeholders—publishers and a select group of authors—have taken as central for beginners to master. The third section considers the scholarship on teaching and learning (SOTL) literature in sociology, which has produced research on current pedagogical practices and on strategies, techniques, ideas, and solutions to problems that contemporary introductory instructors face. A short conclusion offers a reflection on the implications of these issues for the future of teaching in the discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the circulation of knowledge in sociology through a case study based on the transnational exchanges between North-American sociologist Irving L. Horowitz and Latin American sociologists and intellectuals in the sixties. We explore his letters with three figures who played pivotal roles in the institutionalization of sociology in Latin America: Gino Germani, an Italian born sociologist who became a pioneer figure for establishing scientific sociology in Argentina; the Mexican sociologist Pablo González Casanova, who performed a similar role in his country; and Arnaldo Orfila Reynal, a prestigious editor in the region, who headed two of the most powerful publishing houses in the Latin American market for the social sciences and humanities in the 1960s and 1970s - Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE) and Siglo XXI. We argue that while these exchanges happened under unequal conditions produced by the structural inequalities of the global system of knowledge production that emerged after World War II, the works of Latin American intellectuals were relevant for Horowitz's project of critical sociology for two main reasons: they provided intellectual sources for radical theorization on development and modernization, and they represented strategic assets for Horowitz present himself as a mediator between Third World problems and North-American audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debates about the state of Australian sociology have raged for as long as sociology has existed in Australia. Concerns about the discipline's future may be inevitable for a critical, reflexive discipline, but to those entering the discipline, it is neither instructive nor productive to be subjected to lingering disciplinary anxieties. After more than fifty years, it is time to take stock of the differing visions of sociology, and examine the arguments about the health, or otherwise, of Australian sociology. To advance this debate, we consider the signs and benchmarks of a 'successful' sociology as expressed in The Australian Sociological Association magazine, NEXUS, and key writings from Australian sociologists. We suggest that much of the disagreement over the status of sociology derives from the way 'disciplines' and 'success' are defined. Regarding sociology to be an heterogeneous, multi-modal, social institution and practice, we propose a way forward in our efforts to represent ourselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the peripheral position and future of historical consciousness in sociology. While many sociologists consider meta-historical research to be purposeless and self-indulgent, I argue that preserving the historical imagination can improve sociology by fostering disciplinary coherence, avoiding intellectual regurgitation, and understanding the previous intellectual battles out of which current scientific discourse came. Despite these advantages, meta-historical knowledge is severely undervalued in contemporary sociology and, as I demonstrate by presenting data from both the American Sociological Association (ASA) and department websites, such knowledge will likely continue to dissipate more than it already has. Some scholars have taken note of the current lack of historical curiosity in sociology, though this observation has only been grounded in impression. For this reason, this article provides this impression with an empirical basis, and presents indicative support for the expectation that historical consciousness will further deteriorate in sociology's future. This unpromising future for the history of sociology has received little attention in recent discourse, though this article gives reason for sociologists to deliberate over the potential consequences that would come along with the continued withering of historical consciousness. Disciplinary implications concerning the death of the historical imagination are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of Hungarian sociology in the state-socialist period can certainly be described in terms of a general Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) historical model, the most important feature of which is the undivided power of the Communist Party. Under such conditions, the Soviet Union and local political power holders had a direct influence on the institutionalization and functioning of sciences, including sociology. The study contributes to understanding the social impact of the 1956 revolution, particularly its crushing effect on the development of Hungarian sociology in relation to the general model. Firstly, the early development of sociology in the Soviet Union and most state-socialist countries in the 1950s was blocked in Hungary by the 1956 revolution. The trauma of the 1956 revolution made all groups of society, including the intelligentsia, realize that the system could not be changed in the long term. At the same time, it made it clear to the political authorities that the system could not be maintained in the long run with methods of the past. As a result, Kádár's consolidation relied heavily on a compromising intelligentsia, needed for its expertise (in this case, modern sociological expertise) and legitimizing the system. Consequently, sociology in Hungary started developing and became institutionalized in the early 1960s. In this situation, sociology represented both a critical point of view opposing the system and, at the same time, a tool of its - covert or overt - legitimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This text outlines the journey and achievements of the Gusti Cooperative, a research group with deep roots in the work of Professor Zoltán Rostás in the field of oral history. Established in the early 2000s, the Cooperative emerged from Rostás's initiative to offer an alternative and complementary history of the Sociological School of Bucharest. Comprising Rostás, his Ph.D. students, and a network of friends, the Cooperative primarily focuses on social history and the history of Romanian sociology. Their work revolves around oral history interviews, documentation, and the publication of otherwise inaccessible documents from the interwar period. Despite maintaining an informal status and lacking a conventional organizational structure, the Cooperative has made significant contributions to the field of Romanian sociological research over the past two decades. Their most notable work involves the retrieval and publication of forgotten pages from the history of Romanian sociology, including anthologies, correspondences, and unpublished documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research is intended as an in-depth study of the contexts favouring the development of organizational and scientific cooperation practices, as well as of the contexts favouring the emergence of organizational competition and conflict practices within the Gustian School. I will follow how the respective practices emerged and consolidated within the abovementioned sociological school. I will also discuss the organizational climate and how internal conflicts were managed in the school. Using this approach, I intend to explore and elaborate upon the directions already inaugurated by Zoltán Rostás in his research on the organizational development of the Gustian School. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Michels' legacy is subject to innumerable interpretations and seemingly endless controversies specially in present times witnessing his rediscovery. The scientific starting point of this article is Michels' Essay 'Intorno al problema dei rapporti tra economia e politica' which was published in his book on 'Problemi di Sociologia Applicata' in 1919. Our approach emphasize the innovative and evolutionary aspects of Michels' thinking on the determinants of historical becoming. Michels argues critically that all expressions of human activity cannot be exclusively determined by extrinsic motivations and economic factors, but can also be equally influenced by intrinsic motivations and cultural factors. This has implications not only on the changes to be made to the historical method, but also on the criticism to be made to the neoclassical notion of economic science and to the elaboration of a wider notion of sociological science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociedade e Estado is the property of Sociedade e Estado and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Martin Bulmer made distinguished and groundbreaking contributions to the history of sociology, particularly in his classic study of the Chicago School, which spanned the era of personal memory and archival history. His work particularly emphasized empirical research, which led him to problems relating to the Laura Spelman Rockefeller fund and its leader, Beardsley Ruml, as well as to the problematic of the relation of sociology to the social survey movement. His work on funding led to the "Fisher-Bulmer" debate, over the aims of the fund, which Bulmer regarded as primarily scientific and concerned with the improvement of research, rather than political. In later years the idea of history of sociology as reparations for the neglect or exclusion of women and minority scholars was a source of controversy, which Bulmer responded to with a defence of traditional historiographic values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the development of the sociology of culture in Czechia. Its focus is on the sociology of the arts and cultural sociology, which, it is argued, are connected through the notion of the relative autonomy of cultural structures. While the Czech sociology of culture may have been rendered less dynamic by the lack of a critical mass of sociologists specialising in this area and by the country's frequent political upheavals and its isolation from the international circulation of ideas, it has experienced moments of considerable vitality. Three periods in the development of the field are identified here, each of them marked by a movement toward a stronger and more sociologically adequate conceptualisation of cultural autonomy: (1) from the diffuse culturalism of the field's founding figures to the functionalist theory of the interwar sociologist Inocenc Arnošt Bláha, whose view of the relationship between art and society was influenced by the work of the Prague School of Structuralism; (2) from the cultural reductionism of Marxist-Leninist theory after 1948 to the eclectic sociology of culture and the arts of the late socialist period; (3) from the demise of this transitional form of a sociology of culture in the 1990s to the increasingly internationalised but also heterogeneous landscape of the 2010s, which is constituted by a semi-institutionalised centre of cultural sociology at Brno and small groups or individuals in Prague and other academic locales. The thread of continuity in an otherwise discontinuous historical development is found in the recurrent motif of the relative autonomy of culture which the Czech sociology of culture absorbed through its exposure to art and literary theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert King Merton's early sociology of science is significant for the understating of modern sociology. The relationship between unplanned consequences and developments in science and technology is fundamental for a definition of the contemporary picture of social action developments. Theoretical interests link to the working-in-progress formulations. Empirical development emerges from these perspectives. The significance of the theoretical progression encapsulated in the American sociologist's doctoral dissertation is astounding (1938). The theory-research connection is equally significant when placed in relation to the scholarly output of the 1950s. In addition, the questions posed by Merton apply in the 1970s and 1990s sociology. They are fertile with interesting answers even today, which is a dramatically disturbed time due to the technological progress. This progress raises new ethical, political, and social questions about the future of humanity. Other sources of disorder derive from the ecological crisis that leads to a rethinking of the man-environment relationship. Merton does not address this topic. The twentieth-century totalitarianisms that have survived into the twenty-first century embed dangerously within the scientific technological development (e.g. the China case). The development of new medical-biological theories and practices impose new questions about the value attributed to life. This is of particular relevance today due to the global and devastating Covid 19 pandemic crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to rewrite the genealogy of sociology of death by revisiting the history of sociology, from the 1830s to the early twentieth century. Providing an overview of sociological studies of death that consolidated into a subfield in the 1990s, it shows how recent attempts at including intersectional and decolonial approaches link with considerations of death in sociology's early history. Engaging sociological thinkers Harriet Martineau, Émile Durkheim, Ida B. Wells, and W.E.B. Du Bois, the article seeks to provide an alternate genealogy of the sociology of death and to make a case for mainstreaming the study of death within the discipline. It shows that questions of suicide and Black death were a significant part of these scholars' writings and that attention to loss and mourning shaped emergent understandings of the social, sociological frameworks, and methodologies. This view supplements efforts toward encouraging intersectional and geopolitical approaches to the study of death in sociology, approaches that are more needed than ever before to contend with the scale of loss and suffering that is filling lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite being foundational for the origins of modern sociology, religion as a topic of inquiry and the sociology of religion as a subdiscipline have long remained relatively marginalized in the sociological field. Losing sight of sociology's profound initial engagement with religion, or a one-sided understanding of it as indifferent or unsympathetic towards the subject, may have contributed to this phenomenon. This article revisits early sociologists' and the larger family of social philosophers' involvement with religion to offer a more nuanced history. It argues that the religious question was crucial for the development of sociological thinking in three interrelated dimensions: epistemological, normative, and empirical. Epistemologically, social theorists questioned whether the scientific study of society was reconcilable with the premises of faith. Normatively, they were directly or indirectly involved with the question of whether religion should continue to exist and in what forms. Empirically, the main interest was how religion was changing via modernization, or whether it would survive it, which prompted methodological innovations and became the core of the secularization debate. Focusing on key social thinkers from the Enlightenment to the classics of the long nineteenth century, the article discusses the significance of the engagement with religion and secularity for the consolidation of sociology in these three dimensions, as well as its ongoing relevance for the discipline's future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present a history of Sociology in Nigeria, within the context of intellectual imperialism and the problems of the colonial library. The development of the discipline in Nigeria took place with a great deal of dependence on Western intellectual and financial resources, which led to what some critics have termed the "captive mind." This is an intellectual posture whereby Western theory is uncritically embraced, while concepts developed internally are harshly judged or ignored. After reviewing these challenges, we turn to consider some of the most promising and innovative contributions to emerge from within Nigerian sociology, providing for "endogenous theory" that has much to offer a wider global sociological dialogue. We note that such theories can take root from pre-colonial indigenous sources, as well as finding inspiration in the current post-colonial realities that mark these times. Building on these cases, we follow Adesina's call for a "sociology beyond despair," arguing for the intellectual and moral imperative of building theories inside of Nigeria and outside of the mold of Western assumptions, while still using and contributing productively to global sociology. To help build on this worthy goal, we consider delimiting the role of Western theories rather than eliminating them, while utilizing the rich potential of "abductive analysis" as a route to furthering endogenous sociological knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]