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Historians of sociology have long recognized the Protestant ambience within which the discipline emerged in the United States. Autobiographies elicited by L. L. Bernard in the 1920s and 1930s provide insight into the impact of this background on early American sociologists. In addition to confirming the importance of mainstream Protestantism, the autobiographies reveal a multitude of identity strategies adopted by those who came to call themselves sociologists. In negotiating the relation of religious and secular spheres, some abandoned religion en route to a sociological career. Others became sociologists of religion, separated value-laden (religious) aspects of their lives from value-neutral (sociological) endeavors, created a sociologically informed mode of Protestantism, or molded a Protestant sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a compliment to several other publications that present and honor Rolf Huisgen's research achievements, the first part of this paper reveals the human side of this eminent chemist. From excerpts from many of his personal and professional writings, Huisgen's personality and philosophies of life are revealed. Also revealed is Huisgen functioning as a historian of chemistry. The second part of this paper examines the scientometrics of Huisgen's publication history. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Huisgen's career experienced a major transition in terms of publication metrics and the influence these papers had on the organic chemistry community. This was the result of his research into 1,3‐dipolar cycloadditions. Citations to his scientific contributions are well spread over many of his papers, demonstrating his constant work and the building up of a research topic, which continued after his official retirement in 1988. In fact, 17 % of his more than 600 publications appeared after 1988. The majority of Huisgen's papers were co‐authored with his many graduate and postdoctoral students. Consistent with the trend of that era, Huisgen was the sole author of most of his Review articles, and not just those of his many plenary lectures, and it is those Review articles that proved to be his most cited publications. This demonstrates the power and influence of Review articles—secondary sources, in the vocabulary of historians and sociologists of science. In those Review articles, Huisgen principally described the state of the art of 1,3‐dipolar cycloadditions—his golden offspring. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I focus on two thinkers who I contend can be read as Du Boisian sociologists: Franklin Frazier and John Gibbs St. Clair Drake. I argue that both Frazier and Drake are often (mis)represented as being ethnographic sociologists of racism in the American inner city who owe their intellectual training and lineage to the Chicago School. By contrast, I argue that Frazier and Drake, while interested in race in the American inner city, both viewed American racism as only one piece in a global jigsaw puzzle; both advocated for comparative and historical sociologies of race and empire which would highlight—to quote Frazier (1973, 339)—that although racism “in the United States has many unique features, it is […] a phase of a world process.” Excavating this world process, to both Frazier and Drake, necessarily entailed studying the global color line beyond its expression only in the United States. Frazier and Drake ought to be read, therefore, primarily as Du Boisian sociologists, not simply as parochial ethnographers of the inner city. The data for this paper come from the Du Bois, Frazier, and Drake papers housed in archives at the University of Massachusetts‐Amherst, Howard University, and the Schomburg Centre. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excerpted from my book Generally Speaking, this paper introduces "concept‐driven sociology," a special way of theorizing designed to reveal abstract social patterns. As such, it examines the methodological process by which we can "distill" generic patterns from the culturally, historically, and situationally specific contexts in which we encounter them. It thus champions a "generic sociology" that is pronouncedly transcontextual (transcultural, transhistorical, transsituational, and translevel) in its scope. In order to uncover generic, transcontextual social patterns, we need to collect our data in a wide range of social contexts. Such contextual diversity is manifested multi‐culturally, multihistorically, multisituationally, as well as at multiple levels of social aggregation. True to its message, the book illustrates generic social patterns by drawing on numerous examples from diverse cultural contexts and historical periods and a wide range of diverse social domains, as well as by disregarding scale. Emphasizing cross‐contextual commonality, concept‐driven sociology tries to reveal formal "parallels" across seemingly disparate contexts. The paper features the four main types of cross‐contextual analogies concept‐driven sociologists tend to use—cross‐cultural, cross‐historical, cross‐domain, as well as cross‐level—disregarding conventionally noted substantive differences in order to note conventionally disregarded formal equivalences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article comments on the position papers in the June 1967 issue of Rural Sociology. The author asserts that the papers are a mark of growing maturity of the rural sociology profession. It took years before the state universities and colleges assumed the dominant role of that they have achieved in the development of rural sociology. Contributions of the early sociologists to the applied field are presented to emphasize their historical value.

Rural sociologists are concerned about the present status, the crucial issues, and the future of their group. In 1963, the Committee on the Development of Rural Sociology developed a preliminary list of major issues facing rural sociologists. With the approval of the Council, the members of the committee decided to prepare a set of working papers on some of these major issue areas. These papers would attempt to define more clearly the assumptions, dimensions, and issues, to present different points of view, and to suggest alternative definitions or positions and their probable consequences. Thus, it was hoped that the working papers would provide a structure from which more effective discussion would develop.

Sociologists have long been interested in the meaning workers derive from their jobs. The issue has garnered increasing academic and policy attention in recent years with the concept of "meaningful work," yet little is known about how social stratification relates to access to it. This paper addresses this issue by exploring how the meaningfulness of jobs—as rated by their incumbents—is stratified across classes and occupations in a national survey of 14,000 working adults in the United Kingdom. It finds modest differentials between classes, with those in routine and manual occupations reporting the lowest levels of meaningfulness and those in managerial and professional occupations and small employers and own account workers reporting the highest levels. Detailed job attributes (e.g., job complexity and development opportunities) explain much of the differences in meaningfulness between classes and occupations, and much of the overall variance in meaningfulness. The main exception is the specific case of how useful workers perceive their jobs to be for society: A handful of occupations relating to health, social care, and protective services which cut across classes stand out from all other occupations. The paper concludes that the modest stratification between classes and occupations in meaningful work is largely due to disparities in underlying job complexity and development opportunities. The extent to which these aspects of work can be improved, and so meaningfulness, especially in routine and manual occupations, is an open, yet urgent, question. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The discipline is at a crossroads. Will sociology answer ASA past president Aldon Morris' call for an emancipatory sociology? Or will sociology, as Morris puts it, "continue pretending to be an aloof, objective, detached science"? Recently, Hirschman and Garbes issued a call for an economic sociology of race, wherein they contend that race and racism are not central to economic sociology and that economic sociologists don't engage with contemporary race scholarship. In this paper, I assess and build upon their call. I argue that while the article importantly calls for understanding race and racism in economic sociology, in practice, it—used here as an example of a broader pattern within economic sociology—re‐centers whiteness and men, reifies elitism, and erases marginalized scholars and their contributions. I set forth an alternative perspective. To rise to the Du Boisian challenge, scholars need to critique racialized modernity as Itzigsohn and Brown importantly argue. We must also root our sociological consciousness, citation practices, and conversations in existing, yet marginalized, research. Failure to do so means future research risks reproducing inequities in the discipline and continuing to marginalize the very people, theories, and research that an emancipatory sociology is meant to address. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the author's comments on the works of sociologist Robert F. Winch regarding permanence and change in the American family. The author suggests that there may be two significant aspects of a network of extended kin in a nuclear family. One is the literality of kin contacts and other is the presence or absence of formal kin groupings.

This paper presents an invitation to feminist and queer sociology to engage more frequently, enthusiastically, and deeply with animals. Feminist and queer sociology that attend to animals and animality stand to develop better knowledge for animals and animal studies and for women, queers, and feminist and queer sociology. Sociologists working from feminist and queer perspectives are also particularly well‐positioned within the discipline of sociology to contribute to and take advantage of the insights of the field of feminist animal studies. After a brief review of what feminist animal studies is, I proceed through three steps to elaborate the imperative for feminist and queer sociology to consider animals. First, I show how feminist animal studies as a theoretical perspective engages with issues that are core to feminist and queer sociology. Second, I center intersectional feminism and lay out how incorporating species can and does enhance our understanding of intersectional processes. Third, I present an ethical call, grounded in the traditions of feminist ethics and ecofeminism, to attend to species in feminist and queer sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists tend to see G. H. Mead's conceptualization of self as fundamentally correct. In this paper, we develop a critique of Mead's notion of the self as constituted through social interactions. Our focus will be on Mead's categorial distinction between the socially constructed self and subjective experience, as well as on the tendency of post‐Meadian sociologists to push Mead's position in ever more radical directions. Drawing inspiration from a multifaceted understanding of selfhood that can be found in Husserlian phenomenology, we then propose that the most basic level of selfhood is anchored in irreducible subjective experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes why child film star series produced by major French production companies (Pathé, Gaumont, Eclectic, and Éclair) in the early 1900s (Bébé, Bout‐de‐Zan, Willy, and the Maria Fromet series) were received with such interest by global audiences. This period, prior to World War I, was a brief era when French cinema held significant hegemony worldwide, before Hollywood's dominance began. There are ideas suggesting that child film stars emerged with American cinema. Contrary to this, however, French producers competed fiercely in the 10 years following 1906, producing series featuring child film stars. Substantial budgets were allocated for the marketing of these series, ultimately gaining a considerable fan base not only in Europe but also in America. When examining these film stars from the early 20th century within their historical context, they emerge as the first international child stars with international fame and financial success, unlike child musicians, vaudeville artists, and theater actors from the 18th and 19th centuries. Inspired by the field analysis of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this article aims to establish a connection between the struggles within the field and the symbolic needs of the audience as reflected in the content of child star films. The films were viewed at the Eye Film Museum archive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The trajectory of the academic discipline of sociology is an attestation to the quest for civility and sociability. We believe that the promise of public sociology will rejuvenate scholars to commit to better engagement with one another and with the public. We situate and draw from the scholarly contributions of Michael Burawoy to reflect on sociology's longstanding critical imagination, hoping that the world could be different. We place ourselves on the continuum of what is and what ought to be for better lived experiences and a sustainable planet. We draw from the work of sociologists in India, which continues to guide us to amplify the voices of the unheard and the issues of public concern. To be inclusive, sustainable, democratic, and humane, we need to move beyond structurally ingrained processes within academia and make bridges that are open to all. The deliberation furthered in this paper will encourage young scholars to be more concerned for engaging multiple publics and, thereby, help the discipline of sociology itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to Nick Gane's "Against a descriptive turn". I argue that descriptive research strategies are more open and inclusive than those which purport to be causal where explanatory adequacy is assessed by expert insiders. I also show how open descriptive strategies can assist a wider explanatory purpose when these are conceived in non‐positivist ways. I argue that epochalist sociology lacks an adequate temporal ontology because it collapses descriptive specificity back into overarching epoch descriptions. Finally, I argue that if the entire range of publications associated with the Great British Class Survey are considered, that it has demonstrated a productive way of recognising the significance of class which has facilitated major research advances in its wake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the Chicago sociologist William F. Ogburn's (1886–1959) views about technological unemployment, which were intimately connected to his analysis of the social impacts of technological developments and resulting social problems due to cultural lag. We trace the development of his views as seen through his well‐known 1922 book, Social Change with Respect to Culture and Original Nature, his important contributions to the President's Research Committee on Social Trends (1933), and his lesser‐known pamphlets designed for a broader audience—Living with Machines (1933), You and Machines (1934), and Machines and Tomorrow's World (1938). He used these pamphlets to educate the public about the dangers of new machines and technological unemployment. In doing so, he drew upon sociological analysis in his professional scholarly writings and his long‐standing personal interests in social betterment and social reform. Our analysis also calls into question the adequacy of existing scholarship on Ogburn that has emphasized his commitment to a statistical, dispassionate, and "objectivist" approach to social science research. We call for a revised, richer, and more complex view of Ogburn's work and legacy as one of the nation's leading social scientists during the first half of the 20th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociology has long been interested in innovating solutions to social problems. However, this desire has also been a source of controversy as it can conflict with the discipline's ambition also to be recognized as a hard science. This paper critically reviews sociological contributions to the study of social innovation. It first contextualizes these contributions by discussing the origins of sociology's interest in transforming society, the growing tension between that interest and sociology's other aspiration to create objective knowledge about the social world, and how more sociologists have relocated to business schools where most research on social innovation is now being conducted. Next, it summarizes sociologists' contributions, which emphasize how social innovation is organized by institutions, networks, social movements, and organizations themselves. It then discusses criticisms of this work and responses to these critiques. It concludes by asking whether sociologists' research on social innovation has advanced their discipline's dual mission of reforming and explaining society and what additional studies are needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents discussion by various sociologists during the fourth working session of the First World Congress for Rural Sociology held in Dijon, France. Sociologist Antonio M. Arce from Costa Rica briefly commented on Pakistani sociologist A.M. Khan's paper entitled "Impact of changes in agriculture on political life in Asia". These comments refer to three different aspects of the paper and are expected to stimulate discussions from the audience. The paper tries to analyse the dynamic relationship between agricultural development efforts and political ferment in Asia and how this interdependence relates to the residues of Western colonialism and the emergence of Russian and Chinese communism. Another sociologist R. Bičanič from Yugoslavia discussed about the interference of politics in sociology. He also discussed the point dealing with the revival of rural sociology in socialist countries, particularly Poland, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. The rural exodus linked with accelerated industrialization has become so intense that agriculture is threatened with a depleted labour force, and this leads to a policy of income parity with industrial workers for agricultural producers also which may have wider political implications.

The paper ethnographically explores the cultural embedding of atomistic indifference in online, global financial markets: arenas that have been digitally designed according to economic ideals and that demand an extreme form of relational and social dissociation from the partners to exchange and from those affected by the transactions. Its case‐study is lay financial‐trading in Israel, a country undergoing extensive neoliberalization. The study shows that dissociation is embedded in an economic culture marked by constant, multi‐sited declarations that economic‐Others are cold, uncaring and manipulative. It takes shape as traders convert the distrust towards Others into distrust towards portions of the Self that represent links to these Others, namely their own social‐psychology and social concern. Acting atomistically and selfishly in the market thus entails considerable reflexive work. The paper contributes to an ongoing debate on the moral and cultural embeddedness of markets in general and of the expanding financial markets in particular. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on an analysis of qualitative interview data from a study of formalized same‐sex relationships (civil partnerships) this paper examines the enduring significance of marriage and family as social institutions. In doing so, it intervenes in current debates in the sociology of family and personal life about how such institutions are undermined by reflexivity or bolstered by convention. Against the backdrop of dominating sociological frames for understanding the links between the changing nature of marriage and family and same‐sex relationship recognition, the paper analyses the diverse and overlapping ways (including the simple, relational, strategic, ambivalent and critical ways) in which same‐sex partners reflexively constructed and engaged with marriage and family conventions. My analysis suggests that instead of viewing reflexivity and convention as mutually undermining, as some sociologists of family and personal life do, it is insightful to explore how diverse forms of reflexivity and convention interact in everyday life to reconfigure the social institutions of marriage and family, but do not undermine them as such. I argue the case for recognizing the ways in which 'reflexive convention', or reflexive investment in convention, contributes to the continuing significance of marriage and family as social institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analytical concept of accounts has long presented sociologists with an excellent tool for the study of talk. Nonetheless, studies of accounts often neglect the fact that cooperation is common when an account for untoward behavior is constructed. Many studies tend to flatten the process of how accounts are created by routinely describing them as being “offered” by offenders and then “evaluated” by reproachers. We assume that accounts are often negotiated between parties as a means of avoiding conflict and preserving a relationship. As such, this paper develops the concept of cooperative accounts that are offered to (or projected upon) offenders as a means of explaining their untoward behavior. While also examining hostile accounts, this paper concentrates on developing the cooperative account in order to investigate more fully Scott and Lyman's (1968) argument that accounts are crucial for managing conflict and maintaining social order. Because offering cooperative accounts to others is a routine social interaction their examination provides an opportunity to reanchor the study of accounts back into the symbolic interactionist tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the Fifth World Congress of Sociology organised by the International Sociological Association (ISA), at the Shoreham Hotel, Washington D.C., during 2-8 September, 1962, under the auspices of UNESCO and in collaboration with the American Sociological Association. The meetings brought together 1,030 participants from fifty one countries. Three main themes dealt with were, sociologists, policy-makers and the public, the sociology of development, the nature and problems of sociological theory. Many of the 240 invited contributions and the main papers presented to the plenary sessions are being published in the periodical "Transactions," volumes I and II of which have already appeared. Volumes III and IV will be published during the spring of 1963 and will contain reports on the discussions, a representative selection of the shorter papers and a list of the participants. Grants from the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Science Foundation and the Social Science Research Council enabled the ISA to pay the travel expenses of most of the principal contributors and to offer free charter flight tickets to 80 young research workers from twenty countries.

This paper re-visits and re-appraises Freidson's restratification thesis. His thesis was proposed in the mid-1980s to counter the idea of de-professionalisation, suggesting professional elites can retain collective interests in a more bureaucratic and marketised workplace. Contemporary research highlights the growth of professional-managerial hybrids, and the blurring of professional and organisational boundaries. Within this context, the restratification thesis offers a relevant sociological lens for understanding the emergence and implications of these hybrid elite roles. Research tends to support the broad descriptive aspect of the thesis, but there remains much debate about its explanatory accuracy. The paper reviews Freidson's thesis and develops three areas of theoretical debate and elaboration related to questions of elite power, culture and identity, and relational contingency, with particular reference to the experiences of the medical profession. The paper re-interprets hybrid elite roles in terms of their points of 'professional-organisational intersection' from which it develops a tentative extension of Freidson's categorisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sudden emergence of the discipline 'neuroethics' is an intriguing event from the perspective of the sociologies of medicine, science and bioethics. Despite calls for greater social science engagement with neuroethics, it has so far received little attention. So that sociologists might consider how to engage with the field, and in order to simultaneously contribute towards a sociology of neuroethics, this paper explores neuroethics' disciplinary identity via a critical analysis of literature defining neuroethics' scope and role. Drawing on the sociologies of bioethics and expectations, I argue that in setting the neuroethical agenda, neuroethicists construct expectations about the future of neuroscience. In doing so, they align themselves with neuroscience, rather than maintaining a critical distance. Similar critiques have been made of bioethics, but in its efforts to distinguish itself from bioethics, neuroethics appears to exacerbate many of the attributes which sociologists have found problematic. This reinforces the need for critical social science perspectives to inform neuroethics, and also shows how neuroethics is potentially an interesting area of empirical study for sociology. However, the paper concludes by calling for critical reflexivity in sociology's engagement with neuroethics, in light of recent debates surrounding the relationship between social science, bioethics, bioscience and expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic complexity of the social phenomena that characterize 'globalization' accentuates a divisive public discourse with strong arguments for and against the globalization process and its effects. To help unearth the dynamic processes underlying globalization, this paper makes three contributions. First, it shows the recursive relations among technology, institutional structures, beliefs and social behaviour, which sociologist Giddens has posited on globalization. It incorporates not only favourable conditions, such as the development of telecommunications and global economic integration, but also political transformations and transnational corporation growth. Second, selected Giddens' globalization concerns about unemployment and welfare outline the components of a system dynamics modelling example. The model analysis reveals the dynamic complexity of the phenomenon and, most importantly, it shows how welfare-support can fail in the long run. Third, the paper calls for a wider adoption of dynamic simulation modelling in the analysis of the globalization process and its effects. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Robert Fine was among the most original social theorists in Britain of the past 30 years, and the aim of this paper is to offer a first systematic assessment of his intellectual contribution. There are sound intellectual reasons to explore Fine's scholarship. He maintained a problematic relation with mainstream sociology and, against the reduction of sociology to questions of method, culture, or class, he argued that sociologists must continue to ask difficult normative questions as part of the social world they ought to explain. And there are also pressing political concerns that justify a reconsideration of his writings. Global politics is currently marked by a populist wave that decries the very ideas and values that were central to Fine's social theory: the need to uphold the rule of law at home and abroad, the politics of cosmopolitan solidarity, and the significance of antisemitism and its relationships with different forms of authoritarian politics. My main argument is that there is a dialectics of universality that drives forward Fine's intellectual project. By this, I mean that a universalistic idea of humanity—an all‐inclusive conception of all human beings—is the most important normative intuition of modern times. This idea of humanity moves forward in history through a dual process of emancipation and domination: successful forms of social, legal, and political inclusion help make visible previous dynamics of exclusion but may also create or recreate discriminatory practices. Building on the work of French historian Michael Löwy on heterodox Jewish thinkers, I explain the three main tenets of Fine's work: (a) his reconstruction of critical social theory; (b) the notion of cosmopolitan solidarity; and (c) the significance and main features of modern antisemitism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the 2005 Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) Presidential Address, which focuses on how social scientists should practice the study of religion as a community of scholars. The SSSR was founded to promote the study of religions while maintaining high academic, professional, and ethical standards and ensure members employ the scientific method during the investigation. The group employs research strategies that include surveys and observation of religious practices.

The article presents information on the December 1, 1975 issue of the periodical "Rural Sociology." This issue of "Rural Sociology" follows the tradition of the December 1965 issue. A cumulative index for the 10 years 1966 through 1975 has been added as a separate supplement. The updating work was guided by earlier efforts of authors Sheldon Lowry and Nancy Hammond. An explication of procedures and contents is contained in the "Guide to Usage" section of the present index. A word is in order here about the regular issue of the journal. All of the papers were invited. The RSS presidential address is, of course, the usual open invitation to comment on whatever the retiring officer sees fit to his or her views and interests. President Harold Capener has examined the organizational context for application of scientific knowledge. His concern is to set out some guidelines to improve the chances of success for applied social sciences like rural sociology. Capener's remarks provide a fitting introduction to the rest of the issue. His observations help to remind the reader of the historical events and organizational handicaps within which the discipline operates. As he notes, that context is not unrelated to performance of tasks by the rural sociologist-the burden of the other three papers.

As a participant in the development of mathematical sociology over the past several decades, the author undertakes a personal and historical review of the field. A special effort is made to link early innovations and interests to recent developments. The paper deals successively with (a) the origins of mathematical sociology and its early achievements, (b) the cognitive interests and values of mathematical sociologists in relation to ideas associated with the founders of sociology, (c) the scope of mathematical contributions in terms of the general components of human action and society, and (d) the problematic specialty status of mathematical sociology. The paper concludes with some thoughts on the future of mathematical sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article responds to sociologist Andy Pickering's comments, partly because of the inherent intellectual stimulation of exchanging ideas with such a distinguished colleague, but partly also because of the need for much greater interchange between the two fields, the sociology of environment and technology, on the one hand and the sociology of science on the other. Pickering's comments raise three important points about the analysis of Iron Mountain, Michigan. First, he praises what he calls papers symmetry in noting the importance of physical⁄environmental as well as social factors in understanding social outcomes. Second, he argues that people have not taken this point far enough, in large part because, he believes, the social is not sufficiently at stake in papers. Third, he argues that a fruitful antidote would be to trace the evolution of actual practices, in detail, over time.

The article presents author's reply to sociologist John Lovering comments on the paper on flexible production organization and regional development. Lovering does not dispute the internal logic of the analysis of the relationship between market uncertainty and vertical disintegration. He merely asserts that firms are complex phenomena and might respond in ways different from those that author proposed depending on context and that the author's analysis is of necessity closed to these alternative possibilities. The claim that wider social and political influences are banished from author's analysis by ceteris paribus assumptions is incorrect. Lovering criticizes the work for its presumed insensitivity to the contingencies of real empirical outcomes.

The article comments on R.E. Pahl's paper on the adequacy of theory in urban and regional research. The paper displays all the characteristics usually associated with that particular mode of argumentation. Sweeping charges are leveled against targets who are never clearly identified. All of the substantive propositions are asserted rather than demonstrated. Many of his detailed allegations are actually open to empirical test although most of the evidence known contradicts Pahl's conclusions. His account of class analysis is alternately misleading and fanciful. And finally, the paper is impenetrably vague about what, if anything, provides a more satisfactory alternative.

The article presents information about a view from Eastern Europe on the International Sociological Association Cooperation that was organized from September 26-30, 1989 in Moscow. This was an important and unusual conference, held at a significant place and time. The conference seemed to have several levels-which nowadays is true of all conferences-but in Moscow, Autumn 1989, this feeling was unusually strong. Traditional academic sessions focusing on papers and discussions were penetrated by processes of the perestroika itself, expressed in informal talks with Russian sociologists, as well as with members of political clubs, planners, architects, workers in new research institutions and new co-operatives. Quietness was not a feature of this conference and the usual tension caused by the large number of papers and lack of time was sharpened by an awareness of the urgency and seriousness of the problems facing Russian society. Some of these problems were expressed in the opening speeches of three representatives of Russian sociology and will be mentioned briefly below. The author had the impression that all three speakers were explicitly trying to establish keynote themes for the whole conference.

This paper reports the findings of an exploratory study on astrology and its constituency. To date, there have been few sociological studies of astrology, and little is known about what types of people are interested in the practice. This study's focus was on adherents of astrology who attended an astrology conference. Unlike previous research, the findings of this study show that the characteristics of these astrologers reflect those of the general population, providing a new understanding of a segment of astrology's constituency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last thirty years, it has regularly been asserted that the incidence of anorexia nervosa is increasing. The paper examines the background of this idea, traces its origins, and analyses the process whereby it became widely accepted within the medical and sociological literature. The study is based upon a citation list of all the epidemiological studies of anorexia nervosa with publication dates between 1960 and the end of 1990, which has been used to identify the most important publications on the prevalence and incidence of the disease. Scrutiny of the content of these key publications has allowed us to follow the emergence, and then the partial break-up, of a broad consensus - involving clinical psychiatrists and psychoanalysts, as well as medical sociologists and historians around the assertion that anorexia nervosa was increasing in incidence. In the course of this historical reconstruction, four distinctive patterns of citation behaviour were revealed. The paper also examines the changing nature of the explanation offered for the putative rise in the numbers of sufferers and suggests reasons why such a perspective upon the disease was widely supported by clinicians and by a variety of other commentators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information about the Fifth Symposium of the International Association of French-speaking Sociologists held in Quebec, Canada from September 29 to October 4, 1964 is presented. The symposium, chaired by Georges Gurvitch, initially tackled the social classes in Africa and the inequalities that the people in the region experienced. Another paper discussed about the social categories in Arab countries before the popularization of Marxist ideas.

Editor's Introduction It gives me particular pleasure to publish this review of a major but neglected figure in the recent history of symbolic interactionism. I only heard Jack Douglas speak once, when he gave a plenary address to the British Sociological Association annual conference in Lancaster in the mid-1980s. The audience treated him quite disgracefully on that occasion. Douglas made two subtle points about the need for sociologists to take contemporary research in primate ethology more seriously and to reconsider spontaneous order theories in social science. His listeners assumed that he was talking about the crasser forms of sociobiology and praising the laissez-faire ideologies of Thatcherism, and booed him off the stage. I declined to renew my membership to the BSA for about ten years after this episode. I only rejoined when I became a department chair and it was important to be engaged with the professional association, whatever my personal views. John Johnson's paper reminds us of Douglas's important and challenging legacy of ideas, and of the support and inspiration that he gave to a whole generation of outstanding scholars. Robert Dingwall Jack Douglas published 26 books and many articles between 1967 and 1989, and by his intellectual charisma influenced a productive cohort of young scholars who have produced over 70 books and 700 articles and chapters since the 1970s. He combined phenomenology, existentialism, and naturalistic field work to create an approach he termed Existential Sociology, also the title of a 1977 anthology. His thinking has undergone significant changes during the course of a long intellectual career. Following his 1992 retirement, the development of the internet and new technologies of communication afforded Jack a 'second life' with a transdisciplinary intellectual community outside of the university environment. This paper briefly summarizes a small part of his life and intellectual project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conferences play a pivotal role in the production and circulation of knowledge and in shaping and establishing academic and professional disciplines. As collective events, they facilitate intense moments of interaction where scientific and medical knowledge can be observed in the making. This paper calls attention to conferences as fascinating sites for sociologists of science, technology and medicine. By bringing together authors who look at conferences from different areas within the social sciences and using a variety of data gathering methods, this paper provides a comprehensive introduction to the field of conference studies and hopes to inspire greater reflection about the nature of conferences and their potential within research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the autobiography of the sociologist Jan Szczepanski on the tribulations of a Polish sociologist. He started to study philosophy and sociology in 1932 at the University of Poznan, Poland, under Florian Znaniecki. He received the M.A. degree on the basis of a paper on the semantics of Husserl, and the Ph.D. degree on the basis of a dissertation entitled "The Idea of the Milieu in Rural Sociology," written under the direction of Professor Znaniecki in 1939. Both these works, prepared for printing in 1939, were lost during the war and have never been published, only several articles appearing at that time. He brought with him from his home an interest in rural sociology. His father possessed a small farm in the mountain locality of Ustron in Silesia. Work on this farm was therefore his first experience of any social importance. Sociology in Poland was quickly reconstructed. During the first post-war years the author wrote two textbooks, "Development of the Methods of Sociology" and "History of Social Thought in the Nineteenth Century." However, after the turn towards Stalinism, the publication of the manuscripts proved impossible. Instead he published many papers, and wrote in the weeklies, taking part directly in political discussions and polemics.

Research on communities often fails to meet two important criteria which permit valid generalizations from the findings. First, studies generally fail to apply the scientific comparative approach and the techniques of multivariate analysis in their design and execution. Second, theory fails to distinguish between properties of communities and properties which are properly classified in other systems. Sociologists who study communities do not share a precise definition of community, nor do they agree how observations about community phenomena are to be incorporated into sociological theory. The discussion that follows will be facilitated, however, if one can make reasonably clear the sense in which this paper deals with the sociological study of community. Community is viewed in this paper as a territorial system. The more comprehensive territorial definitions of community view it as a form of social or ecological organization arising from the fact that people share a common area for their daily activities.

Rural sociologists, for a long time now, have doubted whether their discipline really existed. In the developed countries, the agricultural population has shrunk, so that nowadays it may account for as little as 4 percent of the total gainfully employed population; it has also gradually become more difficult, and even impossible, to put one's finger on the differences between rural and urban. These changes have affected rural sociologists in various ways. Some have left the field altogether. Others have turned their attention to new problems that occur in the countryside, problems that are mostly related to the uses made of open space and natural resources. They have specialized in the sociology of recreation, the sociology of environmental problems, or in regional planning. According to the author, the discipline has not only lost the wholeness it may once have had, but also that the specializations themselves are often marked by the lack of a holistic outlook. It is as if rural sociologists have lost sight of the fact that, whatever phenomenon they study, it is embedded in a context as wide as a total society, and even wider.

The article focuses on the author's comment on sociologists Kingsley Davis and Wilbert E. Moore's paper "Some Principles of Stratification." According to the author, the paper offers some important point but that the argument they advance is contradictory in certain of its implications and therefore defective. The source of the difficulty is to be found in one of the premises of their argument. To state it most simply, the premise asserts, "people desire rewards." This assertion is incontestable, but it is not adequately qualified in their argument. The author shows in the first part of this article how their argument, containing this premise, leads to contradictory implications. Then, in the second part of this article, the author attempts to provide qualifications which he believes will allow Davis and Moore's argument to avoid contradictions and thus give it greater force.

The article focuses on the sociology in and of China. In the general history of social sciences it is assumed that the marriage between sociology and anthropology comes late, having been preceded by a long courtship. China does not fit this pattern. Almost as soon as social sciences were established there anthropology and sociology were intertwined, to be disentangled in a strange way when Communists arrived. To avoid a tedious recitation of evidence just one witness is called upon, a scholar whose later career in the U.S. makes his testimony underline the Chinese paradox. Writing in China in 1944 Francis L.K. Hsu has said in this paper that the word sociology is used synonymously with the term social anthropology. It is customary to date the beginning of sociology in China by the publication of Yen Fu's translation of two chapters of "The Study of Sociology" in 1898. Later a few original works were produced in Chinese and courses of instruction were introduced in universities, it was not until about the 1920s that sociological investigations of any great weight began to be made.

Understanding how economic transactions are constitutive in the development, maintenance, and solidification of relationships has been of particular importance for economic sociologists in recent years. Following the work of Viviana Zelizer, economic sociologists have expanded from a purely network-based approach of analyzing economic action to consider how and in what ways relations shape economic life. This paper provides a review of Zelizer's relational view of economic activity and presents an extension to the theory. While scholars have successfully applied 'relational work' to many areas of economic life, this paper asks whether one can use the theory to examine economic interactions between human and non-human agents. The example of tithing in the Prosperity Gospel tradition is used in order to expand relational work to this realm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In past work, Habermas has claimed that justice and solidarity stand in a complementary relationship—that ‘ethical’ relations of solidarity are the ‘reverse side’ of justice. Yet in a recent address to the World Congress of Philosophy, he rejects this idea. This paper argues against this rejection. After explaining the idea, arguing for its centrality to Habermas' thought, and evaluating Habermas' scant reflections on this major transformation, I argue that his rejection of the idea is a result of a newfound skepticism about the power of secular reason, and should thus be understood in terms of his corresponding turn to religious traditions as alternative sources of solidarity. I argue against this ‘religious turn’ by developing an alternative advocated by Habermas himself in earlier reflections—attention to real sociopolitical movements. In particular, I analyze feminist and black liberation movements to demonstrate that Habermas' pessimism about secular sources of justice‐producing solidarity is unwarranted, and that, while ‘postsecular’ sources may provide one avenue for actionable solidarity, they are not the only one. I conclude by identifying a conceptual commonality in these two alternatives: an inclusive conception of what it means to be human. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Cortisol is a stress hormone that is reactive to social stress and thus should be of use to sociologists interested in understanding specific processes related to the broad category of 'threats to the social self'. In this paper I use cortisol as a case study to explore the utility of biomarkers for elucidating the relationship between the social environment and human biology. I focus on cortisol because it is a stress hormone that reacts in particular to social stress, and therefore could be of special interest to sociologists. I first discuss the relationship between the social environment and cortisol response. Then I briefly review sociological literature that uses cortisol as a measure. Finally, I provide an overview of how to use cortisol in research projects. This overview addresses some of the basic questions that are typically asked by social scientists who are considering taking cortisol measures in their own work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For well over a century, sociologists have directed considerable attention to understanding and explaining the processes that produce social solidarity - the feeling of interpersonal connectedness that binds members of society together. Despite the centrality of solidarity to sociological thought, many sociologists remain unaware of the biosocial processes and mechanisms that create and sustain it. We espouse a biosociological viewpoint, which illuminates solidarity as a complex and fascinating interplay between biological and social elements. In this paper we discuss three important advances within the field of neuroscience that point to exciting new avenues of research for sociologists: (i) the discovery of mirror neurons, (ii) developments in the understanding of brain plasticity, and (iii) increased appreciation of the role of non-conscious processes in social interaction. Additionally, we discuss ongoing basic and applied research to demonstrate how sociologists can capitalize on recent scientific developments to advance their own research agendas. VIDEO ABSTRACT - [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the life and academic accomplishments of the largely internationally unknown but foremost innovative and leading sociologist of Japan considered as the 'unknown master' of Japanese sociology, Tamito Yoshida. (i) Emphasizing originality and creativity, Yoshida's success was free from the existing sociological frameworks and he liberated theoretical study from the yoke of historical perspectives that had long governed Japanese theoretical sociology. (ii) Yoshida's uniform scientific approach that used the keywords of information, selection, and variation based on evolutionist ideas was consistent throughout his life from proposing the 'design of information science' in his mid-thirties to proposing the concept of 'program sciences' in his later years. (iii) One of Yoshida's major sociological contributions was in identifying the close relationship between subjectivity and the structure of possession. (iv) Yoshida's 'A Historical Perspective on the Forces and Relations of Production' is an original and critical re-creation of the Marxist possession theory located within his own theoretical framework, and is an excellent critique of the central arguments of Marxism. It successfully illustrates Yoshida's superlative critical and creative skills of theoretical dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]