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The article focuses on the overlooked significance of friendship in the lives of intellectuals, emphasizing its role in shaping their careers and intellectual accomplishments. It delves into the multi-dimensional nature of friendships, not solely based on emotional connections but also on how friendships evolve across different life phases and contribute to personal and intellectual development.

The article presents the discussion on hyper-partisanship reinforced by vanity, narcissism, and careerism. Topics include realizing some goals from long social democratic and socialist struggles, though emphatically as compromises; and fascism showing reaction to disruption, financialization, new inequalities, and depressions thrusting citizens into poverty.

The article presents the discussion on confrontations and clashes as sociologists confronting the conservatism or sometimes irrelevance of existing approaches. Topics include fallen behind in interdisciplinary competition for funding, student enrollments, and policy influence; and enrollments in sociology peaked near the crisis of 1973–1975 ushering in tighter job markets, the ascendancy of economics, and neoliberalism.

Labor in mature capitalism was different from craft work just before capitalism or during the transition to capitalism. In short, our resources for thinking about postcapitalism come in significant part from the aspects of life under capitalism that are not fully controlled by capitalism, not fully subsumed into the categories of capitalism. Third, the historical specificity of capitalism helps us understand not only the distinction of labor as value production from work outside capitalism but also the relationship of capitalism to finance. It may be that capitalism is a totality in the sense that the elements of capitalism must all be explained and understood in relation to capitalism and not to what is outside capitalism. [Extracted from the article]

The article offers the author's insights on Brexit or referendum of Great Britain for leaving the European Union (EU). Topics discussed include the Brexit was manifested a vote against English nationalism and multiculturalism, the vote was grounded with nostalgia wherein the Brexit campaign was nearly negative and devoid of plans for the future, and the divisions between white majority and racial minorities.

An introduction to the journal is presented wherein the guest editors discusses various reports published in the issue including how residents in the slums of Mumbai, India aim to remake their community under their own terms, how power dynamics can be overturned and the role of informal actors in public life.

The article discusses the significance of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement, also known as the Occupy movement, of the early 21st century. The author examines several aspects of the OWS movement including its relationship to international mobilization efforts following the 2008 financial crisis, the response to the OWS movement by police authorities and mass media, and the notion that the OWS movement was the first social movement to focus solely on the financial structure of the economy. The article also discusses the OWS movement's ability to promote itself yet simultaneously limit itself from access to potential supporters. The author also discusses observations concerning the OWS movement made by sociologist Todd Gitlin.

The article discusses the issues related to universities seeking to build international relations and work on a global scale, focusing on the Libyan Revolution of 2011 and several social scientists who were involved with Libyan higher education initiatives. It comments on late Libyan ruler Muammar Gaddafi's politics, his attempts to improve relations with Western nations through improve diplomatic cooperation, and the distinction between public social science and public relations.

The article announces that social scientist and professor Charles Tilly was awarded the the Albert O. Hirschman Prize by the Social Science Research Council. An overview of Tilly's professional career is also presented.

In this article I ask (1) whether the ways in which the early bourgeois public sphere was structured--precisely by exclusion--are instructive for considering its later development, (2) how a consideration of the social foundations of public life calls into question abstract formulations of it as an escape from social determination into a realm of discursive reason, (3) to what extent "counterpublics" may offer useful accommodations to failures of larger public spheres without necessarily becoming completely attractive alternatives, and (4) to what extent considering the organization of the public sphere as a field might prove helpful in analyzing differentiated publics, rather than thinking of them simply as parallel but each based on discrete conditions. These considerations are informed by an account of the way that the public sphere developed as a concrete ideal and an object of struggle in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work of Ulrich Beck has been important in bringing sociological attention to the ways issues of risk are embedded in contemporary globalization, in developing a theory of 'reflexive modernization', and in calling for social science to transcend 'methodological nationalism'. In recent studies, he and his colleagues help to correct for the Western bias of many accounts of cosmopolitanism and reflexive modernization, and seek to distinguish normative goals from empirical analysis. In this paper I argue that further clarification of this latter distinction is needed but hard to reach within a framework that still embeds the normative account in the idea that empirical change has a clear direction. Similar issues beset the presentation of diverse patterns in recent history as all variants of 'second modernity'. Lastly, I note that ironically, given the declared 'methodological cosmopolitanism' of the authors, the empirical studies here all focus on national cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article the author examines aspects of academic freedom and the central public mission in the university. The central focus of the article is on the freedom of scholars from censorship or from attempts to exert a degree of control over their researches. In addition, the article examines the role of the university functioning as an institution that commits to the freedom of inquiry. Among other issues the article examines the late 19th and early 20th century reorganization of the university.

An essay discusses the idea of academic freedom as it pertains to the structural transformation of the modern university and shifting perceptions of the value of public knowledge, intellectual discovery, and freedom of expression. The history of the New School for Social Research is used to trace the need to be vigilant against the various means of intellectual repression and the undermining of democracy. Individual academic freedoms and the public mission of modern universities are analyzed.

The article presents a speech by Craig Calhoun, political research from New York University, delivered at the London School of Economics and Political Science on April 16, 2008, in which he discussed cosmopolitanism, nationalism, and the views of social anthropologist Ernest Gellner.

An essay is presented on different cultural definitions of cosmopolitanism. The author explores the popular culture's definition in tandem with the academic definition. He contends that cosmopolitanism can be an abstract equivalence of all human beings and a class consciousness of frequent travelers. Other topics include the cosmopolitan cocktail, multiculturalism, consumerism, and cultural taste.

The article looks at developments in the complex relations among media, power and resistance in China. It compares social activism in China with the Cultural Revolution and the student movement in 1989. The article focuses on the repertoires of contention, the forms of organization and the relationship of media to state power.

The article presents an essay on the relationship between nationalism and the culture of democracy. The author states that the nationalism is a distinctive form of solidarity. The author argued that nationalism as a form of solidarity has been the most effective and successful response to the challenges of integration posed by modernity. He develops the argument through demonstrating how democracy plays an important role in nation-state's integrative work. It is concluded that the cultures of democracy varied in different aspects.

The article discusses the influence of experiences in Algeria on the contributions Pierre Bourdieu made to the field of sociology. Bourdieu's theory of practice and his thougts on economy and neoliberalism are also discussed. It is stated that Bourdieu also researched on rapid changes those were taking place in agricultural practices, and studied exchanges between urban and rural centers.

The article discusses the need for serious internal debate and social science research into the structural changes affecting higher learning institutions in the United States. Jennifer Washburn's book "University, Inc." discusses corruption of the values of many universities due to efforts to conform to standards created by corporate capitalism since the 1970s and the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, which was designed to encourage more patenting of products funded by federally financed academic research. Because of the capitalist approach of many universities, tuition costs have risen in a way that prohibits economically disadvantaged individuals from receiving higher education.

This article examines how privatization impacts a host of areas in the United States. The author asserts that the early twenty-first century has seen a concerted effort to limit public protections and to privatize risk. The author also discusses the effect of rolling back the public provision of public goods, and of restructuring public communications on the basis of private property rights rather than any broader conception of communicative rights. In addition, the author reveals that the state funding for some of America's greatest public universities has decreased to as low as eight percent of their costs.

This article comments on Michael Burawoy's article "For Public Sociology," in volume 56, issue number 2, of the "British Journal of Sociology." The author has some criticism with Burawoy's call for public sociology but only over conceptual categories and matters of tactics. He is in accord with the broad purposes. Burawoy's call for more public sociology is important and timely. Some differences in approach are urged but like all sociologists seeking at once the ever-greater intellectual vitality for the field and a richer public life informed by sociology, the author is in his debt.

The article focuses on the issues involving constitutional patriotism and public sphere in the integration of Europe. The author stressed that constitutional patriotism depends on a vital public sphere which made possible that European collective identity might be achieved without an effective and democratic European public sphere. He argued that the idea of constitution is deepened by attending to the question of what kind of socil imaginary underpins the creation of institutions and the organization of solidarity. Moreover, the author suggested that the importance of the public shpere lies not only in achieving agreement on legal forms and political identity, but in achieving social solidarity as such.

Interventions into "complex humanitarian emergencies" have become a central part of global society. This article provides an account of the construction of "emergencies" in terms of a social imaginary that gives characteristic form to both perception and action. This imaginary shapes the definition and rhetoric of emergencies, the ways in which they are produced and recognized, and the organization of intervention. It reflects both anxiety in the face of risk and a pervasive modern faith in capacity to manage problems. Though the events demanding these interventions—for example, in Sudan—are often presented as transparently compelling, the "social imaginary of emergencies" conceptually structures this system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gerhard Lenski wrote books on religion, stratification and social evolution. The literature is concernedwith the social organization and implications of inequality. "The Religious Factor" is about family life, politics, the relation of religion to science. Likewise, "Power and Privilege" suggests the importance of technology. "Human Societies" has roots in both the empirical, data-driven approach and the concern for an overall explanation of inequality. Lenski demonstrated that there need not always be a forced choice between breadth, depth, creativity and scholarly persistence.

Examines the political theory of cosmopolitanism. Social struggles against neoliberal capitalism; Basis for democracy; Ideals of global civil society.

Reports on the life and works of French-born sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. Birth in 1930 in the Pyrenees; Education background; Military service in Algeria; Foundation of Bourdieu's theories; Motivations for Bourdieu's sociology of the scientific and university fields; Bourdieu's approach to sociology; Titles of books written; Awards received; Honors accorded to Bourdieu at his death.

Discusses the concept of globalization in the context of social solidarity. Information on the idea of cosmopolitanism and constitutional patriotism; Conception of public discourse of as a form of social solidarity; Forms of social solidarity.

Discussion of political and legal citizenship requires attention to social solidarity, Current approaches to citizenship, however, tend to proceed on abstract bases, neglecting this sociological dimension, This is partly because a tacit understanding of what constitutes a 'society' has been developed through implicit reliance on the idea of 'nation', Issues of social belonging are addressed more directly in communitarian and multiculturalist discourses, Too often, however, different modes of solidarity and participation are confused, Scale is often neglected, The model of 'nation' again prefigures the ways in which membership and difference are constructed, The present paper suggests the value of maintaining a distinction among relational networks, cultural or legal categories, and discursive publics, The first constitute community in a sense quite different from either of the second and third, Categories, however, are increasingly prominent in largescale social life, But the idea of the public is crucial to conceptualizing democratic participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the influences of the Cultural Revolution on the 1989 Democracy Movement in China. Transformation of the significance of the ideas of democracy and political authority; Impact of Cultural Revolution on Chinese intellectuals; Details of the discourse of corruption.

The article examines historian E. P. Thompson's legacy to social history by reviewing some of the studies that he pursued for the last thirty years of his life. Arguably the most important founder of the new social history, he was a transformative influence on and an inspiration for two generations of historians. His work held up to changing fashions, making sense as much to readers who grew up with the new cultural history of the late 1980s and 1990s as to those more concerned with labor and social organization twenty years before. Thompson helped to offer Marxism with a human face to a New Left anxious to break out of the orthodoxies.

The article emphasizes on need for rigorous understanding of community. Relationships built with the aid of electronic technology are expected to do more to foster categorical identities than do dense, multiplex, and systematic networks of relationships. The article also argues that an emphasis on community needs to be complemented by more direct attention to the social bases of discursive politics. The article refers to challenge to those, exploring the social implications of computer networks to do so with a bit more rigorous understanding of community and its relationship to other possible modes of social integration; to suggest some reasons why the indirect relationships forged with the aid of electronic technology may do more to foster categorical identities than the dense, multiplex, and systematic webs of relationships that the term network would lead one to expect; and to argue that an emphasis on community by itself can be seriously misleading about both social solidarity generally and the political implications of electronic communication in particular, and needs to be complemented by more direct attention to the social bases of discursive publics that engage people across lines of basic difference in collective identities.

The article presents a contextual analysis of the book Communities of Discourse by Robert Wuthnow. The revival of historical sociology in the last twenty years has focused on class, state, revolution and political mobilization, family and demography. New attention to cultural factors--a central part of earlier historical sociology--is overdue. Wuthnow's book is a major effort to meet this need. It reflects also the rapid growth of the sociology of culture. Especially in the U.S., however, sociology of culture suffers from a strange disciplinary deformation. For some reason, many sociologists think they must repress the interpretation of meaning in order to be rigorous. Sociologists of culture, therefore, often try to study cultural phenomena without attention to the substance or content of culture. Wuthnow is no exception. Simply in terms of scale, Wuthnow's book is major achievement. It reveals a prodigious amount of scholarly labor, not only in amassing historical detail, but in thinking through an analytic scheme broad enough to encompass the diversity of three great movements of cultural production: Reformation, Enlightenment, and European socialism. Wuthnow's book also offers numerous insights into specific historical developments and more general relationships between ideology and social structure. It is, thus, not a book to be dismissed or disregarded.

This article focuses on the 1989 Tiananmen Square Protests, a series of student-led demonstrations that was held at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China from April to June 1989. Turmoil was the Chinese government's word for the six weeks between mid-April and early June, the label with which officials chose to brand the student protest movement. On April 27, columns of students pushed through the only slightly resisting ranks of police officers and into Tiananmen Square. Apparently the government would not make good its threats of harsh repression. The police barriers were spaced every few hundred yards, and each successive breakthrough drew greater cheers than the last, building the momentum of protest. Students were marching on Tiananmen Square as part of China's third substantial pro-democracy movement in a decade. This one had been touched off by the death of Hu Yaobang, who as premier had presided over the last in 1986-1987. His inability to contain it had cost him his job. Now he was transformed from somewhat liberal party leader to revered martyr. Mourning him provided a pretext for taking to the streets and putting forward renewed demands: rehabilitate Hu; end corruption; hold a serious dialogue between party leaders and students.

The article presents information on sociology. The sociology of knowledge has been surprisingly underrepresented in the recent boom of studies in the sociology of culture. Even when attention has turned to science, it has seldom drawn much on the classical tradition in the sociology of knowledge. This is a pity, partly because better use of the sociology of knowledge might have furthered the integration of sociology of culture with general sociological theory. The article will draw students into thinking about knowledge as culture and into asking some of the hard but important questions this entails. One set of such questions is today commonly discussed under the heading "reflexivity." To what extent and in what ways is knowledge dependent on or improved by knowers' understanding of the conditions of the production and dissemination of that knowledge? What obligations do theories and researchers have to turn their analytic lends back on themselves? What difference does it make that the social life we study is one already interpreted by its protagonists, and that what we say and write becomes part of that process of interpretation-potentially for everyone, not just for sociologists? The article seeks not only to show that knowledge is culture, but that because knowledge is culture the sociology of knowledge is not well practiced or understood as a demarcated sub-field of sociology. It is necessarily an interrogation of all the knowledge produced by sociologists and has developed in close relationship to the core traditions of classical sociological theory.

Neither nationalism nor ethnicity is vanishing as part of an obsolete traditional order, Both are part of a modern set of categorical identities invoked by elites and other participants in political and social struggles. These categorical identities also shape everyday life, offering both tools for grasping pre-existing homogeneity and difference and for constructing specific versions of such identities. While it is impossible to dissociate nationalism entirely from ethnicity, it is equally impossible to explain it simply as a continuation of ethnicity or a simple reflection of common history or language. Numerous dimensions of modem social and cultural change, notably state building (along with war and colonialism), individualism, and the integration of large-scale webs of indirect relationships also serve to make both nationalism and ethnicity salient Nationalism, in particular, remains the pre-eminent rhetoric for attempts to demarcate political communities, claim rights of self-determination and legitimate role by reference to "the people" of a country. Ethnic solidarities and identities are claimed most often where groups do not seek "national" autonomy but rather a recognition internal to or cross-cutting national or state boundaries. The possibility of a closer link to nationalism is seldom altogether absent from such ethnic claims, however, and the two sorts of categorical identities are often invoked in similar ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the British and French workers' movements during the mid-nineteenth century crises. Since France's revolution and the British Chartist movement, numerous writers have linked the progress of industrialization to radical politics. Marx, like some other contemporaries, tended to draw examples of political radicalism and socialism from the French Second Republic, and a model of capitalist industrialization from Great Britain. This was misleading, for the more industrial country was the less radical. The confusion did not necessarily originate with Marx and other radicals. French Legitimists--men of order--conceived popular agitation as both stemming from and producing disorder. The proportioned classes of both France and Britain had long seen the poorer sort as lacking in self-control, irrational, and in need of moral discipline. Underestimating the extent of organization it took to produce a food riot or political protest, they saw these as results of failures of order and discipline. It was but a short step from this long-standing view to the notion that industrialization brought a breakdown in the moral order, in which people's baser passions were set free to wreak havoc on respectable life.

Let me lay my cards on the table. My intention is to convince you 1) that sociology suffers from and fails to live up to its potential because of its disconnection from large parts of philosophy and interdisciplinary social and political theory, 2) that our aversion to moral discourse (in the name of science) has greatly impoverished our understandings of identity and human agency, and 3) that the recent work of Charles Taylor is perhaps the best starting point for recovering a strong and crucial understanding of the self as moral subject. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Three of the classic "founding fathers" of sociology (Comte, Marx and Tocquevile) were contemporary observers of the French Revolution of 1848. In addition, another important theoretical tradition was represented in contemporary observations of 1848 by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. The present paper summarizes aspects of the views of these theoretically minded observers, notes some points at which more recent historical research suggests revisions to these classical views, and poses three arguments: (1) The revolution of 1848 exerted a direct shaping influence on classical social theory through lessons (some now subject to revision) learned from observation of the revolutionary struggles. (2) The 1848 revolution influenced classical social theory indirectly by contributing to the submergence of the radical French revolutionary tradition (along with utopian socialism) after the defeat of the June insurrectionaries and Bonaparte's coup. (3) Both writers in the classical tradition and current researchers have failed to thematize adequately a basic transformation in effectiveness of national integration, communication and administration which made 1848 in crucial ways much more akin to 1789 than it was direct evidence for the growth of class struggle and the likelihood of further revolution in advanced capitalist countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faced with a minimally participatory democracy, a variety of populists have sought to revitalize popular political participation by strengthening local community mobilizations. Others have called for reliance on frequent referenda. Assessing the limits of these proposals requires theoretical attention to two key issues. The first is the growing importance of very large scale patterns of societal integration which depend on indirect social relationships achieved through communications media, markets and bureaucracies. This split of system world from lifeworld, in Habermas's terms, poses a challenge to democratic theories which assume that the lessons of local social life and political participation are directly translatable into the necessary knowledge for state level (let alone international) activity. Secondly, changes in patterns of community formation and communications media have transformed the basis for democracy. In particular, socio-spatial segmentation by life-style choice, market position and other factors limits direct relationships increasingly to similar individuals. Mass media become increasingly predominant sources of information about people different from oneself, and indirect social relationships form the structural basis for the social integration of most politics. The present paper revised and adapts Habermas's conceptualization of system world and lifeworld in order to address the transformation of patterns of societal integration. This forms the basis for a critical analysis of the implications of changing community form and especially communications media for populist political proposals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of communism, nationalism has regained prominence as a source of global tension and instability. These problems, and nationalism itself, are often dismissed as transitional difficulties rather than studied as basic to the modern world. This paper argues, to the contrary, that nationalism is produced by central features of the modem world, including the ongoing process of globalisation. Its centrality derives first of all from the need to identify the 'self implied by the notion of political self-determination. This ties nationalism to democracy. But nationalism is also shaped in problematic ways by modern individualism. Metaphorically, the nation is often treated as an individual. Nations are also commonly conceived of as categories of like individuals rather than as webs of social relationships. This places an emphasis on sameness which often makes nationalism an enemy of diversity. It also provides the basis for arguments that national identity should take precedence over other competing identities -- regional, familial, gender, interest-group, occupational, and so on. Nationalism is particularly potent and problematic where diverse institutions of civil society are lacking or fail to provide for a diversity of public discourses and collective identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Candian philosopher Charles Taylor's work on the recognization of human behavior for the development of culture. Topics include the role of secularization in society, Taylor's involvement with analytic philosophy, and romanticism, and issues in philosophy related to public engagements and personal reflection.

The article focuses on the role and significance of religion in social life and customs than in sociology. Though sociologists count beliefs and attendance, these social facts hardly shape sociological theory or analyses of other specific domains of social life. Sociologists have focused a good deal on the ways in which migration is transforming society of the U.S., for example, but only glanced at the impact it is having on religiosity and religious preference. The field of social movements offers a strong example of the general pattern of devaluation and neglect. Much of the most active participation in social movements and popular politics in recent decades has been driven by religious commitments and organized through religious associations. Sociological theory not only shares in the marginalization of religion as a topic of inquiry, it has helped to produce it. This is partly because classical sociologists made the question of secularization so basic to theorizing about religion. Of course, the point is not simply that religion matters for the rest of the world and not for the West.

Perhaps more than any other part of the discipline, sociological theory flourished in relation to the ideal of a "liberal" education in the arts and sciences. Max Weber's "Protestant Ethic" and other classics were taught to undergraduates not just as part of advanced theory courses but as part of first year "Western Civilization" courses. The decline in this mid-twentieth century canon began at a time when sociology majors were numerous, and was in fact supported by many sociologists concerned to see students learn more about non-Western traditions, women and people of color, and contemporary issues. Often, no new "foundation" sequence replaced the old one, and sociology simply competed with other fields as students took a range of courses purporting to introduce disciplines. The proliferation of these disciplinary introductions helped to fuel the rise of the contemporary survey textbook. Sociology, however, competed at some disadvantage partly because students were less likely to have been introduced to the field in high school and to arrive with either a particular desire to study sociology or much preparation.

The article presents the opinion of Craig Calhoun who is president of the Social Science Research Council and University Professor of Social Sciences at New York University, New York, New York (State), on the questions dealing with a constitutional crisis in the United States. The article further adds that U.S. President George W. Bush's administration has been more willing to sacrifice liberty than to provide security. Strengthening the coercive and surveillance powers of the state does not necessarily enhance security. For one thing, it makes citizens more vulnerable to abuses by government officials. Beyond this, massive use of computer assisted surveillance without serious legal safeguards makes citizens vulnerable to errors that are notoriously hard to correct, and to leaks and thefts of data that are notoriously hard to prevent.

Presents a foreword to the March 1999 issue of the journal "Sociological Theory."

The article focuses on sociology as a subject and its understanding. Among reasonably competent papers submitted to the journal of "Sociological Theory" perhaps the single most important and frequent critical question the author finds himself posing is "How does this paper help to understand social life better? The journal deserves sponsorship by the American Sociologists Association because it can and should speak to a broad constituency within sociology, because theory is important for all good sociological work. Potential contributors seem to think, however, that "general theory" in sociology consists mainly of commentaries on what other people have said. This is not to say that historical studies are not useful or that commentaries and reanalyzes cannot advance theory in important ways. Accepting sufferance on the basis of staying out of other sociologists' affairs is only one strategy for survival. And it is likely to secure no more than mere survival.