This volume offers an unprecedented account of recent and future developments in the sociology of intellectuals. It presents a critical exchange between two leading contemporary social theorists, Patrick Baert and Simon Susen, advancing debates at the cutting edge of scholarship on the changing role of intellectuals in the increasingly interconnected societies of the twenty-first century. The discussion centres on Baert’s most recent contribution to this field of inquiry, The Existentialist Moment: The Rise of Sartre as a Public Intellectual (2015), demonstrating that it has opened up hitherto barely explored avenues for the sociological study of intellectuals. In addition, the authors provide an overview of various alternative approaches that are available for understanding the sociology of intellectuals – such as those of Pierre Bourdieu, Randall Collins, and Neil Gross. In doing so, they grapple with the question of the extent to which intellectuals can play a constructive role in influencing social and political developments in the modern era. This insightful volume will appeal to students and scholars of the humanities and social sciences, particularly to those interested in social theory and the history of intellectual thought.

The Sociology of Intellectual Life outlines a social theory of knowledge for the 21st century. With characteristic subtlety and verve, Steve Fuller deals directly with a world in which it is no longer taken for granted that universities and academics are the best places and people to embody the life of the mind. While Fuller defends academic privilege, he takes very seriously the historic divergences between academics and intellectuals, attending especially to the different features of knowledge production that they value. The boook′s features include: - an account of the problematic relationship between postmodernism and the university as an institution - the problems facing an academic who wishes also to function as an intellectual - a critical survey of the emerging fields of social epistemology and the sociology of philosophy - a discussion of the ethics and politics of public intellectual life, especially given its largely improvisational (or as Fuller himself terms it, ′bullshit′) character.

Zygmunt Bauman was both an outsider of Western modernity and one of its foremost interpreters. He was an exemplary figure in twentieth-century intellectual work on exile who experienced both Nazi and Soviet forms of totalitarianism. The first work to draw extensively on Bauman’s personal archive, Zygmunt Bauman and the West argues that the distinctive social thought that sprang from Bauman’s lived experiences of exile amounts to a sustained, sophisticated, and hitherto unappreciated problematization of Eurocentrism and the West. Through an overview of the intellectual’s thought and his contribution to sociology, Jack Palmer explores Bauman’s experience and interpretation of the West and seeks to understand his work in a broader context, outside of the Eurocentric environment from which it was born. Intervening in a resurgent sociology of intellectuals, Zygmunt Bauman and the West re-evaluates the place of the West in social and political thought.

How do intellectuals engage with and affect their publics? What is the role of the public intellectual in the new age of political uncertainties? What challenges face female intellectuals and those speaking from an ethnic, national or class position? This exciting collection responds to these questions by offering a broad-ranging account of the changing role of intellectuals in public life. The volume opens with provocative essays on the idea and role of the public intellectual from Alexander, Evans and Zulaika. Chapters from Rabinbach on intellectuals' responses to totalitarianism, Outhwaite on what it means to be a European intellectual, and Auer’s discussion of the dissident intellectual in the collapse of communism lead onto vigorous debate of earlier points discussed through specific intellectual case studies from Tocqueville to Hayek. Intellectuals and their Publics will attract a broad readership interested in the role of the intellectual, with particular appeal for sociologists, political theorists and historians of ideas.

"The exploration of the social conditions that facilitate or retard the search for scientific knowledge has been the major theme of Robert K. Merton's work for forty years. This collection of papers [is] a fascinating overview of this sustained inquiry. . . . There are very few other books in sociology . . . with such meticulous scholarship, or so elegant a style. This collection of papers is, and is likely to remain for a long time, one of the most important books in sociology."—Joseph Ben-David, New York Times Book Review "The novelty of the approach, the erudition and elegance, and the unusual breadth of vision make this volume one of the most important contributions to sociology in general and to the sociology of science in particular. . . . Merton's Sociology of Science is a magisterial summary of the field."—Yehuda Elkana, American Journal of Sociology "Merton's work provides a rich feast for any scientist concerned for a genuine understanding of his own professional self. And Merton's industry, integrity, and humility are permanent witnesses to that ethos which he has done so much to define and support."—J. R. Ravetz, American Scientist "The essays not only exhibit a diverse and penetrating analysis and a deal of historical and contemporary examples, with concrete numerical data, but also make genuinely good reading because of the wit, the liveliness and the rich learning with which Merton writes."—Philip Morrison, Scientific American "Merton's impact on sociology as a whole has been large, and his impact on the sociology of science has been so momentous that the title of the book is apt, because Merton's writings represent modern sociology of science more than any other single writer."—Richard McClintock, Contemporary Sociology

CSA Sociological Abstracts abstracts and indexes the international literature in sociology and related disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences. The database provides abstracts of journal articles and citations to book reviews drawn from over 1,800+ serials publications, and also provides abstracts of books, book chapters, dissertations, and conference papers.

This textbook explores the emergence of sociology as a distinct social science. Focusing on the evolution of social theories, movements and ideas through history, it analyses the dynamic relationship between the individual and the larger social forces around them. This volume examines the definitive aspects of societies, communities and social groups, and their intersections with culture, political and economic movements and religious institutions. It establishes the connections between sociology and other disciplines such as philosophy, history, political science, economics, psychology and anthropology to explore the interdependence between different realms of social life. The chapters in this book explain and highlight the significance of quantitative and qualitative methods of research in understanding the dynamics of social life. Drawing from the works of classical social theorists such as Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, this book traces the development of sociological perspectives and theories and their relevance in the history of ideas. Lucid and comprehensive, this textbook will be useful for undergraduate and postgraduate students of sociology, development studies, history of ideas, sociological thought, social theory, research methods, political science and anthropology.

This title was first published in 2001. This book tackles the important issue of the tasks that confront sociology in the third millennium. It examines the sociological interpretations of the World-Wide revolution which - amid unprecedented scientific and technological progress and the globalization of markets - has generated new inequalities, poverty, structural unemployment and mass conditionings. A number of the most distinguished living sociologists (including Boudon, Beck, Eisenstadt, Tiryakain, Wieviorka) furnish profound and innovative interpretations of changes in world society, while outlining the frontiers of sociological research for the 21st Century. The contributions to the book not only prompt reflection on the structure and organization of sociological research, but also revitalize sociological inquiry by conducting original and stimulating analysis of theoretical and methodological issues - an undertaking essential for the survival of the discipline itself.

A highly readable introduction to and overview of the postwar social sciences in the United States, The Americanization of Social Science explores a critical period in the evolution of American sociology’s professional identity from the late 1940s through the early 1960s. David Paul Haney contends that during this time leading sociologists encouraged a professional secession from public engagement in the name of establishing the discipline’s scientific integrity. According to Haney, influential practitioners encouraged a willful withdrawal from public sociology by separating their professional work from public life. He argues that this separation diminished sociologists’ capacity for conveying their findings to wider publics, especially given their ambivalence towards the mass media, as witnessed by the professional estrangement that scholars like David Riesman and C. Wright Mills experienced as their writing found receptive lay audiences. He argues further that this sense of professional insularity has inhibited sociology’s participation in the national discussion about social issues to the present day.