May 1999 1 Letter from the President, No
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Secretary Contents Christian Fleck From the Secretary ...................................................1 Letter from the President, No. 2............................... 2 Archive for the History of Sociology in Austria Department of Sociology Leo P. Chall Fellowship 1999 Winner ...................... 2 University of Graz Interim Conference, Torun 2000 .............................. 3 Universitätsstrasse 15 History of the social and behavioural A 8010 Graz sciences in the new International Encyclopedia....... 6 Austria Leo P. Chall Fellowship 2000 Announcement ..........7 phone: +43 316 380 3544 New Members...........................................................8 fax: +43 316 380 9515 Lost Members ...........................................................9 email: [email protected] Recent Publications by Members ...........................10 News and Notes .....................................................11 Directory of Members..............................................12 Membership Dues...................................................18 Executive Council From the Secretary Dirk Kaesler (Germany), President Our interim conference will be held at the Nicholas Copernicus University in Torun, Poland on June 1-4, Martin Bulmer (U.K.), Vice President 2000. The local organizer is Janusz Mucha and Donald Levine (USA), Vice President practical information will be given in a later newslet- Charles Crothers (South Africa) ter. Some of the session organisers have provided Sven Eliaeson (Sweden) outlines and a first call for papers is in this newslet- ter. To submit papers, or for further information, get Susan Hoecker-Drysdale (Canada) in touch with the listed people. Hans Joas (Germany) I'd like to invite everyone to send in their per- Hans-Peter Mueller (Germany, USA) sonal web site address for inclusion in a later edition Jill Niebrugge-Brantley (USA) of the directory of RCHS members. Dick Pels (Netherlands, U.K.) Regarding the membership dues everyone will find in the above right corner of his/her address la- Jennifer Platt (U.K.) bel the last year s/he has paid for. You can find In- Antoni Sulek (Poland) formation about the payment facilities on the last Luigi Tomasi (Italy, Cambodia) page of this newsletter. An easy to handle individual membership form for ISA is on the its website: http://www.ucm.es/info/isa/formisa.htm. RCHS – Newsletter, May 1999 1 Letter from the President, No. 2 There is a War in Europe going on, research in the area of the history of sociology in such situation. And to organise conferences and we deal with the History of Soci- about such themes as we do with this Newsletter. ology My answer has not changed, as you may imagine. If you could follow my ideas about the agenda for sociological intellectuals in the 21st by Dirk Kaesler century and therefore support my evaluation of the necessity of a sociological occupation with In my last letter I tried to give you my personal the history of sociology as being essential for the opinion of why we as sociologists deal with the preservation of the intellectual heritage of sociol- history of sociology, and why we should continue ogy you will agree that we have good reasons to to do so. When I wrote that the world-system is in continue what we have done. turmoil and in crisis none of us could imagine that Let us discuss this type of question in the some few months later this crisis turned into a heart of Europe, in Tartu. Not in a separate ses- War waged by some Western countries against sion, like "War as a theme in the history of sociol- the leadership of an European country. It may be ogy", although who ever feels qualified to do so that by the publication of this Newsletter the should step forward with organising such session, bombing and killing may be over, it may be that it but in all the sessions. I think and hope that we is still going on. have good answers. Such situation poses the question how we as sociologist, i.e. as those whose scholarly duty it is To communicate with me by Email: to observe, understand, foresee, and solve prob- [email protected] lems of their societies, justify to continue to do Neil Gross, 1999 Winner of the Leo P. Chall Disser- tation Fellowship in the History of Sociology ism, crisis theology, the cold war, psychoanalysis, RCHS's Nominating Committee (Professors Patricia [and] European modernism…” (Dickstein 1998:9). Lengermann, Cornell University, Vladimir Kultygin, Then, beginning in the 1970s, a renewed inter- Moscow and Dirk Kaesler, Marburg) nominated est in pragmatism developed. In philosophy, a num- three candidates out of eleven applicants and the ber of well-known analytic thinkers (e.g. Richard Board of Sociological Abstracts selected Neil Gross Rorty and Hilary Putnam) began to argue that ana- as the 1999 winner of the Leo P. Chall Dissertation lytic philosophy’s rejection of certain pragmatist Fellowship. Congratulations! Below Neil gives an ideas had been ill-considered. At the same time, the overview on his project. few philosophers who had remained committed to C.F. pragmatism during the years of its decline (e.g. Richard Bernstein and John E. Smith) found new appreciation for their work. A scholarly organization In the first decades of the twentieth century, Ameri- – the Society for the Advancement of American Phi- can pragmatism – the philosophical viewpoint de- losophy – was founded, in part to promote pragma- veloped by Charles Peirce, William James, and tist scholarship, and a number of philosophers John Dewey – was widely influential in American associated with the organization began to publish universities. Although it did not attain paradigmatic prolifically on pragmatist themes (e.g. Thomas Al- status in any academic field, pragmatism was de- exander, Vincent Colapietro, Charlene Haddock bated and discussed by prominent philosophers, Seigfried). The principal journal of pragmatism, the sociologists, economists, theologians, educational- Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, saw ists, and legal scholars, some of whom were deeply its pages swell with contributions, and The Journal affected by what the pragmatists had to say. of Speculative Philosophy, an American philosophi- cal review that had been discontinued in the 1890s, In the 1950s and 1960s, however, pragmatism was brought back to life to serve as a second outlet receded from the forefront of American intellectual for articles written in the spirit of what has been life. Analytic philosophy, which became the domi- called the “classical” tradition in American philoso- nant intellectual orientation in most American phi- phy (the pragmatists, George Santayana, Josiah losophy departments during the period, pushed Royce, etc.). pragmatism out of the philosophical mainstream. In other disciplines, pragmatism’s decline “was abetted But the resurgence of pragmatism has by no by a variety of new influences including existential- means been limited to the discipline of philosophy. 2 RCHS – Newsletter, May 1999 Recent decades have witnessed the publication of pragmatist movement began to crystallize. I then major studies of Peirce, James, and Dewey by intel- analyze the transcripts of interviews I have con- lectual historians (e.g. Joseph Brent, George Cotkin, ducted with pragmatist scholars (mostly philoso- James Kloppenberg, Robert Westbrook). Pragmatist phers, but also sociologists, intellectual historians, ideas have been incorporated into the social thought literary critics, and legal scholars – nearly 70 inter- of Jürgen Habermas, whose work has become views in all) in an effort to link the intellectual trajec- widely influential in the United States. Other social tories of individual pragmatists to this larger and political theorists (e.g. Hans Joas, Eugene Hal- structural context. ton, Robert Bellah, Charles Anderson, Marion I wish to express my gratitude to the Research Smiley, Timothy Kaufman-Osborn) have looked to Committee for the History of Sociology for their pragmatism for inspiration, as have literary critics willingness to support this endeavor. (e.g. Stanley Fish, Richard Poirier) and legal schol- References: ars (e.g. Richard Posner, Thomas Grey, Margaret Radin). Surveying this flurry of activity from the van- Dickstein, Morris. 1998. “Introduction: Pragmatism tage point of the mid 1990s, Kloppenberg Then and Now.” Pp. 1-18 in The Revival of Pragma- (1996:100-1) concludes that “pragmatism today is tism: New Essays on Social Thought, Law, and Cul- not only alive and well, it is ubiquitous. References ture, Morris Dickstein, ed. Durham: Duke University to pragmatism occur with dizzying frequency from Press. philosophy to social science, from the study of litera- Joas, Hans. 1997. G.H. Mead: A Contemporary Re- ture to that of ethnicity, from feminism to legal the- Examination of His Thought (Preface to the paper- ory.” back edition). Cambridge: The MIT Press. Kloppenberg, James. 1996. “Pragmatism: An Old What accounts for this renewal of interest in the Name for Some New Ways of Thinking.” Journal of pragmatists, a renewal that Joas (1997:vii) calls American History 83:100-38. “both unexpected and dramatic”? My dissertation at- tempts to answer this question by employing the Neil Gross ([email protected]) is a doctoral theoretical tools of the sociology of ideas – that branch of the sociology of knowledge that seeks to candidate in sociology at the University of Wiscon- understand the ideational practices of specialized sin-Madison. He is presently writing, with Charles knowledge producers.