{"title":"Dark Times, Again: The Limits of Weber's Vocation Lectures, a Century Later: Charisma and Disenchantment: The Vocation Lectures, Max Weber","authors":"Paul a. Kottman","doi":"10.1353/sor.2022.0023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2022.0023","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This paper discusses Weber's Vocation Lectures, especially the issues of morality, politics, and science, in light of the spreading of disinformation in the COVID pandemic. As Weber is arguably our strongest advocate for the capacity of science and politics to supersede categories of moral meaning, it is useful to consider how categories of moral meaning—especially the category of evil—might be needed, in light of the fragility of science and politics. The essay suggests the limits and helpfulness of Weber's lectures for our present predicament.","PeriodicalId":21868,"journal":{"name":"Social Research: An International Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77193427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"My Life in Wonderland: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, Lewis Carroll","authors":"W. Doniger","doi":"10.1353/sor.2022.0017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2022.0017","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:The two Alice books (Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass) have, from my earliest childhood, supplied the metaphors, images, and phrases with which I have explained my life to myself. The themes of hallucinogenic mushrooms and dreams dreamt have inspired several of the books I have written. Alice's ambivalence about eating creatures with whom she has conversations has haunted my own guilty carnivoraciousness. The forest where things have no names eases my own encroaching lethologica and prosopagnosia. And all the gentle jokes about death comfort me as I approach the end of this particular dream.","PeriodicalId":21868,"journal":{"name":"Social Research: An International Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74624316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Endangered Scholars Worldwide","authors":"D. Bulut","doi":"10.1353/sor.2022.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2022.0013","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":21868,"journal":{"name":"Social Research: An International Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75399340","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"First, Connect: Michael Walzer's The Company of Critics: The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century, Michael Walzer","authors":"M. Kazin","doi":"10.1353/sor.2022.0022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2022.0022","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay offers measured appreciation of Walzer's book, The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitment in the Twentieth Century. Walzer argued only those who express solidarity with fellow citizens can persuade them to support a movement for a more equal society. Walzer developed his view through portraits of 11 writers who did much to shape the intellectual left in the West during the twentieth century. His \"connected criticism\" principle is a necessary but insufficient guide to the virtues and vices of modern left-wing thought. He conveyed it as a desirable tendency, not monistic doctrine, but neglected, occasionally, to delve into the political uses to which activists put the writers he analyzed.","PeriodicalId":21868,"journal":{"name":"Social Research: An International Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74236995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Robert Merton and the Sociology of Science: The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, Robert K. Merton","authors":"K. Prewitt","doi":"10.1353/sor.2022.0030","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2022.0030","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:In 1949, Robert Merton asked: \"Why did sociology document the problems and performance of the professional thief … but not the problems and performance of the professional social scientist?\" Unsuccessfully, he argued for a systematic study of the \"social science of social science.\" This essay, seven decades later, returns to Merton's question, now reframed as \"using science as evidence in public policy.\" Policy use is less robust than it can and should be. This would not be the case if Merton's systematic study had been mounted. The good news is that it is not too late.","PeriodicalId":21868,"journal":{"name":"Social Research: An International Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89170090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"With Eyes Wide Open: An Antidote to Memory Politics: The Dead Man in the Bunker: Discovering My Father, Martin Pollack","authors":"Marci Shore","doi":"10.1353/sor.2022.0031","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2022.0031","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Austrian writer Martin Pollack investigates the Nazi past of his father, who died before he could ever know his son. The position the author takes is implicitly this one: we are responsible not for atoning for the sins of others; we are responsible for facing the truth in the present. The distinction, perhaps subtle, is not at all trivial.","PeriodicalId":21868,"journal":{"name":"Social Research: An International Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"75453910","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Bloody Autumn of Butcher's Crossing: Butcher's Crossing, John Williams","authors":"N. Oreskes","doi":"10.1353/sor.2022.0029","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2022.0029","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:A writer in the New Yorker called John Williams the \"author of the greatest American novel you've never heard of.\" They were referring to John Williams's Stoner, but equally if not more important in our era is Butcher's Crossing. Usually classified as a Western, it is a scathing indictment of the toxic masculinity and Emersonian egotism that drove men west to \"find themselves\" through conquest, in this case the brutal destruction of the American buffalo. Williams's chronicle of a bloody autumn of slaughter should stand alongside Rachel Carson's Silent Spring as one of the great works of American environmental writing.","PeriodicalId":21868,"journal":{"name":"Social Research: An International Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74701461","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Character: Taking a Fresh Look: Dynamics of Character: Self-Regulation in Psychopathology, David Shapiro","authors":"J. Walkup","doi":"10.1353/sor.2022.0035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2022.0035","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Psychologist David Shapiro's distinctive style of observation reveals complexity, nuance, and irony in the operation of character. A person's character feels intimately familiar, yet can produce estrangement from their own experience. Character steadies mental functioning by keeping anxiety within tolerable limits, but does so at a cost. An abiding outlook on events, or working image of oneself or others, avoids discomfort by shrouding the inner promptings and interests that enable choice and self-direction. To the careful observer this estrangement may be evident when the tone of a person's apparent enthusiasm or showy conviction seems intended to silence their own doubts.","PeriodicalId":21868,"journal":{"name":"Social Research: An International Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84872538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Living the In-Between with Victor Turner's The Ritual Process: The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure, Victor Turner","authors":"S. Turkle","doi":"10.1353/sor.2022.0034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2022.0034","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:Victor Turner's The Ritual Process, published in 1970, spoke to its time. The social movements of the late 1960s and 1970s identified with Turner's idea that they were neither marginal nor deviant, but liminal elements in a procession through periods of structure and anti-structure. More than this, Turner argued that times of transition are privileged and generative for individuals and societies. Most recently, the analysis of liminality in The Ritual Process is relevant to considering America and its pandemic experience. Thinking about thresholds suggests how COVID's tragedy is an opportunity to see America anew.","PeriodicalId":21868,"journal":{"name":"Social Research: An International Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83125021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Being Shorn of Grace: Sentiments of Inequality: Landscape for a Good Woman: A Story of Two Lives, Carolyn Kay Steedman","authors":"A. Stoler","doi":"10.1353/sor.2022.0032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1353/sor.2022.0032","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay is an effort to convey why Landscape for a Good Woman has held me fast for some 30 years of rereading and teaching with it, its attention to sentiment so vividly joining with my own work. Carolyn Steedman shatters the conventions of working-class histories, where a \"stolid emotional sameness\" erases the affective and material privations of those lives. Her understanding of social belonging and its exclusions is unique. She takes children's perceptions as \"the very lineaments of adult political analysis.\" In her radical style, being demeaned, bitter, and defiant joins with longing for a sweeping skirt to make up the rough landscape of the \"borderlands.\"","PeriodicalId":21868,"journal":{"name":"Social Research: An International Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79202169","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}