Overview

In recent years, social scientists have turned their critical lens on the historical roots and contours of their disciplines, including their politics and practices, epistemologies and methods, institutionalization and professionalization, national development and colonial expansion, globalization and local contestations, and public presence and role in society. The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass offers current social scientific perspectives on this reflexive moment. Examining sociology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, legal theory, and religious studies, the volume's contributors outline the present transformations of the social sciences, explore their connections with critical humanities, analyze the challenges of alternate paradigms, and interrogate recent endeavors to move beyond the human. Throughout, the authors, who belong to half a dozen disciplines, trace how the social sciences are thoroughly entangled in the social facts they analyze and are key to helping us understand the conditions of our world. Contributors. Chitralekha, Jean-Louis Fabiani, Didier Fassin, Johan Heilbron, Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, Kristoffer Kropp, Nicolas Langlitz, John Lardas Modern, Alvaro Morcillo Laiz, Amin Perez, Carel Smith, George Steinmetz, Peter D. Thomas, Bregje van Eekelen, Agata Zysiak

Full Product Details

Author:   Didier Fassin ,  George Steinmetz
Publisher:   Duke University Press
Imprint:   Duke University Press
Weight:   0.726kg
ISBN:  

9781478016823

ISBN 10:   1478016825
Pages:   277
Publication Date:   24 March 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Toward a Social Science of the Social Sciences / Didier Fassin and George Steinmetz  1 Part One. Disciplines in the Making 1. Concept-Quake: From the History of Science to the Historical Sociology of Social Science / George Steinmetz  21 2. Spaces of Real Possibilities: Counterfactuals and the Impact of Donors on the Social Sciences / Álvaro Maorcillo Laiz  81 3. The Social Life of Concepts: or, How to Study the Idea of Creativity? / Bregje F. Van Eekelen  107 4. Epistemological Crises in Legal Theory: The (Ir)Rationality of Balancing / Carel Smith  129 5. The Reinvention of Sociology: Into the Trenches of Fieldwork at the Time of the Algerian Liberation War / Amín Pérez  147 Part Two. From the National to the Global 6. How Sociology Shaped Postwar Poland and How Stalinization Shaped Sociology / Agata Zysiak  175 7. The Public Anthropology of Violence in India / Chitralekha  195 8. Challenging Objectivity in Japan’s Long 1968 / Miriam Kingsberg Kadia  218 9. How Political Commitment Delineates Social Scientific Knowledge / Kristoffer Kropp  240 10. Making Sense of Globalizing Social Science / Johan Heilbron  262 Part Three. Exploring Borders and Boundaries 11. Critical Humanities and the Unsettling of the Sociological Field: Is There a French Exception? / Jean-Louis Fabiani  287 12. Recovering Subalternity in the Humanities and Social Sciences / Peter D. Thomas  310 13. Thinking about Cognitive Scientists Thinking about Religion / John Lardas Modern  328 14. Cooperative Primates and Competitive Primatologists: Prosociality and Polemics in a Nonhuman Social Science / Nicolas Langlitz  351 15. The Rise and Rise of Posthumanism: Will It Spell the End of the Human Sciences? / Didier Fassin  368 Contributors  393 Index 397

Reviews

""In an era in which the social sciences are routinely under attack for being perceived as unproductive and overly critical and deterministic, this “social science of the social sciences” is an important and timely contribution. Recommended. Graduate students and faculty."" -- J. R. Mitrano * Choice *

""In an era in which the social sciences are routinely under attack for being perceived as unproductive and overly critical and deterministic, this “social science of the social sciences” is an important and timely contribution. Recommended. Graduate students and faculty."" -- J. R. Mitrano * Choice * ""The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass assembles 15 insightful chapters written by an interdisciplinary group of scholars that cover a lot of ground."" -- Tobias Werron * American Journal of Sociology *

"""In an era in which the social sciences are routinely under attack for being perceived as unproductive and overly critical and deterministic, this “social science of the social sciences” is an important and timely contribution. Recommended. Graduate students and faculty."" -- J. R. Mitrano * Choice *"

Author Information

Didier Fassin is Professor at the CollÈge de France in Paris and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Director of study at the École des hautes Études en sciences sociales, he is the author of numerous books, including Life: A Critical User’s Manual. George Steinmetz is Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan. He is the author of various books, including The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire.

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