Useful Durkheim
Sociological Theory 14 (2):109-130 (1996)
Abstract
From the mid-1960s through much of the 1980s, Durkheim's contributions to historical-comparative sociology were decidedly marginalized; the title of one of Charles Tilly's essays, "Useless Durkheim," conveys this prevailing sensibility with perfect clarity. Here, by contrast, I draw upon writings from Durkheim's later "religious" period to show how Durkheim has special relevance today for debates in the historical-comparative field. I examine how his substantive writings shed light on current discussions regarding civil society; how his analytical insights help to show how action within civil society as well as other historical contexts is channelled by cultural, social-structural, and social-psychological configurations (plus transformative human agency); and how his ontological commitment to a "relational social realism" contributes to ongoing attempts to rethink the foundations of historical-comparative investigationDOI
10.2307/201902
My notes
Similar books and articles
Durkheim's Ghosts: Cultural Logics and Social Things.Charles Lemert - 2006 - Cambridge University Press.
Introduction to Emile Durkheim's "Anti-Semitism and Social Crisis".Chad Alan Goldberg & Emile Durkheim - 2008 - Sociological Theory 26 (4):299 - 323.
Durkheim and the reflexive condition of modernity.John Rundell - 2006 - Critical Horizons 7 (1):179-206.
Durkheim's "cult of the individual" and the moral reconstitution of society.Charles E. Marske - 1987 - Sociological Theory 5 (1):1-14.
Analytics
Added to PP
2009-01-28
Downloads
127 (#100,525)
6 months
3 (#228,007)
2009-01-28
Downloads
127 (#100,525)
6 months
3 (#228,007)
Historical graph of downloads
Citations of this work
Turning inward: Tocqueville and the structuring of reflexivity.Lawrence H. Williams - 2017 - Journal of Critical Realism 16 (5):483-498.
Why Hazing? Measuring the Motivational Mechanisms of Newcomer Induction in College Fraternities.Gentry R. McCreary & Joshua W. Schutts - 2019 - Journal of Cognition and Culture 19 (3-4):343-365.
In defense of dualism: Competing and complementary frameworks in religious studies and the sociology of religion.Richard L. Wood - 2016 - Critical Research on Religion 4 (3):292-298.