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The Local Constitution of 'Classics': The Worldwide Reception and Appropriation of Western Authors
The Local Constitution of 'Classics': The Worldwide Reception and Appropriation of Western Authors
Abstract Submissions Closed
Wednesday, 24 February 2021: 09:00-10:30
Location:
RC08 History of Sociology (host committee)
Language: English and French
Session Type: Oral
If the very existence of a real 'sociological canon' can be challenged, the discipline has been shaping itself, both nationally and internationally, around a diversified and historically changing set of 'classical sociologists' and/or pioneers that only gradually, from the 1930s onwards, came to be equated with the Marx-Weber-Durkheim trilogy. Although the overwhelming majority of those 'classics' were Western sociologists from Germany, the United States, France, Italy or the United Kingdom, the formation of this 'sociological kernel' did not stem from an homogeneous world process of disciplinary institutionalisation, but rather from a set of localised national, regional or transnational appropriations (or receptions) of some Western authors. This local constitution of classics can be studied historically and comparatively, focusing on the late decades of the 19th century or any other period until now, taking figures such as Comte, Spencer, Durkheim, Weber, Marx, Parsons or Bourdieu (the list being of course open to any other relevant social scientist) as instances of how circulations and receptions are spatially and historically constructed.
Session Organizers: