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Arthur K. Davis was President of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association in 1975–1976 and in 1995 received the association's Outstanding Contribution award. In Canada, he was particularly known for his article on “Canadian Society and History as Hinterland Versus Metropolis,” originally published in Ossenberg's anthology of 1971. This article was frequently cited from 1972–1994 and was reprinted a number of times. Davis was also known for his articles on Thorstein Veblen, which continue to receive citation. Davis' career merits careful study for at least two reasons. The first is that he was a Ph.D. product of the early Harvard sociology graduate program, which has received much less attention than it deserves from sociological historians (unlike the Chicago School). As such, Davis studied under of Talcott Parsons, Pitirim Sorokin, and Robert K. Merton. The second reason is that Davis' career clearly illustrates the usefulness of Robert W. Friedrichs' distinction between the priestly and prophetic roles that sociologists may fulfill. Davis' career started under the influence of a priestly orientation (as symbolized by his doctoral supervisor Talcott Parsons) and then gravitated to a prophetic stance as influenced by Pitirim Sorokin, Paul M. Sweezy, and, more distantly, by Marx and Veblen. Since this transition took place just when the Cold War was falling, his career reveals some of the pitfalls that await the prophetic sociologist in times that favor security and conservatism rather than activism and change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features Michel Freitag and his theories on contemporary sociology. Contemporary sociology faces many challenges in the understanding and reflective expressive of the transformations that affect societies in the world today. Not that it would lack theoretical models to assume its tasks, but the wide range of phenomena to fall under its scope apparently requires the development of a global perspective which also encompasses specific judgments on the evolution and transformation of things. Michel Freitag was born in Switzerland in 1935. He taught at Université du Québec à Montrél from 1970 to 2000. With the coming of age, so to speak, of the second generation of students trained through Freitag's sociological theory, a research group consolidated itself in the eighties on two grounds: A sociological journal dedicated to theoretical and analytical debates, Sociét&eacute, published since 1987; and a series of monthly seminars, held from 1987 to 1998, under the auspices of Groupe interuniversitaire d'étude de la postmodernité. In the two volumes of Dialectique et sociét&eacute that have been published so far, Michel Freitag presents the main concepts and orientations that help to situate sociology in its historical and normative definitions.

Quebec sociology and Quebec society are categorically distinct from other sociologies and countries. Both are “communities,” both have French-speaking majorities, and both exist in Anglo-Saxon environments. As well, Quebec sociology has always been and continues to be obsessed by the national question. Interpretations proposed by sociologists—predominantly French-speaking—of and about the Quebec Question have never been independent of the struggles in which they have taken place. In fact, sociological readings of nationalism in Quebec appear to be a direct consequence of their social position and relationship with political power. Through the prism of sociology, the French-speaking collectivity in Canada has been, successively and simultaneously, characterized through categories of race, ethnic group, society, and nation.[2] This article presents five ways in which sociologists have represented Quebec society. First, the Pioneers: Léon Gérin and Marius Barbeau, or the Quebec “Difference” as a handicap. Second, the characterization of Quebec through race, territory, and soul. Third provides the external perspectives of Miner and Hughes. Fourth will examine the Laval (Quebec) School. Finally, this article will examine Quebec Society as either an ethnic or civic nation. Each theme has been set chronologically in specific periods of Quebec sociology: the Pioneers (Part 1 and 2, before 1940); the institutionalization of academic sociology (Part 3 and 4, 1940–1969); and the “nationalization” and professionalization of sociology (Part 5, 1970 to the present). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]