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The article provides an overview of two books, "At the Center: American Thought and Culture in the Mid-Twentieth Century" and "The Ideas That Made America: A Brief History," which explore the role of ideas in shaping American culture and society during the mid-twentieth century. The authors examine the influence of ideas on practical power and the relationship between ideas and culture. The books offer insights into the movement of ideas across cultures and their impact on intellectual history. The article also discusses the transdisciplinary perspective of "At the Center" and its relevance to the social sciences, including economics. It highlights the search for core principles and consensus in midcentury thought and culture, as well as efforts to broaden Americans' intellectual horizons after World War II. The text delves into the intellectual and cultural shifts in America from 1948 to 1963, focusing on centering and decentering tendencies. It explores various aspects of American culture during this period, such as attempts to define a distinct American culture, the influence of economics on thought, the rise of postmodernism and identity politics, and the impact of globalization. The authors argue that while there were efforts to establish a unified American culture, there were also movements towards decentering and fragmentation. The text suggests that understanding the changes in American economics during this time is crucial for a comprehensive understanding of American thought and culture. [Extracted from the article]

The article provides a comprehensive analytical reconstruction of the formation and evolution of the civilizational approach in the context of the intellectual and institutional history of sociology. Three waves of civilizational analysis are highlighted, coinciding with three stages of sociology’s disciplinary development: pre-disciplinary, disciplinary and post-disciplinary. The first wave includes the development of the unitary-linear concept of civilization in the middle of the 18th century, its reception in early sociology, and its total marginalization in the late 19th century with sociology’s entry into the classical period. The second wave began in the first two decades of the 20th century, marked by the development of pluralistic theory and comparative history of civilizations in the works of M. Weber and E. Durkheim with M. Moss. It continues in the interwar period, when — with the general decline of sociology’s interest in macro-historical topics — N. Elias and P.A. Sorokin created their theories of civilizational dynamics, and culminates in the critical reception of the meta-historical theories of local civilizations during the two and a half decades following the war. The third wave, which continues to the present day, was driven by the civilizational turn in the mid 1970’s, initiated by B. Nelson and S.N. Eisenstadt. It combines the tendency for civilizational analysis to embed itself in the sociological tradition with the intention to renew and consolidate its research program, represented by four main models: processual, configurational, interactive, and relational. J. Arnason carried out the most ambitious project of theoretical integration in the field of civilizational analysis on the basis of the concept of mutual constitution of culture and power. The internal division of the pluralist approach into meta-historical and sociological directions is just as important as its opposition to the unitary approach. The first formulations of both versions of the pluralist approach were made independently of each other during the decade-long period between 1869 and 1879 in Russia by N.Y. Danilevsky and N.I. Khlebnikov.

This document provides an overview of a virtual issue of the journal Social Science History that focuses on race in the United States. The issue features a collection of articles that explore different perspectives and approaches to understanding race. The articles cover a range of topics, including the role of enslaved labor, the experiences of Black strikebreakers, the formation of interracial working-class identity, the racialization of domestic work, and the relationship between health and race. The authors emphasize the need for more research on racial dynamics outside of the US context and the importance of addressing health as a factor in racial inequality. Overall, this collection of essays aims to deepen our understanding of race and its impact on historical analysis and contemporary society. [Extracted from the article]

This document is a response to comments on the book "Slouching Towards Utopia: The Economic History of the 20th Century." The author, Bradford DeLong, addresses both praise and criticism received and engages with specific points made by commenters. The author discusses the balance of the book, the absence of demographic history, the lack of discussion on oil and global warming, and the role of labor and capital in the 20th century. DeLong defends their grand narrative of human progress and wealth, while acknowledging the ongoing challenges of equitable distribution and technological progress. The document provides information about DeLong's background as an economics professor and former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy. It is published online by Cambridge University Press. [Extracted from the article]

The article provides a response to J. Bradford DeLong's book, "Slouching Towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century," emphasizing its significance in examining the economic developments and challenges throughout the twentieth century. The author acknowledges the importance of grand narratives in understanding historical events but also emphasizes the need for humility and openness to alternatives. The text discusses the conflict between Hayek and Polanyi, portraying it as a conflict between capital and labor over the meaning of democracy. The neoliberal turn of the 1970s is described as an offensive by capital against labor, leading to the persistence of neoliberalism due to the crisis and defeat of postwar social democracy. [Extracted from the article]

"Slouching towards Utopia: An Economic History of the Twentieth Century" by J. Bradford DeLong is a comprehensive analysis of the global economy from 1870 to 2010. The book examines this period through an economic lens and identifies three key factors that contributed to unprecedented economic growth. However, it acknowledges that humanity never achieved utopia due to the unresolved political question of how to distribute the abundance of production. While the book has received praise for its grand narrative, some scholars have called for more attention to be given to other continents, the history of economic ideas, environmental damage, and demographic factors. Overall, the book provides a thought-provoking account of history during this period, but there is room for improvement in terms of organization and inclusion of additional topics. [Extracted from the article]

This article investigates the media lives of a particular class taxonomy in the Swedish press from 1945 to 1976. Invented by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 1911, the 'social group division' system was abandoned in the early post-war period. Around the same time, however, it gained popularity in Swedish culture and political debate. While earlier research has noted that such bureaucratic class taxonomies – as in several other Western countries – conditioned how actors understood and created new knowledge about the population, this process of wider circulation remains understudied. Using insights from literature on 'the social life of methods' and the history of knowledge, which underline that knowledge is transformed by and transforms the contexts it circulates in, I show that print media was an arena for circulating and producing new meaning around class taxonomies. Although editorials shunned the social group division for incorrectly representing Swedish society and creating artificial class boundaries, journalists used the taxonomy to explain social structures. Furthermore, by interviewing 'typical' members of the different social groups, journalists made the system relatable and personal for their readers. In this context, the social groups were imagined as cultural communities, sharing cultural behaviours and preferences. Lastly, I analyse usages of the social group division in letters to the editor, which reveal that people felt they were being classified and wanted to offer their views of society, using the taxonomy in ways the experts had not intended. This study thereby contributes to the history of social taxonomies and class languages in the post-war period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the role of science in European integration, highlighting the concept of ‘EUropeanisation in and through science' as both a cause and effect of European development within the European Union (EU). Topics discussed include the evolution of EU science policy, the impact of scientific research on European integration, and the role of science diplomacy in fostering interconnectedness within the EU.

Abdul Rahman Ibn Khaldun is one of the most significant figures in the history of social sciences. He is also an outstanding thinker in the history. This article deals with the contribution of Ibn Khaldun to communication science and his pioneering works in the field of international and intercultural communication studies of the Islamic world. He is considered by many as the founder of sociology. His typology on cyclical pattern of history and his theories on political economy, demography, and environmental sciences have earned him a prominent place among the major intellectuals in the history of social thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document provides information about various contributors in the field of history and social sciences. The contributors come from diverse backgrounds and have expertise in areas such as African and African American studies, Puerto Rican and Caribbean history, Brazilian history, global development, and the history of slavery. Their research interests include topics like rurality, creolization, postcolonialism, decoloniality, race, and capitalism. The document also mentions their published works and ongoing projects, highlighting their contributions to their respective fields. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the book "The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought" by Steinmetz, which explores the relationship between colonialism and the development of sociology as an academic discipline. The book argues that colonialism played a significant role in shaping sociological knowledge and influenced the work of prominent sociologists. It also examines the historical context of colonial sociology, tracing its evolution from a shared field of knowledge to an institutionalized subfield after World War II. The article highlights the importance of interdisciplinary research in understanding colonial sociological knowledge production and suggests further studies in different national contexts. [Extracted from the article]

Modern colonialism from the eighteenth century onward encompassed most of the world's surface. Today, the world is different. In theory at least, nation-states rather than empires and colonies are the global norm. The sorts of colonial conquests that mark earlier centuries appear to have ended. But does this mean colonialism in the past is not relevant for the present? Scholarly and popular discussions allude to the idea that past colonialism impacts the present, using a variety of terms like "legacies," "imprints," "vestiges," "ruins," or "afterlives." Yet existing scholarship has yet to fully clarify and catalog the specific processes and mechanisms that connect colonial history with its putative legacies. This essay, based upon the 2022 Presidential Address to the Social Science History Association, identifies and discusses four such processes and mechanisms or "modes of reverberation": (1) continued colonialism through simple reproduction, (2) the persistence of power through formal and informal institutionalization, (3) path dependent historical trajectories (or "colonial institutionalism"), and (4) colonialism's archive of meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Nature of Slavery: Environment and Plantation Labor in the Anglo-Atlantic World" by Katherine Johnston challenges the belief that enslaved Africans were better suited to the hot climate of the British Greater Caribbean compared to white laborers. The book provides a nuanced analysis of the complex factors that shaped the labor force in the Atlantic Plantation Complex and debunks long-standing assumptions about the role of climate in the institution of slavery. It also discusses the relationship between climate, race, and slavery in the Americas, as well as the impact of diseases on enslaved people. While the book is ambitious, it misses opportunities to explore certain subjects, such as the role of Indigenous peoples in climatic justifications for enslavement. Readers are encouraged to critically examine the sources they use and consider potential biases and inaccuracies. [Extracted from the article]

The article "Harvey J. Graff: A Tribute" in the journal "Across the Disciplines" pays homage to the prolific social historian Harvey J. Graff, highlighting his extensive contributions to literacy studies and interdisciplinary research. Graff's work challenges the literacy myth and emphasizes the historical dimensions of literacy development, practice, and pedagogy. The article also reflects on Graff's personal qualities, such as generosity, kindness, and mentorship, which have had a profound impact on his colleagues and students. The tribute acknowledges Graff's enduring influence on the field of literacy studies and underscores the ongoing importance of critical research and teaching in this area. [Extracted from the article]

In the late 1920s and throughout the 1930s, several sociological monographic campaigns were carried out in a few villages in Romania. It was for the first time that a large research group from Romania investigated rural social life using an integrated theoretical system and interdisciplinary methods and instruments. In the second half of the 1930s, a different kind of rural-oriented endeavour started to be undertaken: the “royal voluntary student teams”, whose work in Romanian villages was more oriented towards social action than social research. In October 1938, the Law of the Social Service was issued, providing that all of Romania’s university graduates were compelled to participate in organized cultural work in villages. In most of the activities undertaken by the Bucharest Sociological School and coordinated by Professor Dimitrie Gusti, women participated in large numbers – yet another new feature in Romanian scientific practice. In this paper, I explore how gender, conceptualized as a social, political, and material category, configures power relations within a research group, and I provide tentative and inherently partial answers to such questions as: What combination of social, economic, and political factors led to women’s massive involvement in the sociological monographic campaigns? How did women’s participation contribute to the research endeavours? What are the disciplinary and institutional mechanisms and personal strategies that produced women’s inclusion in, and later exclusion from, the research group?

This text, marking the 60th anniversary of gisics, revisits certain facets of an institutional history bearing upon the emergence of modernity in Portuguese social sciences. Focusing on the analytical contributions of Adérito Sedas Nunes - the main protagonist behind gis' foundation - the article elaborates on the transition from corporatism to sociology, a path that reflects the gradual maturation of a certain approach to the obstacles that hindered the development of Portuguese society and the ways to overcome them. The 60th anniversary of gis-ics constitute, therefore, a fitting occasion to recognize its historical importance and its consensual status as an institution of reference in Portuguese social sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through a detailed analysis of Alexander Szalai's career as a major transsystemic academic entrepreneur in the Kádár era, this paper has been written to discern and assess how such activities impacted the ways in which science and scholarship worked at both sides of the systemic divide (the "Iron Curtain"). The single most important finding is the emergence of transsystemic spaces (fields), the undoing of national and systemic boundaries. These transsystemic configurations tended to provide social (formal and informal) frameworks within which reputations are generated and distributed, reputational hierarchies are established and reproduced. For scholars in the East such transsystemic spaces brought with them a great deal of good news: they could mean increased freedom and/or an unbiased assessment and genuine acknowledgement for what one has accomplished. Transsystemic fields brought with them a whole array of new (kinds of) opportunities. Acting as a nod of networks that generated transsystemic spaces could yield increased reputation and power at home. As all structures in the social world, however, transsystemic spaces could enable as well as constrain, they could propel you to the skies and might also crush you. As any other resources constituting social capital in academia, the space spanning along transsystemic networks of scholars and scientists could also be weaponized for the wrong purposes: they could enable impostors to acquire a status and reputation way over and above the person's actual accomplishments, due to imperfect information available in foreign environments. Time would, of course, always show who they really are – but before that happens, they could bring havoc upon their field back home by distorted reputational hierarchies, by skewed distribution of competitive power between rivaling intellectual tendencies or "schools" and, eventually, by "paradigmatic" streamlining and contra-selection. This is, in a nutshell, what the story of A. Szalai shows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the cumulative production of knowledge about the development of Latin America, in general, and Argentina, in particular, from the case of Economic Development, in the period 1958-1975. The author proposes, through a conceptual theoretical analysis, that the accumulation of knowledge is evidenced by gradually posing new analysis variables and questions. Between 1958 and 1959, a central problem was the transformation of an agrarian productive structure into an industrial one. Between 1961 and 1969, the above is assumed, and includes social and political aspects of Latin American underdevelopment. Between 1970 and 1975, the magazine publishes discussions on dependency and on some specific experiences of underdevelopment, condensing problematizations and findings from the two previous periods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years the development of historical databases reconstructing the lives of large populations accelerated. These considerable investments of time and money have greatly expanded possibilities for new research in history, demography, sociology, economics, and other disciplines. This special issue describes the content and design of 23 important historical databases. Authors were given the freedom to discuss a range of practical and technical decisions from evaluating archival sources to crowdsourcing data entry. The most common issue is nominative record linkage, but we find different choices between semi-automatic and fully automatic linkage techniques and various approaches for connecting diverse sources. Some databases describe special problems, like linking Chinese names, handwritten text recognition or the construction of a release in IDS-format. Other databases offer detailed descriptions of sources or discuss prospects for including new datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last 60 years several major historical databases with reconstructed life courses of large populations spanning decades have been launched. The development of these databases is indicative of considerable investments that have greatly expanded the possibilities for new research within the fields of history, demography, sociology, as well as other disciplines. In this volume spanning seven articles, eight databases are included that have had a wide impact on research in various disciplines. Each database had its own unique genesis that is well described in the articles assembled in this volume. They inform readers about how these databases have changed the course of research in historical demography and related disciplines, how settled findings were challenged or confirmed, and how innovative investigations were launched and implemented. In the end we explore how research with this kind of databases will develop in future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revue de Synthèse is the property of Brill Academic Publishers and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista Interdisciplinaria de Estudios de Género de El Colegio de México is the property of El Colegio de Mexico AC and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article analyzes the US sociologist Donald Pierson’s views on the process of modernization as expressed in research he conducted while residing in Brazil from the 1930s to the 1950s. Looking first at his study on race relations in Bahia and then at his investigations of rural communities in the São Francisco Valley, it shows that Pierson’s exchange with local intellectuals was decisive to his readings of Brazil’s rural, patriarchal past and his understanding of the potential for building a modern social order out of these traditions. His perspective was also evident during the debate on the relation between racism and modernity in the context of the UNESCO Race Relations Project. This examination of Pierson’s work likewise signals how transnational dialogue between the Global North and South contributed to the sociological debate on modernization, and how US scholars ascribed more than one meaning to the modernizing changes underway in peripheral countries around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent historiography has been more positive about the Wilhelmine German Empire, which long had a poor reputation. This might be partly due to the trend towards transnational history with a specific focus on transfer and exchange. This article argues that from such a perspective the re-evaluation of the German Empire may easily overshoot the mark. Focusing on a comparative study of Hamburg and London, it analyses a classic topic of transnational history—the field of science and social reform. However, by approaching it in the context of a history of security, the article provides a valuable corrective in the debate on the German Empire. It thereby also opens a new path for the history of security. Although security and knowledge are closely interrelated, this relationship has been rather neglected in the historiography. It is argued here that security concerns related to social unrest were a major factor that gave rise to the emergence of the social sciences at the turn of the 20th century. Social reformers and social scientists believed that supposedly neutral scientific knowledge was a prerequisite for resolving social conflicts. However, public acceptance of their expert status in security matters was far from self-evident. While they met fierce opposition in Hamburg, liberal and democratic traditions facilitated its acceptance in London. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is a summary of a symposium that took place at the Annual Meeting of the Social Science History Association. The symposium focused on George Steinmetz's book, "Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire," which explores the relationship between French sociology and colonialism from the 1930s to the 60s. The symposium included discussions on the historical context of French sociology, methodology, the role of race and censorship, the construction of "strangeness" between colonies and the metropole, and the rediscovery of colonial sociology as a subfield. The author, George Steinmetz, also responded to the critiques raised by the commentators. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Population (00324663) is the property of Institut National d'Etudes Demographiques and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the historical transformations and contemporary state of affairs with human science laboratories. Humanitarian laboratories are explained in the form of social networks and interactive venues where social experts and practitioners encounter together in order to construct and exchange common senses. The laboratory gets an explanation by taking into account uniqueness of human sciences, differences in modes of knowledge production, and understanding social technologies as nonmaterial entities (not ‘artefacts’ as in STS). Inside natural sciences, the laboratory serves for experimentation and purposeful intervention into nature by empirical scholars equipped with technical devices, including cognitive, semiotic, and discursive tools. The laboratory in human sciences exists as an institutional locus for empirical investigation, social experimentation and professional, skilled communications. The exchange of information flows between cognitive and practical actors, measuring common viewpoints, accumulating behavioral data, explaining social situations, and setting rational policy for them. The morphology and progressive advancements of human science laboratories (in past and present) frame the scope of research. Conforming to its main idea, the laboratory is perceived as a vehicle for human progress. Usually, it is a professional organization aiming to synthesize theoretical, empirical, and applied knowledge with social activism in the light of incoming demands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines techniques of amorous matching in the work of the "utopian socialist" Charles Fourier (1772–1837), recovering the practices and the institutions he proposed for the management of love, as well as his political arguments for their centrality in a perfected society. In doing so, it argues more broadly for the need to position the management of love at the origin of early social science. Much as early defenses of capitalism had at their core a discourse of the passions, so too was Fourier's socialism invested in exploring how problems of political economy were those of passional economy. To rectify the latter, Fourier attempted to articulate both a mathematical system—a calcul des passions —and a centralized information system for the gathering and sorting of personal data. The recovery of his vision thus has the potential to inform critically a radical politics of algorithmic matching through Big Data—the province today not of utopian socialism but of online dating apps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Algorithmically driven online dating platforms today promise the ability to sort through relevant data and identify one's ideal amorous matches effectively. Yet the appeal of technological and scientific solutions to the messy problem of finding partners is hardly new. This introduction to the Focus section "It's a Match!" argues that the history of amorous matching has long been part and parcel of the history of science, in particular the social sciences. Taking matching as an "applied science of social harmony," the authors argue that concern over more reliable techniques for determining the suitability of partners has formed an essential part of both the maintenance of social order and the shaping of subjectivities, enabling discourses of informed choice and the rational management of the passions, while also reinforcing and subverting structures of age, gender, race, and sexuality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Brasileira de Ciencias Sociais is the property of Revista Brasileira de Ciencias Sociais and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the article, the author presents his vision of behavioral science in the management of people with diabetes as the practice celebrates its 50th anniversary as of January 2021. Also cited are how the disease affected some members of her family, the psychosocial landscape of diabetes affecting 34.2 million people in the U.S., and the advancements in behavioral science to characterize the emotional and psychosocial effects of type 1 and 2 diabetes.

The history of Brazilian social sciences has been continuously revisited, usually taking as an inaugural landmark the creation of the undergraduate courses in social sciences. Recognizing that the social sciences had different temporalities in the different regions of the country, and that their process of institutionalization occurred sometimes through classes in other undergraduate courses, this work seeks to bring an original contribution to the discussion for this area. The article focuses on the analysis of the first classes of social sciences (cultural anthropology and sociology) created at Faculdade Catarinense de Filosofia (Catarinense Faculty of Philosophy), an institution founded in the 1950’s in Florianópolis, through the "teaching reports" produced by the first professors of these classes. It is important to note the character of the formation of a cultural elite that the institution possessed, and the affinity of the discussions developed in this space with the intellectual debate of that time.

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This article aims to problematize the vision of Brazilian essayism from the 1920s to 40s crystallized by the social sciences and the uniformizing tendency of the different interpretations of Brazil developed through this form of sociological imagination. This analytical procedure is understood as a prerequisite for rethinking the status of the essay and its interrogatory capacity contemporaneous with the Brazilian social sciences and society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice and profession of evaluation is continually evolving. From its early origin in the Great Society years of the 1960s, through its golden years of the 1970s, its transformation under the fiscal conservatism of the Reagan era in the 1980s, and in its maturation during the performance and results era of the 1990s, the field of evaluation continues to evolve in response to broader trends in society. This article examines recent developments and trends in the practice and profession of evaluation. Structured around the evaluation theory tree, the presentation of these developments elaborates on the three main branches of evaluation: methods, use, and valuing. The concluding discussion briefly addresses the central role of evaluation—and other types of knowledge production—in providing actionable evidence for use in public policy and program decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of solidarity has a long history in the social sciences and humanities, and has received considerable attention in recent migration and refugee scholarship. However, there is no consistent definition of or approach to this concept in this literature. Rather, various types of solidarity with different philosophical underpinnings coexist. In this article, we draw on existing solidarity scholarship to develop a typology of the concept of solidarity; we then apply this typology to a systematic sample of recent scholarly migration and refugee articles. Our results show the complex, multi-dimensional, and normative application of the concept of solidarity in this sample. We find that various types of solidarity align with particular themes, such as religion and family, European Union refugee politics, humanitarianism and hospitality, and migrant activism and labour organising. Nevertheless, there is considerable overlap and connections between types. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Sociologia & Antropologia is the property of Sociologia & Antropologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The following sentence on page two of this article (Amasyali [1]):"The mass expulsions of Armenians and Greeks led to an almost complete removal of these communities over a short time span, so that by 1927, 99 percent of the newly founded Turkish Republic registered as Muslim."Should read as:"The mass expulsions of Armenians and Greeks led to an almost complete removal of these communities over a short time span, so that by 1935, 98 percent of the newly founded Turkish Republic registered as Muslim."By Emre AmasyaliReported by Author [Extracted from the article]

Suppressed on ideological grounds, banned as academic discipline, and dismantled as scientific infrastructure in the first postwar years, sociology was re-institutionalized in communist Romania during the 1960s, largely on political grounds. Subsequently, the discipline developed and augmented within an impressive scientific infrastructure - several university departments were established, research centres and facilities initiated, and specialized periodicals issued. Still, the prosperous period of Romanian sociology concluded after just one decade, through another political decision, which confined the study of sociology to post-graduate specialization and restricted research. My paper explores sociology’s institutional infrastructure, as it was established after the discipline’s renewal, focusing on the institutions created, but also on the biographical analysis of those involved within these processes. My paper will address the matter from a historical perspective, discussing the developments and the evolutions in the field by circumscribing to the political, cultural, and socio-economic contexts.

Copyright of Annales: Histoire, Sciences Sociales is the property of Cambridge University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article assesses the trajectory of postsocialism as a concept and mounts a fivefold critique of postsocialism as: referring to a vanishing object; emphasising rupture over continuity; falling into a territorial trap; issuing from orientalising knowledge construction; and constraining political futures. This critique serves to sketch the contours of an alternative project that still recognises difference but foregrounds links and continuities, develops a political edge, and theorises not just about but with and from this part of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ethnography – also referred to as ethnology by the GDR – was a "minor subject" in which typical big science problems such as mass‐study and large‐scale research played no role. It was therefore not the focus of science policy interventions by the state and/or its ruling party. Nevertheless, ethnographic research, exemplified by the sub‐discipline related to Africa, remained within the limits set by the state and ruling party. Despite of these relative restrictions, the two East German universities in Berlin and Leipzig, as well as the ethnological museums in Leipzig and Dresden, have succeeded in presenting research results that are relevant and remain valid to the present day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By analyzing debates about social "complexity" in the American policy sciences and in intellectual discourse of the 1970s, this article draws attention to the social embeddedness of concept formation and theory building in the social sciences. In the 1970s, a new concept of social "complexity" emerged in the social sciences, when scholars transferred and adapted elements of complexity theory from mathematics, computer science, cybernetics, and general systems theory to refine social theory. The article analyzes the context and conditions in which this transfer occurred. It shows that the scholarly debates about social complexity were entwined with broader public‐political discourses, dealing in particular with the challenges of government and public policy in the advanced Western democracies. The discourse on complexity among social scientists had additional layers of meaning: even in academic discourse, "complexity" was also used as a buzzword and as a metaphor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This review essay addresses publications in the history of science and the history of knowledge since 2013/14, focusing on three main fields: the history of the natural sciences, the history of the humanities, and the history of the social sciences. The essay follows the thesis that the recent history of knowledge continually supersedes the traditional history of science, a process that transforms the history of science into a general history of scientific knowledge in society, concentrating on circulation processes, practices, and such concepts and methods that do not clearly assign either to the sciences or the humanities. The aim of this review essay is to show the diversity of the history of scientific knowledge and to work out the desiderata for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This special issue is the product of a conference, The Future of the History of the Human Sciences, which was held at the University of York in April 2016. The meeting brought together scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds and at various stages of their careers to reflect on what were identified as major challenges and opportunities for the research that History of the Human Sciences publishes. The articles included here are a sample of the responses that were generated and contain reflections on not only the boundaries of history of the human sciences research but also the methods used within the discipline. As this introduction explains, the overall aim of the conference was to explore these questions in order to think about both future directions for research and ways in which we can ensure the field remains dynamic and vital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article, based on a presentation at the Future of the History of the Human Sciences workshop (2016), discusses some of the potential benefits and pitfalls of digital humanities (DH) tools and approaches for historians of the human sciences. It reviews some of the major approaches that form DH and draws on the author's experience as part of a team creating a large DH resource to consider the complications presented by these. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article began life as, and retains the character of, spoken argument for not allowing the neurosciences to shape the agenda of the history of the human sciences. This argument is then used to suggest purposes and content for the journal, History of the Human Sciences. The style is rhetorical, even polemical, but open-ended. I challenge two clichés about the neurosciences, that they intellectually challenge other areas of knowledge, and that they are reconfiguring the human with the notion of 'brainhood'. The suggestion is that the real challenges lie elsewhere; specifically with understanding the relations of different forms of knowledge and making it conceivable by political action, or simply mode of life, to implement one way of being human rather than another. The conclusion re-asserts the value of the heading, 'history of the human sciences', and of the value of the journal with this name, as a forum in which to reflect on the identity and relations of forms of knowledge about 'the human' in all their variety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]