Legal Profession (2007)

Legal Profession Mathieu Deflem deflem@sc.edu www.mathieudeflem.net This is an online copy of a print publication in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by George Ritzer, 2007. Also available in print-friendly pdf format. Cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2007. “Legal Profession.” Pp. 2583-2584 in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by George Ritzer. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

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The legal profession refers to the whole of occupational roles purposely oriented towards the administration and maintenance of the legal system. Encompassing lawyers, judges, counselors, as well as experts of legal education and scholarship, the legal profession has been the subject of considerable reflection in the sociology of law. This sociological interest parallels the enormous attention devoted to the legal profession in various strands of socio-legal studies, including also other social sciences besides sociology as well as legal scholarship, which in turn is the result of the successful monopolization of the execution of legal functions and the resulting social standing and closure of the legal profession. The fact that the legal profession is among the most researched aspects of the institution of law is thus a direct function of the professionalization of the legal role itself. Yet, although most scholarly research on the legal profession comes from within legal scholarship and from law-and-society perspectives that are firmly nestled in legal education, there also exists a distinctively sociological tradition that examines societal aspects of the legal profession from the viewpoint of a multitude of theoretical orientations. The aspiration to maintain occupational autonomy is one of the legal profession’s most critical and sociologically challenging characteristics. This professional independence is a concrete expression of the autonomy of law as a whole. Rooted in Baron de Montesquieu’s famous doctrine of the separation of powers principle, the ideal of legal autonomy finds primary expression in the establishment of an independent judiciary. Further manifestations of the autonomy of law are provided in the workings of the courts and, most importantly, the professionalization of the legal occupation. The autonomy of legal practice is primarily reflected in legal education and legal practice, as the legal profession has been successful in controlling admission to and the organization of law schools and legal work. Theoretical differences exist on how the place and role of the legal profession is to be conceived from a sociological viewpoint. Most studies in the sociology of the profession are indebted to the focus on the professionalization of legal work in modern societies that was first systematically addressed by Max Weber and which was subsequently taken up by Talcott Parsons with respect to the role of the professions in the legal system’s integrative function. Max Weber defined law intimately in relation to the legal profession by specifying law as a normative order that is externally guaranteed by a specialized staff, including police, prosecutors, and judges. Under conditions of modern societies, Weber maintained that law rationalized in a formal sense on the basis of procedures that are applied equally to all. Legal professionals takes on a special role in this context because they are involved in the adjudication of law on the basis of acquired legal expertise. The institutionalization of expertise in matters of law secures the specialized status of the legal professional on the basis of the state formally granting such monopoly. In modern sociology, Talcott Parsons gave special consideration to the legal profession’s role in securing integration through the legal system. This conception harmonizes with the functionalist attention towards law as a mechanism of social control and also betrays the broader Parsonian attention for the role of the professions in modern societies. The successful acquisition of expertise in a particular occupational role is the profession’s most outstanding characteristic. The legal professional is primarily someone who is learned in the law and who can provide specialized services on the basis of this expertise. The legal professional thus mediates between the polity as legislator, on the one hand, and the public as clients of the law, on the other. In more recent decades, sociological perspectives have offered more varied, sometimes radically alternative viewpoints on the role and status of the legal profession and its autonomy. Theoretical perspectives have been introduced that transcend the functionalist obsession with integration to contemplate on the law’s role in terms of power and inequality. Most distinctly focusing on the legal profession have been representatives of the so-called Critical Legal Studies movement which have pondered on the behavior of judges and lawyers irrespective of, and often contrary to, law’s self-proclaimed ideals of justice and equity. Arguing that legal reasoning is affected by dozens of personal biases depending on legal professionals’ socio-structural backgrounds, these perspectives have in their most radical form critiqued the very basis of the legal professional’s aspiration to autonomy and expert neutrality. While not necessarily overly critical in orientation, most recent sociological studies of the legal profession have pointed towards greater diversity in the legal profession than a simple model of professionalization can account for. Sociologists have specifically contemplated the more complex behavior of the legal profession once it has been successfully monopolized, when it also seeks to influence the state and its legislative potential. Among the more enduring sociological puzzles, also, are the increasing diversity of the legal profession since the latter half of the 20th century. Unlike the cohesive group of old, legal professionals nowadays comprise a wide variety of practitioners, educated in a multitude of legal programs, and are more broadly representative of contemporary society with respect to gender, age, and ethnicity. The increasing diversity of the legal profession, however, has not always been accompanied by increasing equality, as many disparities have been observed to persist, such as earnings gaps among male and female lawyers and differences in cultural and economic capital between solo practitioners and employees in large law firms. The presently high degree of stratification in the legal profession may thus have brought about a lack of professional unity. SEE ALSO: law, sociology of; occupations; Parsons, Talcott; professions; Weber, Max; work, sociology of REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS Abel, R.L. & P.S.C. Lewis, eds. (1995) Lawyers in Society. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA. Halliday, T.C. (1987) Beyond Monopoly: Lawyers, State Crises, and Professional Empowerment. University of Chicago Press. Hoy, J. van, ed. (2001) Legal Professions: Work, Structure and Organization. Elsevier, Oxford, UK. Sandefur, R.L. (2001) Work and honor in the law: prestige and the division of lawyers’ labor. American Sociological Review 66, 382-403. Shamir, R. (1995) Managing Legal Uncertainty: Elite Lawyers in the New Deal. Duke University Press, Durham, NC. Weber, M. ([1922] 1978) Economy and Society. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

Cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2007. “Legal Profession.” Pp. 2583-2584 in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology, edited by George Ritzer. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. www.mathieudeflem.net

Public Sociology, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet (2007)

Public Sociology, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet Mathieu Deflem deflem@sc.edu www.mathieudeflem.net Published in The Journal of Professional and Public Sociology, inaugural issue, 2007. Cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2007. "Public Sociology, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie, and Chevrolet." The Journal of Professional and Public Sociology (inaugural issue). Online: http://www.gsajournal.com/VolumeOneCover.pdf.

Abstract

Public sociology is neither public nor sociology. Public sociology does not and cannot have an epistemology. Speaking only for and to itself, public sociology has no public. There is no debate with public sociology. Instead, public sociology has been successfully advertised and widely embraced among sociologists. Public sociology has consumers. Public sociology is the fast-food of social science. The influence of public sociology is visible and real as it has been institutionalized in various ways. I analyze the conditions of the institutionalization of public sociology and critically evaluate its dynamics and consequences.

Introduction: The Last of Public Sociology

Though this is not my first, I hope this will be my last paper on public sociology, because I have to admit I am rather fed up with this debate which still has not taken place. My hope, no doubt, is idle, as reasons to write will remain. Maybe time will not be on my side though. The occasion to write this paper is the second time that it was editorially decided in advance of the publication of these words that a ‘response’ was to follow by a certain someone. That is a bit remarkable because I did not know I was talking to somebody other than the general universe of readers who happen to read this paper. But at least there is some consistency to public sociology.

The occasion to write this paper is the first time that I write on the basis of a request by a representative of public sociology. This is surprising, because typically public sociologists do not practice what they preach and prefer to keep their activities private. They rule, by their own admission, by “mandate” (Burawoy 2004a) and by appointment rather than election, such as was the case with the Task Force to Institutionalize Public Sociology in the American Sociological Association (ASA). Sometimes they even claim popular legitimacy although their powers come from nominations committees, such as when Michael Burawoy was selected to run for President of the ASA. The rise of public sociology and its gallant leader during 2004 was not meteoric but logical, because it enjoyed the full support of the ASA Executive Office, its mighty bureaucratic control over our organization, and its drift towards commercialization and publicity of our profession. With such great powers in support of public sociology’s advancement, what else was to be expected? How could sociologists who were critical have possibly been more vocal and better organized? Against such might, no masses could revolt!

Among public sociologists, opposition is not tolerated and not accepted. Dialogue is not only not central to public sociology, it is entirely absent. Though not unnoticed, recognized my contributions about the subject matter have not been. At the 2004 ASA meeting in San Francisco, a public sociologist remarked, “nobody takes Deflem seriously.” To many a public sociologist, the statement is probably true (as opposed to false), and no illusions nor regret will be entertained. For among public sociologists, indeed, the tactic is to pathologize the enemy while simultaneously idealizing the self. Perhaps my marginality is to blame more than public sociologists’ refusal to engage in discussions. But it cannot be denied that there have been occasions when public sociologists could have engaged in a debate yet refused. When I wrote (Deflem 2004c) that I had been contacted by fellow sociologists and members of the ASA, including especially graduate students, who are afraid to speak out publicly against public sociology for fear of retaliation, public sociology’s patriarch (Burawoy 2004a) responded in a manner Sartre (and Habermas) rightly called reactionary: he remained silent. At the San Francisco meetings, likewise, no voices of dissent were tolerated. In any case, my contributions on public sociology in published form and online —via the campaign site ‘Save Sociology’ (www.savesociology.org) and through my blog (www.mathieudeflem.blogspot.com)— will mostly indeed have sped up my ride on the express train to disciplinary pariah status and the labeling I enjoyed as a ‘scientistic ideologue.’ If only I had been called a monster!

I am critical of public sociology but I am not a critic of public sociology. I am a sociologist specialized in the study of law and social control. And although there are definite issues of legality, legitimacy, and control present in the discourse on public sociology, which is still no debate, those are not my primary motivations to write about it. I am not a professional sociologist either, although sociology is my profession. I do not accept the demarcation between public and professional (and critical and policy) sociology, because I refuse to accept the lack of seriousness and coherence imposed by a left-fascist regime, however friendly its guise. As a sociologist, I abide only by the force of the better argument —although in the case of public sociology, I must admit, any argument would do.

There are no professional sociologists who dismiss public sociology as a euphemism for partisan sociology, because sociologists who are critical of public sociology are sociologists. A psychologist also I am not, although I assume a considerable amount of empathy is required to explain this peculiar result of a move to and from Chicago to Berkeley. The rise of public sociology, also, does not particularly anger me. Richard Nixon once remarked, in a surprising moment of intelligence and clarity, that one can only get mad at somebody one respects.

In this essay, I will address the institutionalization of public sociology and how it has been accepted, embraced, and consumed so widely and eagerly, much like McDonald’s and Britney Spears. Surely, an absence of substance in our culture readily leads to widespread consumption by means of clever marketing campaigns, but it remains surprising to observe the success of said commercializations among a profession that is purposely set up to not be trapped by such trickery. The institutionalization of public sociology remains puzzling. I will first briefly recapitulate some of the criticisms I have raised against public sociology in prior writings (Deflem 2005a, b, c, 2004a, b, c).

Why Public Sociology is Neither

According to 2003-04 ASA President Michael Burawoy, public sociology “defines, promotes and informs public debate about class and racial inequalities, new gender regimes, environmental degradation, multiculturalism, technological revolutions, market fundamentalism, and state and non-state violence” (ASA 2004). Additionally, “public sociologies should challenge the world as we know it, exposing the gap between what is and what could be” (Ibid.). In other words, public sociology imposes a dual limitation. First, public sociology is limited to certain areas of research. And, second, public sociology is not oriented at analyzing the social world’s structures and processes, but instead seeks to challenge the world by an imagined unreal world of ‘what could be’.

Public sociology is a fractioned and perverted sociology. For sociology is a social science and thus is not, by definition, involved in promoting or defining anything other than scientific knowledge about social life. Sociological knowledge abides by standards in matters of methodology and theory, leading to corroborate or falsify insights from empirical research. Sociology does not need to be limited to any specific issues. And sociological knowledge cannot challenge the world. We have philosophy and morality for such important tasks.

Public sociology and the demarcations it introduces are part of a strategic plan to subsume sociology under one ethico-political vision. Sociology is always public. The very term public sociology assumes that there can be a sociology which is not. Why then was the term introduced? The label public sociology was stolen to offer a thinly veiled disguise of a particularistic version of “sociological Marxism,” as the practitioners themselves call it (Burawoy and Wright 2000). Within the safe confines of certain Marxist clubs, public sociologists also admit as much. In the newsletter of the ASA Marxist Sociology section and in the journal Critical Sociology, for instance, Michael Burawoy writes openly and proudly of his accomplishments in having brought leftist politics into sociology (Burawoy 2003, 2005a). In the Marxist newsletter, Burawoy proclaims that the ASA has “ventured into political debates about race” and waded “into politics with an anti-(Iraq)war resolution that was passed in a member ballot with a two-thirds majority” (Burawoy 2003:12). In the radical social-science journal Critical Sociology, likewise, he writes passionately of public sociology as an “integral part of the project of sociological socialism” which has to hold itself accountable to “some such vision of democratic socialism” (Burawoy 2005a:325). The true face of public sociology is revealed. More broadly, what we see at work in the appropriation of the term public sociology is a strategic move to acquire symbolic power. In an insightful analysis on the current state of sociology, James Moody (2005) argues that the term public sociology slyly changes the meaning of sociological practice by relying on a widely known manner to define subfields in the discipline. “Once the term is in circulation,” Moody argues, “the defining details are largely irrelevant. Power comes in establishing the term, not by filling in the particulars.”

Most recently, what has been striking is the pluralization of the term public sociology into ‘public sociologies’ to indicate that any activity that somehow relates to publics other than the sociological profession (or to public as opposed to private —it is still not clear whether the word ‘public’ in public sociology is an adjective or a noun) is also public sociology. These activities would include such diverse matters as political activism, interviews in the media, and teaching. This deliberate tactic has also fueled the misconception —as a corollary to the notion that there would be sociologists who see themselves as objective scientists with no regards to the practical uses of their work (Deflem 2005b)— that any sociologist who engages in work outside the academia cannot be critical of public sociology. The fact that there are public sociologists who fail to recognize that responsible opponents of public sociology favor and practice the role of the sociologist as public intellectual to the best of their abilities is the irony.

Given its hidden but real agenda, public sociology is not a forum for discussion —neither sociological nor political— in which a plurality of viewpoints can participate. Instead, it is a particularistic political position, devoid of any epistemology, which represents but one specific and singular voice. Public sociology allows no discussion with others. Public sociology cannot be spoken or heard except by itself. Public sociology has no public. It speaks for itself.

To the extent that it has been successful in advertising itself for something it is not, public sociology has contributed to undermine the public standing of sociology as an academic discipline. Public sociology enjoys a degree of popularity, a popularity that is not based on arguments but on a populist conception about the supposed activities and objectives of sociologists. Public sociology is the choice between Coca Cola and Pepsi.

The sociological discipline has been politicized. Public sociology is but a consequence. The profession has managerialized. Public sociology is but a consequence. Public sociology does not, pace Burawoy (2003), threaten the legitimacy of sociology “among the powers that be.” On the contrary, the powers that be have never thought less of or about sociology and sociologists than ever before. To the so-called powers that be, sociology is virtually dead. One cannot only blame the rise of public sociology for this sorry state of affairs, nor could our structural weakness as a group be held to blame. Instead, our respective intellectual shortcomings as individual scholars have contributed most to our (relative) lack of relevance in public discourse. But at least those who oppose public sociology still accept that sociologists can and do legitimately contribute to their society, while as particularistic critics, public sociologists are heard by nobody but themselves. A relevant sociology requires an unyielding commitment to sociology as an academic discipline. The courage to be resolutely analytical about society is the true revolutionary quality of sociology. In its inability to be resolutely analytical and transcend the blinding darkness of fundamentalism, public sociology is tame at best, conservative at worst. Society deserves better and more than public sociology.

The Institutionalization of Public Sociology

The seeds of the rise of public sociology were probably sown a long time ago, even well before the debacle over the editorial appointment at the American Sociological Review (SSSITalk 1999). But a clear turn toward public sociology’s institutionalization was taken in the Spring of 2003, when a resolution was initiated in the ASA by members of the group, ‘Sociologists and Political Scientists Without Borders’, now called, ‘Sociologists Without Borders.’ The resolution specified that the American Sociological Association should call for “an immediate end to the war against Iraq” (ASA 2003). The ASA Council decided to forward the resolution to the Association members, along with an opinion question about members’ personal position on the war. A majority of voting members approved of the resolution, so that it became the official position of the ASA that the war in Iraq should be ended. Not only did this resolution present the morality of the war in Iraq as a pseudo-sociological issue, it also brought about that the politicization of the ASA was normalized and that further resolutions on similarly moral and political matters could be addressed. The resolution signaled the clearest beginning of the institutionalization of public sociology.

A year later, on March 26, 2004, a resolution was submitted to the ASA Council regarding the U.S. President’s proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. The resolution called for the ASA to oppose the proposed constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. On April 7, the ASA Council held a conference call on the resolution, which the ASA referred to as ‘member-initiated,’ voicing support for it, and deciding to hold an election on the matter among the members of the ASA.

In the meantime, the actions of the ASA Council and its President have been exposed for exactly what they are. The resolution was not initiated by ASA members but was the result of then-ASA President Burawoy’s politics-over-procedure approach —for which he had already been reprimanded when he chaired the ASA Publications Committee— when he had first suggested the idea for the resolution to certain ASA sections after the matter had already been discussed by the ASA Council (Deflem 2004c).

Like the resolution on the war in Iraq, the 2004 resolution on marriage and, more generally, the ethical-political drift in the ASA are detrimental for the discipline and profession of sociology. The problem is not whether we favor or disfavor certain rights or constitutional bans, but whether it is up to the ASA to pass a resolution on such matters. The ASA and the profession at large are in danger of becoming something they simply are not meant to be. Besides, the ASA resolutions are useless for society. It may be shocking for public sociologists to read this —as shocking as it was when they heard me say it at the 2004 ASA meeting— but the ASA anti-war resolution did not save a single life in the senseless bloodshed that is ongoing in Iraq. It only made public sociologists feel better about themselves. Do you want to supersize that?

Among sociologists, the alternative to being irrelevant (a constant danger of academics) is not being a political activist in our profession nor allowing only an activism of a particular kind. Instead of an activist sociology or a singular sociological activism, as public sociologists prefer, only the promotion of a broad range of sociological activisms would be able to usefully link sociological insight with the broader questions that move our society. For there is a rational plurality of alternatives in our political and moral struggles. But the ASA leadership, in its eagerness to have sociology be publicized, and the public sociologists, in their eagerness to have sociology be politicized, do not want the truth to be revealed. By their own admission, they do not care for the truth (Burawoy 2004b).

Since the ASA resolutions, more striking than the introduction of public sociology during the reign of Michael Burawoy as President of the ASA has been the ease with which the idea of public sociology has since been embraced and the extent to which it has been institutionalized. To be sure, the disintegration of our profession through the thoughtless proliferation of our graduate education is a contributing factor —to wit, obviously, the fact that the ASA resolutions passed because sociologists today are not so much more left (as opposed to right) but less right (as opposed to wrong). Also, most of the foot soldiers who have been marching in support of public sociology are not exactly central to our profession as their work is not exactly central to our discipline. Even more importantly, public sociology has benefited from the managerialization of the profession and the commercialization of the discipline that has taken place in recent years, especially through the efforts of the ASA Executive Office.

The institutionalization and influence of public sociology are visible and real. Besides the fact that some sociologists now explicitly mention public sociology as an area of interest and expertise, some departments have announced a routinized commitment to public sociology in their teaching and research programs. The Sociology Department at Berkeley is presently advertised as the “premier home of ‘public sociology’” (Voss 2005). As the Department houses public sociology’s self-declared meteor, that description might not be altogether surprising. Berkeley also organizes a series of public sociology talks and generally appears to invest much time and energy in promoting public sociology. What is remarkable about Berkeley’s self-image is that it is hard to imagine a sociology department further removed from the concerns of the American public than Berkeley. But perhaps ketchup is a vegetable.

Besides Berkeley, also, there are nowadays several other departments that claim to be explicitly devoted to advance public sociology, not merely house some of its practitioners. The Department of Sociology at the University of Minnesota has instituted an award in public sociology (Aminzade 2004). Some departments have announced a move towards public sociology in their job advertisements. George Mason University recently posted a job ad that stated that the Sociology Department is working towards “an expanding unit that is dedicated to developing a profile in public sociology” (ESS 2005). At Ithaca College, sociologists “with activist or public sociology expertise are especially encouraged to apply” (ASA 2005). A job ad posted by the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs announced that the Sociology Department has a “long-standing commitment to public sociology” (UCCS 2005). An ad for a position at Northeastern Illinois University’s Sociology Department similarly mentioned the “Department’s emphasis on public sociology” (ASA 2005).

Probably most distinct in its public-sociology aspirations has been the Sociology Department at Florida Atlantic University, whose website announces that the Department is “among the new ‘Public Sociology’ departments in the United States that are defining sociology as both a scholarly endeavor and as an activity in the service of humanity” (Araghi 2005). Somewhat confusingly, the Sociology Department at American University in Washington, DC, has announced a new concentration in “Professional Sociology” in its MA program. The concentration is meant to teach students how to use sociology in a wide range of professional settings, including “social activism and advocacy” (American University 2005). At American, in other words, professional sociology is also public sociology.

Some of our discipline’s journals have devoted separate attention to public sociology, mostly not to evaluate and discuss its merits, but as exercises therein. There have been special issues in Social Problems (2004), Social Forces (2004), Critical Sociology (2005), and the British Journal of Sociology (2005). The Social Forces debate was the most open-minded of all and actually included some critics of public sociology. But a more radical public sociology invasion at the journal was soon thereafter swiftly realized when Editor Judith Blau instituted the inclusion of a separate non-refereed section on public sociology in each issue of the journal. Blau additionally announced that papers in the areas of criminology, public health, and urban planning would be excluded from the journal (Deflem 2005c).

The ASA Task Force to Institutionalize Public Sociology has to date at least institutionalized itself somewhat. The Task Force set up a website, which has remained largely inactive, receiving very few posts on its web board which has recently been invaded by one Zetha, who posted a bunch of “Owned by Zetha” messages. The Task Force also published a report on the historical roots of public sociology (available via the Public Sociology website) and set up an email list serve. The list’s main topic of discussion at this point is how to get tenure on the basis of activism rather than scholarship, much like the first recommendation in the Task Force’s report was a call to the ASA Council to endorse public sociology tenure and promotion guidelines. Again as a result of the publicity activities in the ASA Executive Office, the ASA publication Footnotes has a special section on public sociology. And our discipline’s textbooks also have some public sociology sneaking into its pages. Professor Lord Giddens and his collaborators added new materials on public sociology in the 5th edition of their Introduction to Sociology (Giddens, Duneier, and Appelbaum, 2005). Perhaps public sociology can bring even the combatants of sociology together in the same fight.

Finally, it may be ironic, but it is far from surprising to observe that the advent of public sociology is facilitated by the commercialization of sociology. Last year, the ASA website began advertising an online store where members can purchase merchandise with the ASA’s traditional or centennial logos. The broader issue that is involved in this matter of business and commerce is indeed, as Durkheim reminded us, not an economic but a moral problem (Deflem 2004d). The ASA online store, which has recently been reformed as a merchandise section in the ASA online bookstore, is yet one more sign of the managerialization of the ASA administration, which is now hopelessly divorced from the profession, not to mention our scholarship. It has been the ASA administration, also, which propagated public sociology by means of organizing a giant travel tour for Michael Burawoy during his Presidency of the ASA. Commercialization indeed. And let us not forget the truly ground-breaking nature of the San Francisco meeting in 2004: it was the first ASA meeting to feature corporate sponsorship on the conference handbags.

Conclusion: The Georgia Journal of Sociology

In my journey of becoming an American sociologist, I made many mistakes and was subject to a wealth of misconceptions upon my migration to this country we call home. I misreckoned that, unlike the nepotistic patriarchy that reigns in Belgian academia, American sociology would provide an open occupational structure in which professional rewards were based on scholarly accomplishments. Once, also, I thought that American society had a less developed public intellectual culture than the one enjoyed in many European nations, but I did not know it had none. When I first set up the ‘Save Sociology’ campaign site, it included a set of posters and flyers that contained spoofs, inspired by the tactics of current anti-Bush social movements, on then ASA President Michael Burawoy and his march to public-sociological fame and glory. What’s good for one president should be good for another, I thought. But much to my surprise, the strategy largely back-fired as I tragically miscalculated the extent to which humor has been banned from our profession. But taking my commitment as a public intellectual seriously, I was and remain willing, though not altogether happy, to contribute in a manner more attuned to the culture in which I work.

With its successful institutionalization, public sociology has now become one of the mainstream components of American sociology. Predominantly white, male, and middle-class, public sociology is now respected and respectable. Worse yet, public sociology has become altogether decent. Public sociology does not shout. It is polite. I hope that public sociologists, whatever it is they stand for, at least no longer entertain any doubts that their activities too are part and parcel of American culture and all that it breeds. Public sociology has consumers —a lot of consumers. As the fast-food of social science, public sociology is now everywhere.

Yet, nobody has to accept the perversions of public sociology or assume nothing can be done against it. Recently, a new editor has been appointed at the journal Social Forces. Though the previous editor may not have been removed because of her embrace of public sociology (her incompetencies as an editor, I believe, were many), the section on public sociology has been removed from the journal, which will also restore its balance in research specialties. I therefore also call on my colleagues in the Georgia Sociological Association to seize the opportunity to establish a journal that does not bow down to any need to demarcate between professional and public sociology, but that instead is resolutely committed to sociology. Call it The Georgia Journal of Sociology, call it anything Georgian sociologists like, but keep clear and clean your commitment to sociology plain and simple.

Acknowledgement

Parts of this paper were previously presented at a roundtable presentation at the ASA annual meeting in Philadelphia, 2005. I am grateful to Paul Paolucci for organizing the panel.

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• Moody, James. 2005. “The Heart of Sociology.” PowerPoint, Department Brown Bag, Department of Sociology, The Ohio State University, April 29, 2005. Online: http://www.sociology.ohio-state.edu/jwm/presentations/heartofsociology1.ppt
• Public Sociology website, http://pubsoc.wisc.edu/
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• SSSITalk. 1999. “Michael Burawoy and the editorship of ASR.” Online: http://venus.soci.niu.edu/~archives/SSSITALK/nov99/0025.html
• UCCS (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs). 2005. Assistant Professor of Sociology (position announcement). http://web.uccs.edu/affirm/job%20announce/assistant_professor_sociology483913.htm
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Alfred Hitchcock and Sociological Theory: Parsons Goes to the Movies (2007)

Alfred Hitchcock and Sociological Theory: Parsons Goes to the Movies Mathieu Deflem deflem@sc.edu www.mathieudeflem.net This is a copy of an online publication in Sociation Today , Vol. 5, No. 1, Spring 2007. Also available online via Sociation Today. Cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2007. “Alfred Hitchcock and Sociological Theory: Parsons Goes to the Movies.” Sociation Today 5(1). Online: http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v51/mat.htm.

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Previously presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, Charlotte, NC, April 2005. I am grateful to Suzanne Sutphin for her splendid research assistance in the preparation of this paper. Abstract: The teaching of sociological theory aims for students to gain an adequate comprehension of theoretical developments in the discipline as well as understand and practice the value of theory in the empirical analysis of society. To show the pragmatic qualities of theory in a useful and enjoyable way, cinematic films can be used as reservoirs of empirical data that theories can analyze in variable ways. I report on the merits of such an approach in the context of a graduate seminar in contemporary theory in which the value of abstract theorizing is demonstrated by an analysis of Hitchcock movies on the basis of the Parsonian perspective of the family. To benefit the teaching of our sociological scholarship, we continually endeavor to find new and useful ways to effectively communicate the best of our work to a new generation of learners. Searching for appropriate teaching strategies is particularly acute in areas that do not easily lend themselves to be taught with reference to commonly known everyday experiences. Theory and methods come to mind as peculiarly important subject matters in this respect. This essay discusses a sociological teaching strategy that involves the use of cinematic movies. The ambitions of this enterprise are entirely educational, oriented at those of us who are interested in teaching for the sake of student learning, and should not be confused with an exercise in the so-called scholarship of teaching and learning. Movies present an empirical universe of data that can be illuminated with the aid of the analytical tools of sociological theory in a way that enables better understanding of the role and value of theory. Making this argument, I will draw on examples in the teaching of contemporary sociological theory, specifically Talcott Parsons’ functionalist perspective of the family, on the basis of analyses of movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock. SOCIOLOGY AND FILM There are at least two traditions in relation to the interconnections between sociological scholarship and the art of the cinema. First, studies in the sociology of culture focus on various aspects of the role and place of film in society, a tradition of research that dates back many years (Mayer 1948; Huaco 1965; Tudor 1974). Second, sociologists use the medium of film, often along with other manifestations of popular culture, in various aspects of their work, chief amongst which is instruction (King 2006; Papademas 2002; Smith 1973, 1982). In teaching sociology with films, several choices can be made. Smith (1973) emphasizes the usefulness of teaching with films in order to hold students’ attention, especially in large classrooms. Maynard (1971) similarly argues that the use of films in teaching can prevent students from getting bored. Films are also judged useful in teaching because they portray various facts of life, although research by Smith (1973) showed that students taught with film and those without film evaluate the same course about as positively. The use of film in teaching sociology has also been advocated because the availability of video technology has made the medium very easy to use in the setting of a classroom (Burton 1988; Smith 1982). Burton (1988) emphasizes that a guided discussion should follow the showing of a movie in class. This approach ties in with the classroom use of movies to demonstrate the usefulness of various perspectives and themes of sociology to undergraduate students and the public at large (Prendergast 1986; Tipton and Tiemann 1993) and to reveal the applicability of sociological insights in selected specialty areas (Tolich 1992; Pescosolido 1990). The use of film is judged especially useful given the high degree of visual literacy among today’s students. The development of a visual age is further aided by the explosion of video sites on the internet, such as YouTube and Yahoo Video, and technological advances in video compression through, including HDV, Digital8, and portable media players. Dowd (1999) advocates the use of films in teaching but cautions that movies contain perspectives that need to be clarified before a sociological analysis can be undertaken. My own approach to the use of film in the teaching of sociology has learned from, but also departs somewhat from these varied positions. CINEMA AND TEACHING SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY My observations on film and sociology rely on experiences with using film in the teaching of a contemporary theory seminar in a sociology graduate program. The seminar does not provide a survey of a multitude of contemporary theories but, instead, discusses the merits of a small yet meaningful selection of theories that are explicitly rooted in the sociological classics and that accord centrality to the notions of system and social structure. Emphasis is placed on the conceptual tools and analytically relevant propositions that are advanced in the discussed theories as well as the fruitfulness of these theoretical ideas for the analysis of various substantive issues of society. Students are expected to gain an accurate comprehension of a given theory and be able to compare different theories. Extending this abstract level of theorizing, students are also engaged to apply theoretical insights to empirical issues of society, for we ought to be mindful that when we teach theory we always teach for sociologists, not (only) for theorists (Deflem 1999). In matters of sociological theory-building, I advocate an approach that pays due attention to the building blocks of contemporary sociological thought. Thus, the course starts with a brief review of the sociological classics and then pays attention to the earliest modern sociological theorists who have contributed to the development of the intellectual contours of the sociological enterprise. The first part of the course is devoted to the masters of structural-functionalist thought (Talcott Parsons, Robert Merton, Lewis Coser) and thereupon turns to selected modern and contemporary variations of structuralist and systems-theoretical perspectives (Peter Blau, Bruce Mayhew Jr., Donald Black, Jürgen Habermas). The course also includes discussions of theoretical movements that are critical of some of the selected theories (C. Wright Mills, Erving Goffman). The work of Talcott Parsons is central to the course for a number of reasons. Parsons was not only instrumental in developing a once dominant theoretical movement that, additionally, invoked many criticisms and thus also enable alternative theories, Parsons’ work also bridges classical and contemporary sociological theory. Although there has been something of a revival of Parsonian sociology over the past two decades, it is still far from evident to devote much attention to the theories of Parsons. We all know the familiar criticisms of Parsonian theory’s abstractness, lack of testability, and implied consensus thinking. Although these criticisms are often made in haste and without much substance, it is important to recognize that teaching does not take place in a vacuum. Students come to class with some ideas or preconceptions about the theories that will be discussed. Even if these ideas are largely based on selective rememberings of an undergraduate survey course, such perceptions are real and have to be adequately dealt with. I therefore find it particularly useful in the teaching of Parsons’ theories to communicate to students the notion that the development of abstract theoretical ideas does not imply that such theorizing cannot be applied to the study of empirical phenomena. The exact opposite is true. In order to apply theory to the analysis of concrete situations, several conditions must be met. Minimally, one must have a firm grasp of the concepts and propositions of a theory and be capable to apply abstract ideas in a logically and methodologically sound manner. Subsequently, a defined empirical universe must be empirically described and theoretically analyzed. Teaching theory through the use of film therefore requires: knowledge of theory at the abstract level; knowledge of how to apply theory to specific cases (deduction); descriptive information of a delineated empirical universe; and analysis of said universe with the theory at hand in order to derive meaningful conclusions (induction). Applying theory to a universe of social facts that is communicated through films can demonstrate in usefully pleasant ways the merits of theory in sociology. It is particularly fortuitous to introduce the value of theory application through the work of Talcott Parsons, precisely because the exercise is counter-intuitive. PARSONS’ SYSTEMS THEORY OF THE FAMILY The empirical dimensions of social life in the movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock form an empirical universe that is useful for a theoretical application of Parsonian ideas. To make such an exercise meaningful, certain boundaries have to be specified in terms of scope of analysis. Various social institutions can be approached with a theory as general as Parsons’ and a cinematic oeuvre as extensive as Hitchcock’s. In my teaching, I have chosen to focus on the institution of the family. From Parsons’ systems-theoretical viewpoint, the family is primarily seen in terms of its functional location in the social system. At a general level, Parsons (1977) uses a four-functional model of the social system (adaptation, goal attainment, integration, latency) to identify the economy, the polity, the societal community, and the fiduciary subsystem as the basic subsystems of modern society. The family is primarily conceived in terms of its primary function of socialization as a fiduciary subsystem (Parsons 1942, 1954). But the family also relates to other social subsystems. Most notably, the household is complementary to the economy in that it provides necessary economic roles, such as consumers and workers. Additional functional analysis can be undertaken of the various roles within the family (parents-children, husband-wife). Thus, the differentiation at the societal level between family and economy, or between kinship as an ascribed status and occupation as an achieved status, translates within the family as a tension between diverse parental roles. The working parent fulfills an instrumental role outside the family by virtue of an occupation, whereas the stay-at-home parent has an predominantly expressive role inside the family (care for the children). Besides the family’s instrumental functions, Parsons also noted that the ties among the members in a family unit are affective and strong. In the conjugal family, kinship ties are few in number but intense, especially with the primary care-taker. At the same time, ties with other institutions are also important, particularly with the economy and education. These dual forces of intra-familial and extra-familial relationships may create strains because various roles are taken up by the same people (parent-spouse, employee-parent, children-peers) and because of important societal changes affecting the family. Particularly, Parsons observed in his days that women were beginning to emancipate from their traditional roles as house-keepers, although parental roles were still largely differentiated along gender lines. Inasmuch as one spouse occupies the occupational role and the other spouse the expressive-affective role, Parsons reasoned that competition between the spouses is eliminated. Changes in these role patterns, whatever their form, would have to be functionally resolved. HITCHCOCK’S FAMILY Applying Parsons’ functionalist theory of the family to an analysis of the American family as it is portrayed in the movies directed by Alfred Hitchcock, it is important to note that Hitchcock constructed his visual universe imaginatively and deliberately for artistic purposes which do not necessarily meet the analytical goals of the sociological eye. Yet, Hitchcock also drew from societal contexts that were present while making movies over more than half a century. As Hitchcock once observed, “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out” (World of Quotes). There are at least three central ideas of Parsons’ theory of the family that can be illustrated by means of Hitchcock’s cinematic portrayals of family life: 1) the family as a whole and its members individually fulfill important societal functions (statics); 2) the family and its members undergo certain changes (dynamics); and 3) the family and its members can experience strains (conflict). Given the very nature of the instructional use of film, I cannot here do full justice to the technique, but a brief review may indicate its worth nonetheless. The Functionality of the Family A first Parsonian idea that can be illustrated with Hitchcock’s movies is the notion of the conjugal family as a place of socialization. This functional perspective of the family is very common in Hitchcock’s world. It is a view of the family that is easily recognizable and accepted as secure and stable, portraying a well-functioning family as part of an everyday environment in which, as the story unfolds, a disturbing element can be injected to arouse drama and suspense. In this context, also, Hitchcock is fond of showing the family as an affective unit with strong emotional ties. These ties involve special care and affection, especially between the mother and the children. Some examples may illustrate this point. In The Wrong Man (1958), Hitchcock explores one of his favorite topics, that of a man wrongly accused of a crime. In order to increase the level of disturbance that the wrongful arrest brings about, Hitchcock first shows the man with his wife and two children in a very everyday family scene at home. We see the couple jointly doing the dishes. Their two children talk and at some point start to quibble in the living room. The mother is the first to go and check what the children are up to. She tries to get the boys to calm down. Then the husband comes in to settle the matter. The parents’ roles are clearly defined and both make their respective decisions accordingly. Showing the unity of the couple’s parenting roles, some decisions are made jointly. After the children have settled down, one of the boys complains that his brother did not hit the right notes to a song he is playing on piano, upon which both parents remark in unison, “Yes, he did.” In The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956), a vision of the American family is very central to the plot. A doctor and his wife and child are on vacation in Morocco, where they get involved in a political intrigue that will take them to London. Early in the movie, the mother is helping the child prepare to go to bed while her husband is getting ready to later go out for dinner with his wife. While helping the boy, the mother is singing a song (“Que Sera Sera”) and the boys starts to whistle along. At some point, the boy starts to sing in place of his mother, reciting the words, “When I was just a little boy, I asked my mother what will I be?,” upon which his father looks at his wife and responds, “He’ll make a fine doctor.” The parental functions are thus clarified in terms of a differentiation between the mother’s affective role and the father’s instrumental-occupational role. The scene is also a very happy one, almost corny, but it serves an important cinematic purpose. For when later in the story the boy is kidnapped, the sense of loss on the part of the audience is great. Changes of the Family It is the inevitable fate of every family that it will undergo natural but radical changes. Families grow when children are born and dissolve when parents die and children grow up and leave the home to start families anew. Families also overlap because siblings will start their own conjugal units and create extended kinship ties. This dynamic view of the family is more sparingly but very crucially shown in Hitchcock’s movies. Family changes set the tone for other disturbing events that will follow. While a portrayal of the functionality of the family is one of Hitchcock’s techniques to sketch an everyday surrounding in which the movies’ central drama will unfold, changes in the family introduce the beginnings of the drama. In Shadow of a Doubt (1943), a young woman called Charlie is overjoyed when her uncle, also called Charlie, announces that he will visit the family. Upon his arrival, there is a family dinner and the uncle hands out gifts, including pictures of his and his sister’s parents. The dynamics of the family scene reveal the cross-cutting of various families and family roles. The man is an uncle to the young woman and the brother of her mother. He is not of, but in the conjugal family. He has returned for a family visit, which means he will also leave again. Eventually, the young woman discovers her uncle is a murderer.[click here to view online segment] In Stage Fright (1950), a young woman’s male friend visits her family. Her father notes that the friend has become the woman’s romantic interest, although she earlier expressed interest in another man. The woman’s parents are separated, but her budding romance brings them together again, thereby announcing not only an impending marriage, but also the possible restoration of a failed marriage. Strains Upon the Family In the Parsonian perspective, changes in the family can be so unexpected, drastic, and sudden that they create strain and tension. In Hitchcock’s movies, the technique of introducing such critical changes is used very carefully and with extreme dramatic impact. The sources of family strain are multiple but are always events that are out of the ordinary, such as eloping, jealousy, and divorce. In Suspicion (1941), family problems are shown when a daughter unexpectedly decides to get married to a playboy bachelor. The young woman comes home from a walk one day with a man whose advances she has just rejected. When she arrives at her home, she overhears her parents talk about her as a spinster. She suddenly turns around, kisses the man, and invites him for a visit, even though she thinks he is untrustworthy.[click here to view online segment] In The Birds (1963), family strain is experienced because of jealousy. A beautiful and wealthy woman visits the family of a man whom she is interested in and who on weekends lives with his mother and younger sister. Since the passing of his father, the man fulfils a father and husband role. When the woman arrives at the family’s home, Hitchcock turns the camera on the eyes of the mother, clearly revealing her jealousy. At some point later in the evening, the mother discusses with her son the woman’s shady past as a socialite. While the man listens patiently, he repeatedly refers to his mother as ‘darling.’ Hitchcock shows a very exceptional family situation in Sabotage (1936). In the movie, a man lives with his wife and her younger brother, Stevie, whom she adores. Unbeknownst to the woman, her husband is a spy for a foreign government. One day, the man is assigned to have a bomb explode in London. Because he cannot do the job himself, he asks Stevie to deliver a package which contains the bomb. On route to delivering what the boy thinks is just a movie can, he is delayed and gets killed when the bomb explodes. The boy’s sister finds out about her husband’s involvement in her brother’s death. Later in the evening, while preparing dinner, she is holding a knife and looks at her husband. He has admitted to his actions. When the man stands up and approaches his wife, she stabs him with the knife and kills him. The detective assigned to the case finds out about the woman's involvement, but because he has fallen in love with her, he covers up the facts and the woman goes free. [click here to view online segment] In Notorious (1946), an extraordinary family situation is portrayed because of a deceitful marriage. A man who has married a woman against his mother’s wishes finds out that his wife is a spy. Upon his discovery, we see the man slowly walking upstairs to his mother’s bedroom. When she awakens, he confesses, “Mother, I am married to an American agent.” His mother smiles because she has been proven right about her suspicions. Now she can again take charge. The man has become her son again. He obeys his mother and together they plan to poison the woman. [click here to view online segment] FROM SOCIOLOGY TO FILM The use of Hitchcock movies on the basis of Parsons’ theory of the family implies specific considerations on the use of film in teaching sociology that should lead to set appropriate ways in which movies can serve as vehicles for the teaching of sociological ideas. This analysis was primarily meant to demonstrate the value of abstract theorizing. With Parsons and other theorists like him, I argue that the abstractness of theoretical ideas precisely allows for, rather than inhibits, the analyses of empirical dimensions of society. Parsons was very clear about the pragmatic objectives of theory in aiding to explain the facts of empirical experience (Parsons 1937). The concepts of a theory must be abstract and its propositions general precisely in order to apply and test theory and account for variation in empirical reality (Blau 1995:5-6). Thus, the analysis of Hitchcock’s family portrayals were meant to show the worth of Parsons’ theory as an analytical tool. While I have not systematically investigated the impact of the use of this teaching tool in my theory seminar, indications are that the strategy has educational benefits for student learning. Besides the positive feedback I have received from my students, they have also demonstrated a knowledge of Parsons’ theory and an ability to apply his concepts in their written work. Students, also, have similarly used video and other mediums in in-class presentations about other contemporary theories. The analysis of Hitchcock’s movies with functionalist tools does not and cannot prove the empirical adequacy of Parsons’ theory, even though one may assume that Hitchcock’s portrayal of the family, filmed around the same time as when Parsons wrote, may harmonize with some of the empirical conditions that then existed in society at large. Yet, a test of the validity of Parsons’ propositions can only be undertaken through a systematic research that relies on data of actually existing family structures and processes. Hitchcock’s universe is his, and one must be careful to avoid drawing conclusions from it as a representation of society that would be sociologically accurate. Because movies cannot be assumed to portray as reality that empirically valid, they cannot be used at face value to make sociological statements about the conditions of society. Sociologists have occasionally used movies as sources of information about various aspects of society (e.g., Smith 1973; Pescosolido 1990). Such perspectives not only overlook that a movie is not a sociological work, they also fail to recognize the difference between teaching about society and teaching sociology. Because a movie is a constructed environment with artistic purposes, its relation to the structure of society can never be judged alone from interpreting the movie, but only from a comparison of the information in the movie with a systematically derived body of knowledge about society. Whatever the value of a hermeneutics of a film, it must be situated within a socio-historical context that needs an independent sociological analysis (see, generally, Habermas 1988). In the case of Hitchcock and Parsons on the family, therefore, students are not primarily meant to learn about the conditions of the American family, but about the value of analytical reasoning in the case of a particular sociological theory. It could be argued that one might also analyze backward, from film to sociology. However, I would caution against such an approach. Although it is nowadays in certain quarters fashionable to argue for a so-called broader vision of sociology, any presumed sociological imagination on the part of a moviemaker (and, possibly, the movie-going public) must itself already be part of a sociological analysis. The factual accuracy of societal conditions and processes portrayed in a movie, in any case, cannot be confused with the conscious knowledge thereof from a sociologically meaningful framework that is systematically derived at and, moreover, subject to falsification. Cinematic authenticity is not identical to sociological validity. Finally, these observations also imply opposition to the showing of complete movies as part of sociological instruction to demonstrate the value or validity of a sociological idea or theory. The reasons for this limitation are not only pragmatic, relating to the relative brevity of our classroom times and the fact that most movies will contain information that is redundant from the viewpoint of the teacher (Demerath 1981; Dowd 1999). More fundamentally, I believe we must be mindful of the fact that the cinema is an art form and that movies are works of art that must be experienced as such. It would be disrespectful to the art of the cinema to pervert the very nature of movies in the form of their complete airing in an educational settings for instructional purposes. It is therefore, conversely, appropriate for our teaching objectives as well as in view of the art forms on which we rely to show carefully chosen segments within a sociologically appropriate framework. Thus, the analysis presented in this paper can be broadened to conceive of other pairings of film and theory, of director and theorist, centered on a variety of sociologically relevant topics. But no matter the choice of theory and movie, analysis must proceed from the fact that, as Dowd (1999:327) argues, “the director is not a sociologist.” Such a restriction on the use of movies will also apply to documentary films inasmuch as they have an author who has purposes beyond sociology (see Contemporary Sociology 2004; Deflem 2005). Yet, precisely because movies are a-sociological realities, they can offer the raw materials which sociologists can analyze in an analytically meaningful framework. REFERENCES Blau, Peter M. 1995. “A Circuitous Path to Macrostructural Theory.” Annual Review of Sociology 21:1-19. Burton, C. Emory. 1988. “Sociology and the Feature Film.” Teaching Sociology 16(3):263-271. Contemporary Sociology. 2004. “Publics and Sociologies.” [Includes reviews of Fahrenheit 911]. Contemporary Sociology 33(5):ix-xii. Deflem, Mathieu. 1999. “Teaching Theory for Sociology Students: Junior Notes.” Perspectives, The ASA Theory section newsletter, pp. 7-8. Deflem, Mathieu. 2005. “Comment.” Contemporary Sociology 34(1):92-93. Demerath, N.J. 1981. “Through a Double-Crossed Eye: Sociology and the Movies.” Teaching Sociology 9:69-82. Dowd, James J. 1999. “Waiting for Louis Prima: On the Possibility of a Sociology of Film.” Teaching Sociology 27(4):324-342. Habermas, Jürgen. 1988. On the Logic of the Social Sciences. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Huaco, George A. 1965. The Sociology of Film Art. New York: Basic Books. King, Donna. 2006. “A Cultural Studies Approach to Teaching the Sociology of Childhood.” Sociation Today 4(1). Mayer, J. P. 1948. Sociology of Film: Studies and Documents. London: Faber and Faber. Maynard, Richard A. 1971. The Celluloid Curriculum: How to Use Movies in the Classroom. New York: Hayden. Papademas, Diana, Editor. 2002. Visual Sociology and Using Film/Video in Sociology Courses. Washington, DC: American Sociological Association. Parsons, Talcott. 1937. The Structure of Social Action. Glencoe, IL: The Free Press. Parsons, Talcott. 1942. “Age and Sex in the Social Structure of the United States.” American Sociological Review 7(5):604-616. Parsons, Talcott. 1954. “The Kinship System of the Contemporary United States.” Pp. 189-194 in his Essays in Sociological Theory. New York: The Free Press. Parsons, Talcott. 1977. Social Systems and the Evolution of Action Theory. New York: The Free Press. Pescosolido, Bernice A. 1990. “Teaching Medical Sociology through Film: Theoretical Perspectives and Practical Tools.” Teaching Sociology 18(3):337-346. Prendergast, Christopher. 1986. “Cinema Sociology: Cultivating the Sociological Imagination through Popular Film.” Teaching Sociology 14(4):243-248. Smith, Don D. 1973. “Teaching Introductory Sociology by Film.” Teaching Sociology 1(1):48-61. Smith, Don D. 1982. “Teaching Undergraduate Sociology Through Feature Films.” Teaching Sociology 10(1):98-101. Tipton, Dana B. and Tiemann, Kathleen. 1993. “Using the Feature Film to Facilitate Sociological Thinking.” Teaching Sociology 21(2):187-91. Tolich, Martin. 1992. “Bringing Sociological Concepts into Focus in the Classroom with Modern Times, Roger and Me, and Annie Hall.” Teaching Sociology 20(4):344-347. Tudor, Andrew. 1974. Image and Influence: Studies in the Sociology of Film. Allen & Unwin. World of Quotes, website. Life Quotes. Available online: http://www.worldofquotes.com/topic/Life/1/ See also:

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Cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2007. “Alfred Hitchcock and Sociological Theory: Parsons Goes to the Movies.” Sociation Today 5(1). Online: http://www.ncsociology.org/sociationtoday/v51/mat.htm. www.mathieudeflem.net

Introduction: Sociologists in a Global Age (2007)

INTRODUCTION: SOCIOLOGISTS IN A GLOBAL AGE Mathieu Deflem deflem@sc.edu www.mathieudeflem.net Published in Sociologists in a Global Age: Biographical Perspectives, edited by Mathieu Deflem, pp. 1-11. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2007. Also available in a print-friendly pdf file. Cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2007. “Introduction: Sociologists in a Global Age.” Pp. 1-11 in Sociologists in a Global Age: Biographical Perspectives, edited by M. Deflem. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate.

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This anthology brings together a diverse group of well-known sociologists from various parts of the world to share their personal experiences in becoming exemplary practitioners of our discipline. The collected autobiographical essays emphasize the authors’ respective journeys into the discipline and profession of sociology in special relation to the intellectual and social-political contexts in which their works have matured and in which they will surely continue to flourish. Edited books containing biographical representations of sociologists have been more readily available in recent years. But besides offering reflections from contemporary representatives of the discipline, the present volume has a unique approach in not only bringing together sociologists with distinctly international and/or comparative perspectives in terms of their research and other work experiences, but also in gathering sociologists from across different parts of the world. As such, the thematic and personal scope of this book are, in however modest a sense, global and, hopefully, will also be able to appeal to a global audience of readers. When planning this book, it was conceived as an attempt to bring together scholars from various countries to talk about their personal journeys in becoming sociological professionals. What was perhaps most striking about working to complete this work was the ease with which sociologists from across the globe could be identified and contacted. Sociology has become an activity that is more readily than ever global in nature. The global dynamics of contemporary sociology are less a function of any specific theoretical or thematic focus of one’s work, but instead characterize the organization of sociology itself. Not only could many sociologists across the world readily be found, most all of them were likewise enthusiastic about writing for this book. Besides the usual constraints of time and energy, the willingness to contribute to this book is different from most scholarly activities in writing as the contributions contain a distinctly personal side. This willingness to reveal aspects of one’s self may relate to the present-day more readily recognized insight that work and life need not, and perhaps cannot, be as readily distinguished as some decades ago. A few words on the use of auto/biography in the development of sociology may clarify the evolving role of the self in sociological work and will also clarify how this book situates itself relative to the relevant literature and what some of the specific ambitions are that this book hopes to accomplish. Sociology and Auto/Biography Reviewing the literature on auto/biography and sociology, it is clear that scholars of society have always been well aware of the rather unique place that one’s biography plays in the development of one’s work, particularly because the theme of analysis pertains so closely to the human condition. As practitioners of the discipline, we are fond to discover and talk about the details and trajectories of the lives of our discipline’s founders and major representatives. Biographical materials can minimally serve to introduce a body of thought, but are sometimes also intertwined with the exposé of an oeuvre. Biographies exist on some of sociology’s major classic scholars, such as Emile Durkheim (Lukes 1985), Max Weber (Marianne Weber 1926), Ferdinand Tönnies (Carstens 2005), Karl Mannheim (Woldring 1987), Jane Addams (Deegan 1988), Robert E. Park (Raushenbush 1979), and Alfred Schutz (Wagner 1983), as well as contemporary classics, such as C. Wright Mills (Horowitz 1983) and Talcott Parsons (Gerhardt 2002). Occasionally we are fortunate to have available for our reading and learning sociologists’ autobiographies and other primary sources of personal experience, such as the book-length autobiographies of Pitirim Sorokin (1963), W.E.B. DuBois (1968), Robert M. MacIver (1968), George C. Homans (1984), Irving Louis Horowitz (1990), Charles H. Page (1982), Leo Lowenthal (1987), William Foote Whyte (1995), and Edward Shils (2006). The biographical and autobiographical excursions of sociologists —especially when they concern some of our discipline’s most cherished representatives— have intrinsic merit to our understanding of an important body of work but will also satisfy our all-too-human curiosity, particularly in an age of ubiquitous surveillance and routinized self-revelation, to know more of the other. Moreover, although sociologists and other scholars have not always been as eager to embrace the auto-biographical form, there has over the years developed a growing sense that revelations of the self also contribute to the understanding of one’s work. As such, auto-biography fulfils an intellectual role intimately tied to professional goals. More broadly, sociological auto-biographies also tell stories of the trajectories of the discipline and profession of sociology and the sociologist’s relation to the evolving field of sociology and the surrounding social order (Cain 2005; Killian 1994; Mills 2000). Most autobiographical sketches by sociologists are available not as book-length treaties but as shorter essay-style contributions. Even a relatively modest delving into the relevant literature reveals that there are many such autobiographical accounts available. Even in the English-language alone, the number of sociologists reflecting on their lives and works runs easily in the multiple hundreds. Many of these autobiographies either form part of an author’s book or collected works (e.g., Merton 1996) or are available in sociological journals, especially those that focus on the sociological profession and the history of sociology. For instance, The American Sociologist, the journal that was founded by Talcott Parsons to be devoted to the sociological profession, regularly incorporates autobiographical contributions (e.g., Berger 2004; Hollander 2001), as do other sociological journals (e.g., Blau 1995; Coser 1993; Marshall 1973). For present purposes most interesting are those essay-length autobiographies that have appeared as part of an edited volume aimed at presenting a coherent set of sociological portrayals of selves. As this volume fits among these collections, a brief review may illuminate the scope and aims of such books as well as situate our own contribution. Reflecting the nation-bound contexts of our respective sociological careers and their cultural-linguistic implications, this review is restricted to books that appeared in the English language. A slant towards predominantly American publications should be additionally noted, as the reader will understand this Introduction to be framed in the context of an American career with European ancestry. To my knowledge the oldest collection of autobiographical essays of sociologists is Sociological Self-Images, edited by Irving Louis Horowitz in 1969. The book includes autobiographical sketches by more than a dozen well-known American sociologists (George C. Homans, Llewellyn Gross, James Short, Seymour M. Lipset, Wendell Bell, and others). The set-up of the book as a whole is relatively conventional in presenting not primarily a collection of personal life-histories and reflections of self, but an overview of the authors’ respective theoretical perspectives and research activities as well as their intellectual influences. Yet, although the aim of book is thus primarily methodological, it does in many instances also reveal the subjective and personal sides of the sociological endeavor, in a manner, moreover, that was particularly meant to be useful to students of our discipline. Not until the late 1980s would the next autobiographical collection of sociologists appear when Matilda White Riley edited the volume, Sociological Lives, as part of the American Sociological Association Presidential Series (Riley 1988). By 1988, female sociologists and other disciplinarians from more diverse backgrounds were no longer excluded. On the contrary, a deliberate effort was made for the represented scholars to represent a more diverse group. Amongst others, Alice Rossi, Bernice Neugarten, William Julius Wilson, and Theda Skocpol contributed their respective stories to make for a rich mélange of sociological lives. The collection was also focused in offering stories that reveal the interplay between sociologists’ lives and their surrounding social structures. Arguably the most ambitious and best collection to date, Authors of Their Own Lives, edited by the late Bennett M. Berger (1990), brings together autobiographical insights from no less than twenty sociologists, including leading scholars, such as James Coleman and David Riesman, iconoclasts and scholars on the move, such as Andrew Greeley, Gary T. Marx, and Donald Cressey, as well as women and émigrés, including Jessie Bernard, Cynthia Fuchs Epstein, Guenther Roth, and Reinhard Bendix. The advantage of this collection is that the sociological authors are let loose to tell their own stories free of any restriction of a guiding orientation beyond the attempt to bring out the relevant personal sides of the authors in relation to the development of their work. This collection is as such clearly a very modern work, appearing around the time when questions of identity and self had been marching on to the forefront of sociological inquiry, sometimes even with the aim of debunking the objectivity and universality of academic thought altogether. While such a hyper-relativizing stance will surely not have been shared among all the book’s authors and its readers, it only behooves a sociological analysis mindful of structural constraints and opportunities to observe the correlation. The resolute focus towards identity-oriented personal narratives marks the more recently published collections of sociologists’ autobiographies. Not surprisingly, two volumes published in the mid-1990s focused specifically on the lives of female and feminist sociologists (Goetting and Fenstermaker 1995; Laslett and Thorne 1997). Unlike some of the prior collections, these volumes are very explicit in focusing on autobiography in terms of gender and feminine roles, class and academic mobility, community activism and personal isolation, and professional conflict and camaraderie. Instead of straightforward methodological lessons, these books present queries that are meant to be ‘sensitive’ and ‘unsettling’ interpretations of the self that are open to the multiple interpretations of others and straddle the boundaries of ‘fiction’ and ‘truth’. At least such are the self-stated ambitions. The most recently published volumes of sociologists’ autobiographies have likewise taken on a radical turn towards the explicit portrayal of life stories involving an intermingling of personal questions of self and broader, often political questions of society. The volume, Our Studies, Ourselves (Glassner and Hertz 2003), groups its 22 authors in sections on race and class, gender, and evolving identities. And the recent collection, The Disobedient Generation (Sica and Turner 2005), includes self-images of well-known social theorists who were educated during the roaring times of the late 1960s. Most of the contributing authors lock their narratives intimately into discourses on bureaucracy, gender, race, class, and politics, in terms that often betray the ideological bend of their initial aspirations. The shift towards an interest in the subjective lives and identities of major contributors to the sociological discipline can today also be observed from the manner in which theoretical ideas are presented in scholarly textbooks. It is currently more often than ever the case that the personal stories of scholars are brought into play to contextualize the development and meaning of their thought. Several textbooks in sociological theory, for instance, are explicitly devoted to placing theoretical ideas in the context of the biographies of the theorists who have developed them (Fernandez 2003; Pampel 2000; Salerno 2004). Other textbooks contain short autobiographical excursions that are added to the theoretical exposé (Ritzer 2000). Also to be noted, finally, is the increasing interest in sociological auto/biography as it is manifested on the internet. Besides the online availability of biographical materials on sociologists that can very easily be retrieved through search engines, several websites include biographical materials on famous sociologists (e.g., SocioSite; Wikipedia), with the occasional website even exclusively concerned in presenting such biographical information (e.g., AGSÖ). Although fewer controls exist to ensure the quality of internet contributions, the accessibility of such websites is less restricted by the boundaries of nationally distinct cultures to allow for a more global view of sociological lives. Objectives The ease with which the internet and email communications have opened up the boundaries of national cultures has directly contributed to making the present volume possible. As indicated by the sub-title of this volume, our contributors were purposely selected from various nations across the world to present a modest but concrete effort in global sociology. The authors represent a diverse range of nations, extending from Germany to Korea, The Netherlands to the United States, China to Italy, and Poland to the United Kingdom. To be sure, practical and other limitations still prevented a wider diversity of scholars to be represented, but nonetheless it can be rightly claimed that the degree of internationalism that has been attained in this volume has not been matched by any similar volume. In consequence, also, it is hoped that the stories presented here may resonate widely as well. Besides representing a variety of national contexts, all scholars in this volume have explicit and varied professional involvements with international and/or comparative issues, be it through a focus in their research activities and/or through the development of their own lives and careers. The contributors have engaged in research on international structures and processes or have undertaken comparative investigations of social issues in geographically dispersed societies. There is also a sharp awareness among the contributors of the localization of one’s work in distinct socio-geographical terms, and there are manifold personal experiences in engaging in dialogue with scholars and sociological work from many different countries. Several of the contributing scholars have also enjoyed international journeys on a personal level as they have moved across countries in the course of their lives and careers. When the authors were contacted about the prospect of this book, they were asked to write autobiographical accounts that addressed some of the following issues: Provide an autobiographical account of yourself and how, why, when, and where you developed your academic interests in sociology. Acknowledge significant individuals and mentors, as well as the social, political, cultural, and economic events that prompted your interests and inspired your sociological work. Share with us your theoretical and/or methodological orientation and how it was influenced by the social and intellectual context you enjoyed. Comment on the direction in which you see your work, your area of research, and sociology in general heading. Authors were told to freely place variable emphases as they saw fit and to add any dimensions they considered relevant within the general scope and aim of the anthology. Authors were asked to be mindful to write essays that were especially useful for students of our discipline who are still in the process of developing their activities in the sociological enterprise. Students may be facing opportunities and challenges similar to the ones experienced by the contributors. While surely not so intended, the sociological life experiences recounted here contain lessons for others who can still primarily look forward to rather than back on a career in sociology. Besides the explicit global and student-oriented focus, this book is also different from other works on sociological lives inasmuch as the autobiographical reviews here presented are highlighted in terms of the triple nexus self—society—sociology. However it unfolds in a specific context, a scholar’s personal sociological journey never takes place in isolation from the social world, involving others and their societal surroundings. Besides mere psychological leanings, the context of one’s society and the professional and scholarly contours of influential intellectual traditions will also shape the course and outcome of a biography. As such, the chapters in this volume endeavor to bridge the distinction between a sociologist’s autobiography and a sociological autobiography (Merton 1988) as they offer reflections on person and work that are not only written by a sociologist but also sociological in kind. The chapters are intellectual autobiographies so that the usual restrictions of the specific form of a biography of the self will apply, especially in terms of empirical adequacy criteria. However, the narratives are also sociologically framed in the contexts of their respective socio-historical settings and professionals fields, avoiding narcissism and irrelevance alike (Wacquant 1989). What unites these authors is their commitment to a sociological career that is always much more than just a career. Overview The solicitation for contributions to this book did not follow any specific logic or plan besides the stated purpose of collecting sociological biographies of globally oriented scholars from around the world. In all other respects, the authors could be as diverse from one another as they might be. The inclusion of certain categories of scholars along the lines of gender and ethnicity is in the present-day context not something that has to be expressly endeavored. Diversity in such respects is today a mere function of being a sociologist who is positioned in the profession as it exists and acknowledges the structure thereof. It is therefore fortunate that the authors’ contributions strike a range of themes that nonetheless hint at certain common elements which can be used as a guide to introduce the chapters. The chapters in this volume are divided over three parts. This division of chapters, however, is not to suggest that each author does not address at once several of the issues highlighted in each part, but rather that they place differential emphasis upon certain elements from the varied experiences of their respective sociological careers. Opening our book are chapters in which the traversing of national boundaries is a central formative element of the authors’ sociological lives. Martin Albrow provides a very useful start to this book by recounting his journey as a European sociologist with increasingly global interests and significance. Beginning his career as an Englishman in Germany who was to become a leading figure in British sociology, Albrow’s journey nicely illustrates the border-crossing trajectory of sociologists working in an increasingly international sociological field. Karin Knorr Cetina recounts of her trajectory in creating a global self by working in various places in Austria, Germany, and the United States. Professional interests and personal experiences meshed to create a story, narrated by Knorr Cetina in a beautiful manner that betrays her ethnological sensibilities, which reveals the enormous rewards of having colleagues in a horizontal rather than in a vertical structure of collaboration. The academic story of Joachim Savelsberg, a German who has spent most of his career in the United States, likewise reveals the cross-border dimensions of contemporary sociological life. Academic and personal motives meshed in Savelsberg’s life journey and also greatly affected the comparative nature of his research interests. Diane Davis built an academic career in the country in which she was raised, but her research interests have extended beyond the boundaries of the United States to focus particularly on the urban realities of Mexico City. In the United States, also, Davis traveled from one city to another, crossing borders often no less dramatic than the ones that separate entire nations. Saskia Sassen’s career is as globally transformative in its origins and further developments as are the cities she has been studying as one of the leading experts in globalization. Having gone through all kinds of twists and unexpected turns, Sassen also shows us how early rejections need not hamper a career that is build on a genuine interest in the study of social issues. The second part of our book includes chapters that particularly highlight the evolving nature of sociological work. German sociologist Richard Münch attended the University of Heidelberg, like Max Weber and Talcott Parsons before him. Like Weber and Parsons, also, Münch never avoided the big questions of sociology during his academic travels from one German university to the next. Ewa Morawska was born in Poland, earned her Ph.D. in the United States, returned to Poland, but subsequently received political asylum in the United States, the country where she also worked most of her career until she recently moved to the United Kingdom. Under such conditions of high mobility, it is perhaps no wonder that Morawska’s research is heavily involved in the study of immigration and ethnicity. Raised in Cairo and London, Leon Grunberg eventually went to the United States to become a professional sociologist. There, he developed his interests in economic activities and workers’ conditions in a distinctly comparative manner that was well aware of internationalization trends. In South Korea, Hyun-Chin Lim has observed drastic changes in a society that went from having a Third World status to becoming an economically highly modernized nation. Lim’s interests in the sociology of development accompanied these changes handsomely as did his keen humanitarian devotion to improve the conditions of his society. In Italy, Pierpalo Donati became immersed, via the work of Talcott Parsons, in dealing with important questions of modernity. Once these questions were asked, Donati developed his own perspective of relational sociology that has taken him beyond functionalism. Also in Europe, Ruut Veenhoven is a Dutch sociologist who as a student was deeply immersed in social issues and who has devoted his sociological work to a resolutely scientific analysis of some of the hot topics that initially moved him and his generation politically. Purposely oriented at disseminating his work very broadly, Veenhoven’s research on the conditions of happiness has also involved intimate cooperation with scholars from other nations. The final part of this book includes chapters in which the transformation of sociological identities become paramount topics of reflection. Piotr Sztompka’s early career involved important moments of movement, not across nations, but across worlds of interests, from music to academics. Once Sztompka had taken up the global language of sociology, he traveled outside the boundaries of then-Communist Poland to learn the ideas of Western scholars, yet he remained firmly committed to work in and about his homeland. To become a sociologist, Eiko Ikegami not only traveled from Japan to the United States, she is also a scholar who has built a commuting identity through her continued travels between her native and adopted countries. Ikegami has thus been able to develop a sociology of Japanese society that does not intellectually subjugate Japan to the West, in terms of a comparative research, but more independently highlights the role of culture in state formation, in a manner, moreover, that is historically informed. Horst Helle is a German sociologist in every sense of the term, yet he underwent substantial border-crossing experiences through his deep knowledge, ideal and personal, of American sociology and societies beyond the borders of Germany. As such, his intellectual journey has been in every sense international as well. Tiankui Jing is one of the leading sociologists in China who has seen his country undergo important changes in terms of economic and political conditions. Processes of transformation have been so much a part of China’s history that the country provided Jing with a wealth of transformations that beckoned for sociological analysis. Finally, Edward Tiryakian provides a thorough tale of his journey from New York to southern France and back to the United States, where he became a sociologist who would see a lot of the world. As much as he has seen, Tiryakian has also engaged himself with many pressing sociological questions, especially in matters of religion, nationalism, and ethnicity. An Introduction can help set the tome of a work and clarify its intentions. But the real value of this book can only be determined by its readers. Irrespective of their individual judgments upon examining this book, however, I hope that the readers will recognize that the authors have honestly and with the very best of intentions conveyed a meaningful sense of their ongoing journeys into and within the sociological enterprise. These personal accounts should at least serve to show the variety of ways in which one can become and be a sociologist in the hopes that the narratives of such a becoming and being will also inspire other aspiring scholars to take on their own sociological career paths. I am extremely grateful to all contributing authors for taking the time and courage to write so candidly and usefully about their lives and works. I know that much will be learned from their works. I thank Mary Savigar at Ashgate Publishing for her tremendously helpful feedback throughout the preparation of this book and for undertaking the production of this book. I thank Samantha Hauptman and Gary T. Marx for reading and commenting on a prior version of this Introduction. Finally, I acknowledge the wonderful help in getting this book into publishable shape by my research assistant Lisa Dilks, who, as a student of sociology, was ideally placed to comment on the true value of this book. Click here to download book flyer. Go to book information page. About the Editor Mathieu Deflem is an Associate Professor at the University of South Carolina and previously held positions at Kenyon College and Purdue University, all in the United States. Raised in Belgium, he studied sociology and anthropology at the Katholieke Universiteit te Leuven, Belgium, and the University of Hull, England, before obtaining his Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, USA. His research interests include sociology of law, social control, comparative-historical sociology, and theory. He is the author of Policing World Society (Oxford University Press, 2002) and the editor of Sociological Theory and Criminological Research (Elsevier, 2006), Terrorism and Counter-Terrorism (Elsevier, 2004), and Habermas, Modernity and Law (Sage, 1996). 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This is an electronic copy of a print publication. Please cite as: Deflem, Mathieu. 2007. “Introduction: Sociologists in a Global Age.” Pp. 1-11 inSociologists in a Global Age: Biographical Perspectives, edited by M. Deflem. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate. www.mathieudeflem.net