This
volume brings together sixteen leading international sociologists to share
their experiences of becoming practitioners in the field. Selected for
their comparative and transnational interests and experiences, the contributors
include: Martin Albrow, Karin Knorr Cetina, Diane E. Davis, Pierpaolo Donati,
Leon Grunberg, Horst J. Helle, Eiko Ikegami, Tiankui Jing, Hyun-Chin Lim,
Ewa Morawska, Richard Münch, Saskia Sassen, Joachim J. Savelsberg,
Piotr Sztompka, Edward A. Tiryakian and Ruut Veenhoven.
Each
contributor provides an auto-biographical review of their journey into
the discipline with special attention paid to the intellectual and social-political
contexts in which their work matured. Each chapter concludes with comments
on the future direction in which they see their area of sociology heading.
These original and reflective contributions provide fascinating insights
into the careers of sociologists living in a global age.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
[online copy]
Mathieu Deflem, University of South Carolina, USA
Part
I — TRAVERSING WORLDS
UNFINISHED
WORK: THE CAREER OF A EUROPEAN SOCIOLOGIST
Martin Albrow, London School of Economics, UK
GOING
GLOBAL
Karin Knorr Cetina, Universität Konstanz, Germany
BETWEEN
WORLDS: MARGINALITIES, COMPARISONS, SOCIOLOGY
Joachim J. Savelsberg, University of Minnesota, USA
THE
URBAN IS POLITICAL: MY JOURNEY FROM THE MIDWESTERN SUBURBS TO THE WORLD’S
LARGEST CITIES (AND BACK?)
Diane E. Davis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
GOING
DIGGING IN THE SHADOW OF MASTER CATEGORIES
Saskia Sassen, The University of Chicago, USA
Part
II — EVOLVING WORKS
SOCIOLOGY
— PASSION AND PROFESSION
Richard Münch, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, Germany
THE
MAKING AND REMAKING OF A SOCIOLOGIST
Ewa Morawska, University of Essex, UK
A SERENDIPITOUS
CAREER
Leon Grunberg, University of Puget Sound, USA
TOWARDS
A MORE DEMOCRATIC AND JUST SOCIETY: AN EXPERIENCE OF A SOCIOLOGIST FROM
KOREA
Hyun-Chin Lim, Seoul National University, South Korea
BUILDING
A RELATIONAL THEORY OF SOCIETY: A SOCIOLOGICAL JOURNEY
Pierpaolo Donati, University of Bologna, Italy
FOR
A BETTER QUALITY-OF-LIFE
Ruut Veenhoven, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
Part
III — (TRANS)FORMING SELVES
COMING
IN FROM THE COLD: MY ROAD FROM SOCIALISM TO SOCIOLOGY
Piotr Sztompka, Jagiellonian University, Poland
MY
SOCIOLOGICAL PRACTICES AND COMMUTING IDENTITIES
Eiko Ikegami, The New School for Social Research, USA
A JOURNEY
INTO SOCIOLOGY
Horst J. Helle, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, München, Germany
MY
EFFORTS TO EXPLORE THE SECRET OF CHINESE DEVELOPMENT
Tiankui Jing, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China
HAVE
SOCIOLOGICAL PASSPORT, WILL TRAVEL
Edward A. Tiryakian, Duke University, USA
REVIEWS
Advance
Reviews
Mathieu
Deflem has created an exciting, wide reaching, and unusual book. Sociologists
write about the need to bring light into the tangles and confusions of
societies in turbulent change. In spite of all their adventures in global
change, they are most dedicated to the value of sociology: to contribute
clear knowledge of society. And this book shows it.
—
Burkart Holzner, University of Pittsburgh
Sociology
in the period after the second world war produced a distinctive set of
of international scholarly careers, resulting in part from the changed
role of the United States and the partition between east and west produced
by the Cold War. This collection of autobiographies brings together a number
of fascinating lives which took advantage of these new possibilities. The
contingencies of scholarlship and the ways in which personalities and styles
shaped and were shaped by these new circumstances come through clearly.
An excellent contribution to our understanding of the personal side of
global scholarship in a pivotal time.
—
Stephen P. Turner, University of South Florida
Published
Reviews
Deflem’s edited volume convenes
17 biographical accounts of renowned sociologistss... Echoing Mills’ idea
of the sociological imagination, the current edition of sociologists’ biographical
perspectives convincingly demonstrates the intertwining of personal, historical,
political and theoretical dimensions and how they unfold in the lives and
works of sociologists.
—
Elisabeth Simbuerger, European Societies (2008) pdf
Trattandosi di una raccolta
di autobiografie, l'attenzione del lettore si concentra immediatamente
sulle ragioni di questa soluzione, insieme euristica, metodologica e stilistica,
che il curatore giustifica fin dalle primissime pagine introduttive.
—
Luca
Martignani, Sociologia e Politiche Sociali (2008) pdf
Mathieu
Deflem has had the good idea to take up the metaphor of globalisation and
travels when looking at sociologists’ lives. This is certainly a good perspective:
good sociologists travel nowadays a lot, although sociologists of my generation
(born directly after the war) do not often have similar itineraries as
those of the previous generation who had to flee from Nazi Germany, for
example. Their travels are far more benign, and mainly voluntary...
—
J.P. Roos, Acta Sociologica (2008) pdf
Personal
biography matters in research, even though it’s only a recent development
that more sociologists have begun to give equal billing to their research
topics and their personal lives... This unique edited collection features
the intellectual development of 16 global scholars selected by editor,
Mathieu Deflem... Globalization is etched into the personal lives of contributors
who recount poignant struggles to have their work accepted and to find
communities of like-minded scholars.
—
Rosanna Hertz, Contemporary Sociology (2008) pdf
Whatever
their origins, the editor and his contributors should be thanked for allowing
us to see who they were, are, and might be, as sociologists in their own
local and global settings.
—
David Pearson, New Zealand Sociology (2007) pdf
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