Books by Charles Camic
Social Knowledge in the Making
by Michele Lamont, Neil Gross, Charles Camic
Over the past quarter century, researchers have successfully explored the inner workings of the physical and biological sciences using a variety of social and historical lenses. Inspired by these advances, the contributors to Social Knowledge in the Making turn their attention to the social sciences, broadly construed. The result is the first comprehensive effort to study and understand the day-to-day activities involved in the creation of social-scientific and related forms of knowledge about the social world. The essays collected here tackle a range of previously unexplored questions about the practices involved in the production, assessment, and use of diverse forms of social knowledge. A stellar cast of multidisciplinary scholars addresses topics such as the changing practices of historical research, anthropological data collection, library usage, peer review, and institutional review boards. Turning to the world beyond the academy, other essays focus on global banks, survey research organizations, and national security and economic policy makers. Social Knowledge in the Making is a landmark volume for a new field of inquiry, and the bold new research agenda it proposes will be welcomed in the social science, the humanities, and a broad range of nonacademic settings.
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The Dialogical Turn: New Roles for Sociology in the Postdisciplinary Age
The discipline of sociology was born-and has been recurrently reconstituted-in response to the fragmentation of ideas about the social world. For two centuries, sociologists have sought refuge in 'synthesis:' programs designed to integrate multiple perspectives within a unifying framework. Yet even as this cause has inspired many of the discipline's major thinkers, past and present, its objective has proven elusive, leaving nearly as many syntheses as synthesizers. This volume considers an alternative response that has recently developed within sociology to the crisis of intellectual fragmentation: 'the dialogical turn.' Rather than decry the multiplicity of social theories, research methods, and results, this response welcomes a plurality of orientations and approaches as the essential basis for establishing and maintaining productive dialogue. Examining this exciting development, The Dialogical Turn builds on the ideas of Donald N. Levine, whose extensive writings on the forms and functions of intellectual dialogue provide the point of departure for twelve original essays. Written by an internationally renowned group of scholars, these innovative chapters explore the dialogical possibilities for sociology both constructively and critically. The contributors assess the role of sociology in the conversation across contemporary academic disciplines, exploring the fundamental structural and conceptual reconstructions now taking place in sociology and neighboring fields.
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