On the Domestication of American Public Sociology

A Postcolonial Feminist Perspective

Bibliographic Data

ID2369710
AuthorsJayati Lal (University of Michigan, corresponding author)
Year2008
Volume34
Issue2
Pages169-191
Publication date2008-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0896920507085511
OpenAlexW2121372052
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited45

This article engages with the proposal and call for a renewed engagement with civil society by American academic sociology as put forth by Michael Burawoy's 2004 presidential theme for the American Sociological Association. An examination of the history of US academic interdisciplinary scholarship in area-studies programs suggests that the roots of such a knowledge enterprise in the American university are deeply embedded in state and market interests. It is argued that these imbrications of the university in civil society limit the goal of creating a public sociology that can vitalize civil society and foster counter-hegemonic publics. However, greater attention to this history, and to issues of culture, methodology and interdisciplinarity, may assist in the endeavor to foster a critical (counterhegemonic) public sociology

Civil society · Hegemony · Historical sociology · Media studies · Political science · Politics · Public sociology · Racism · Scholarship · Social science · Sociological imagination · Sociology · Sociology of culture · Sociology of Education · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Gender Studies · Law · Management and Organizational Studies · Social and Cultural Dynamics