The place of culture in sociology

Romanticism and debates about the `cultural turn

Bibliographic Data

ID2398892
AuthorsEduardo De La Fuente (0000-0002-9129-4969, Department of sociology, Macquaire University, corresponding author)
Year2007
Volume43
Issue2
Pages115-130
Publication date2007-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1440-7833 • E-ISSN: 1741-2978
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1440783307076891
OpenAlexW2127361583
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited23

Despite intense debate regarding the 'cultural turn', there has been very little framing of these intellectual conflicts in terms of the sociology of ideas or knowledge. Following Gouldner, the article proposes that sociology has oscillated between two major styles of thought: Classicism and Romanticism. The latter stimulated an interest in culture amongst social scientists and also led to an emphasis on the cultural properties of social life. Yet Romanticism has its equal in the opposing tendency to see the sociological study of culture as no different from other forms of social scientific explanation (Classicism). The notion of 'style wars' is used to frame debates about the 'cultural turn' and its consequences for sociology. Divisions within the sociology of art - a subfield within the sociology of culture - are used to demonstrate that one major fault line in these debates is the notion of aesthetics. It is suggested that theoretical and methodological debates about culture, and its role in sociology, require some degree of sociological reflexivity about the predominant styles of thought present in the discipline

Aesthetics · Classicism · Cultural turn · Epistemology · Framing (construction) · Reflexivity · Romanticism · Social science · Sociology · Sociology of culture · Sociology of knowledge · Style (visual arts) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Management and Organizational Studies · Social and Cultural Dynamics