Images of Sociology and Sociologists in Fiction
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7214683 |
|---|---|
| Authors | John H Kramer (0000-0002-2917-8297, corresponding author), John Kramer |
| Year | 1979 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 356-356 |
| Publication date | 1979-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0094-3061 • E-ISSN: 1939-8638 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2064552 |
| OpenAlex | W2326735697 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 2 |
Sociologists are generally aware of the negative images of themselves and their discipline projected through popular fiction (Berger, 1957; Bates, 1967, p. 154). Yet neither the sources of these images nor the images themselves have been identified. This essay reports on the images of sociologists, and of sociology, projected through twenty-three Anglo-American novels. Bibliographic data about the novels are arrayed in the Publications Reviewed section. The books were located as part of a broader study, presently underway, which examines the professoriate as depicted in novels about college and university life.1 Therefore, the novels reported on in this essay are all set, at least in part, in academic environments. A few of them, most notably Robert Herrick's Chimes and Carlos Baker's A Friend in Power, attempt to offer serious accounts of academic society. Most of the others are satirical, and the satire ranges from relatively benign, as in Pamela Hansford Johnson's Night and Silence: Who Is There?, to the acerbic treatments of academe (and of sociology) offered by Malcolm Bradbury in Eating People Is Wrong and, most particularly, in The History Man. Sociologists are protagonists in seven of the novels and play secondary roles in the
Psychoanalysis · Social science · Sociology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,11 |
| Citation span | 1981 - 2014 (34) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |