SOCIAL SCIENCE IN BLACK AND WHITE: RETHINKING THE DISCIPLINES IN THE JIM CROW EMPIRE

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 909-921
Author(s):  
SAM KLUG
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
American Capitalism ◽  
The Social ◽  
Communications Technologies ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility ◽  
Twentieth Century America

The rise of the social sciences in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America has been an especially fruitful topic for intellectual historians over the past four decades. An early, prominent explanation of the new levels of institutional power and intellectual authority achieved by the social sciences stressed the sense of interdependence created by the expansion of the market and the rise of new communications technologies. Others have emphasized intellectual struggles for authority among religious, popular, and scientific approaches to knowledge. Still others have laid the credit, or blame, for the ascension of the social sciences on liberal elites’ consolidation of their power after the collapse of monarchical authority and the successful repression of Marxist challenges. Two celebrated accounts have argued that ideological conditions, whether pervasive beliefs in American exceptionalism or visions of “scientific democracy,” shaped the development of the social sciences and their claims to intellectual authority. In the case of specific disciplines, like sociology and political science, the most supple histories have shown how broad changes in the structure of American capitalism created the conditions of possibility for new forms of knowledge about the social world, while more subtle intellectual shifts created openings for particular practices.

“The Burdens of Urban History”: Comment

1989 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 30-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ira Katznelson
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Social History ◽  
Urban History ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Critical Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
State And Society ◽  
The City

How, if at all, can studies of the city help us understand the distinctive qualities of the American regime? In “The Burdens of Urban History,” which refines and elaborates his earlier paper “The Problem of the Political in Recent American Urban History,” Terrence McDonald, a historian who has written on urban fiscal policy and conflict, argues that students of the city have focused their work too narrowly on bosses and machines, patronage and pluralism. In so doing, they have obscured other bases of politics and conflict, and, trapped by liberal categories of analysis, they have perpetuated a self-satisfied, even celebratory, portrait of American politics and society. This unfortunate directionality to urban research in some measure has been unwitting because historians and social scientists have been unreflective about the genealogies, and mutual borrowings, of their disciplines. Even recent critical scholarship in the new social history and in the social sciences under the banner of “bringing the state back in” suffers from these defects. As a result, these treatments of state and society relationships, and of the themes that appear under the rubric of American “exceptionalism,” are characterized by an epistemological mish-mash, a contraction of analytical vision, and an unintended acquiescence in the self-satisfied cheerleading of the academy that began in the postwar years.

Trending

On Trend ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 25-41
Author(s):  
Devon Powers
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Social Trends ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Anticipate Change ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
Trend Forecasting ◽  
Twentieth Century America

Chapter 1 begins in early twentieth-century America and offers a prehistory of trend forecasting. The era saw society swiftly modernizing; in turn, the social sciences were producing a surfeit of data about life and culture. Observers, social critics, and government technocrats began to think of these data as predictive and explored how they could be used to make decisions and dampen uncertainty about the future. In light of these developments, “trends” emerged as a tool, allowing data to be used to anticipate change. The chapter highlights the 1933 study Recent Social Trends as a primary example of how trends could be used to manage uncertainty. The chapter also documents how trends served these ends in the burgeoning forecasting professions, including weather, economics, and fashion.

Social Science and US Foreign Affairs

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joy Rohde
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Social Science ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
World War ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social

Since the social sciences began to emerge as scholarly disciplines in the last quarter of the 19th century, they have frequently offered authoritative intellectual frameworks that have justified, and even shaped, a variety of U.S. foreign policy efforts. They played an important role in U.S. imperial expansion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Scholars devised racialized theories of social evolution that legitimated the confinement and assimilation of Native Americans and endorsed civilizing schemes in the Philippines, Cuba, and elsewhere. As attention shifted to Europe during and after World War I, social scientists working at the behest of Woodrow Wilson attempted to engineer a “scientific peace” at Versailles. The desire to render global politics the domain of objective, neutral experts intensified during World War II and the Cold War. After 1945, the social sciences became increasingly central players in foreign affairs, offering intellectual frameworks—like modernization theory—and bureaucratic tools—like systems analysis—that shaped U.S. interventions in developing nations, guided nuclear strategy, and justified the increasing use of the U.S. military around the world. Throughout these eras, social scientists often reinforced American exceptionalism—the notion that the United States stands at the pinnacle of social and political development, and as such has a duty to spread liberty and democracy around the globe. The scholarly embrace of conventional political values was not the result of state coercion or financial co-optation; by and large social scientists and policymakers shared common American values. But other social scientists used their knowledge and intellectual authority to critique American foreign policy. The history of the relationship between social science and foreign relations offers important insights into the changing politics and ethics of expertise in American public policy.

scholarly journals Los usos del conocimiento sociohumanístico desde las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones / The Use of the Social-Humanistic Knowledge Seen from the Information and Communications Technologies

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-81
Author(s):  
Roberto López Dosagües
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Statistical Data ◽  
Information And Communications Technologies ◽  
Application Technology ◽  
Doctoral Research ◽  
Documentary Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
Communications Technologies ◽  
Humanistic Knowledge

ABSTRACTThis article is part of a doctoral research, which examines  one  aspect  of  the  use  of  information  technology  and communications in the first  decade of  the  21st  century,  in  a  given  area  of  knowledge:  humanities  and  social  sciences. The objective of the investigations is to demonstrate from this area of knowledge that the reality on the use of these technologies has almost always been on the opposite side, creating new divisions or deepening existing ones. Far from eliminating repeti-tive, boring, tedious work, this area of knowledge improves access to information, training and quality of social justice anddemocracy. The methods used were Observations, Analysis an Synthesis, and Documentary Analysis, especially when apply-ing the technique of content analysis of literature and statistical data. In this work are revealed different uses of the social-humanistic  knowledge  in  digitizing  this  information  using  informatics.  In  the  investigation  are  proposed  the  methods  to employ this knowledge to build a better future from the use of instruments that favor their application. Technology: for whomand for what? Neither the objectives nor the instruments can be neutral with respect to these questions.RESUMENEl presente artículo es parte de una investigación doctoral, que analiza un aspecto del uso de las tecnologías de la información y las comunicaciones en la primera década del siglo XXI, en un objeto específico del conocimiento: el sociohumanístico. El objetivo propuesto es demostrar desde esta área del saber, que lejos de eliminar el trabajo repetitivo, aburrido y tedioso, además de mejorar el acceso a la información, el entrenamiento y la calidad de la justicia social y la democracia, la realidad en el uso de estas tecnologías ha estado casi siempre del lado opuesto, dando lugar a nuevas divisiones o profundizando las ya existentes. Los métodos de Observación, Análisis y Síntesis, así como el Análisis Documental, especialmente durante la aplicación de la técnica del análisis de contenidos de bibliografía y datos estadísticos, fue la metodología empleada en la obtención de los resultados. Se develan maneras disímiles de usos del conocimiento sociohumanístico en su digitalización, desde las redes informáticas a nivel internacional. Propone a su vez, modos de usarlos para construir un futuro mejor y permita desarrollar lo que es vital para la vida humana, a partir de la formulación de objetivos e instrumentos que favorezcan su difusión y empleo. ¿Tecnologías para qué y para quién? Ni los objetivos ni los instrumentos pueden ser neutrales respecto a estas preguntas.

Sociometric Choice: A Study in Pupillary Response

1968 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-402 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert H. Koff ◽  
Thomas H. Hawkes
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Sixth Grade ◽  
Pupillary Response ◽  
Response Patterns ◽  
Pupillary Dilation ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Social ◽  
Sociometric Choice ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Theoretical Issues

Pupillary dilation has recently been reported as a physiological measure of degree of attention paid to environmental stimuli (Hess & Polt, 1960, 1964). Hess and Polt's research has operationally defined one variable and has provided data that allow researchers to speculate about several others. This variable is interest-disinterest. The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the relationship between sociometric choice patterns and pupillary behavior. 18 sixth grade Ss completed a sociometric questionnaire in which they indicated 3 friendship and 3 nonfriendship choices. Black and white photographs of each S were made and served as the experimental stimuli. The stimuli were arranged and shown to each S according to his responses to the sociometric questionnaire. No significant differences in pupillary dilation patterns were found among Ss when viewing stimuli depicting friendship choice as opposed to nonfriendship choice. Pupillary dilation to pictures of friends was, on the average, not significantly different from dilation patterns to pictures of nonfriends. Results were discussed in terms of (a) theoretical issues relevant to sociometric choice patterns and (b) the interpretation of pupillary response patterns and their relationship to inquiry in the social sciences.

The Radical Right and Populism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans-Georg Betz
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Radical Right ◽  
Black And White ◽  
Turn On ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Negative Connotation ◽  
Foregone Conclusion

Populism is considered one of the most contested concepts in the social sciences, notoriously difficult to define. The association of populism with the radical right has further muddied the waters. Particularly in the popular media, populism is conflated with demagoguery, political manipulation, the provision of simple solutions to complex problems, and the promotion of a black-and-white view of politics and the world in general. As a result, populism has acquired a thoroughly negative connotation. However, the association between the radical right and populism is often taken as a foregone conclusion rather than critically probed and interrogated. This chapter discusses the nature of populism, its core narratives, and mechanisms; explores to what extent the radical right can be said to have adopted populism and what explains the radical right’s populist turn; and analyzes the impact of the populist turn on the radical right, its ideology, and its electoral appeal.

Sociology to the Scientists

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Chodat
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Mutual Recognition ◽  
Kenneth Burke ◽  
Black Intellectuals ◽  
American Life ◽  
Black And White ◽  
The Social ◽  
Social Scientific

Unlike Percy and Robinson, Ellison shows minimal interest in religious questions, and in this sense can be seen as part of a larger anticlerical project among some twentieth-century African-American writers. Unlike many other secular black intellectuals, however, he scorns the social sciences. His nonfiction repeatedly distinguishes meaning from matter, purposeful action from bodily motion, and continually highlights both “improvisation” and “black and white fraternity”—concepts that align him both with the pragmatism of his mentor Kenneth Burke and place him in a longstanding tradition of republican sociopolitical thought. His fiction, however, repeatedly emphasizes just how vexed such terms are in the context of modern American life. Invisible Man portrays a world governed unrelentingly by determinism and social–scientific theorizing, and his second novel went unfinished in part because he struggles to portray the mutual recognition that his essays insist is needed between black and white culture.

scholarly journals Narrative as a Common Technique of Self-Interpretation

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (51) ◽  
pp. 65-79
Author(s):  
Johann Michel ◽  
Nicolas Carter ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Traumatic Events ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Specific Domain ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Common Technique ◽  
Conditions Of Possibility

Interpretation is both a specific domain in the theory of knowledge (hermeneutics) and a technique suitable for use in the social sciences, and particularly in sociology. Interpretation can be applied to texts, actions and so forth. The aim of this presentation is to delve into the use of interpretation as a common, ordinary technique to establish a relationship with the world or with ourselves when we are faced with problematic, traumatic events. More specifically, we will focus on narrative as a specific type of common technique of interpretation used by individuals and groups seeking to inscribe shocking events into the story of their lives. However, for such a process to be possible, several conditions of possibility (both social and cultural) need to be met, and we will address these conditions in this presentation.

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