Studies of cities and urbanization in contemporary sociology

2021 ◽  
pp. 26-30
Author(s):  
Inna A. Vershinina
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary Sociology

Visual discoveries of an urban wanderer: August Endell's perception of a beautiful metropolis

2007 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Eisenschmidt
Keyword(s):  
Building Projects ◽  
Modern City ◽  
Urban Scenes ◽  
Contemporary Sociology ◽  
The City

An unorthodox and influential critique of the modern city was published in 1908 by August Endell, an autodidact in the field of architecture. Influenced by empathy theory, Impressionist ideas, contemporary sociology, and the literary and artistic circles of the time, Endell's small book Die Schönheit der Großen Stadt (The Beauty of the Metropolis) read the metropolis through a new way of ‘seeing’ [1,2]. What he saw was surprising for most readers: the city's centre was discovered in marginal sites, and its lasting identity was grasped in its fleeting moments. Although Endell never drew up encompassing schemes for the city, did not participate in the first city-building competitions of the time, and focused primarily on individual building projects, one of his major publications was entirely devoted to the city. The Beauty of the Metropolis takes the reader on a journey through a city that slowly reveals itself as Berlin. Throughout the book, Endell describes urban scenes such as streets, plazas, stations, and the margins of urbanity, such as the city's blank walls and outskirts.

scholarly journals The crossroads of contemporary sociology and the crisis of its subject and vocational identity

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-266
Author(s):  
Ljubiša Mitrović
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Vocational Identity ◽  
Methodological Principle ◽  
Technical Improvement ◽  
Contemporary Sociology ◽  
Positive Identity ◽  
Theoretical Synthesis ◽  
Global World ◽  
New Generation ◽  
The Universe

Contemporary sociology is at a fateful crossroads. The paper points to some aspects of its crisis as a science and vocation, the forms of its cognitive pathology and the erosion of positive identity in the universe of sciences and the modern professional division of labour. Indicating the causes and consequences of this crisis, the author concludes that it cannot be overcome only by technical improvement of the methodology of empirical research, but requires profound efforts of the new generation of sociologists, and new answers. Otherwise, Peter Berger's pessimistic predictions about the obsolescence and bankruptcy of sociologists and sociologists might come true. The conclusions we reached in our problematization of this issue can be summarized as follows: 1) the need to redefine contemporary sociology in the spirit of globalization of its subject as a multicomplex science of the laws of structure and dynamics of the global world system and the theoretical-empirical study of phenomena and processes at all levels of social organization. macro, meso, micro) from the perspective of the methodological principle of dialectical concrete totality; 2) building a new theoretical synthesis in the form of a multidisciplinary integrated paradigm; 3) opening sociology through multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary research towards new challenging fields of the future that has begun; 4) redefining its vocation identity in the Mils-Bourdieu key as a martial discipline, radical-critical, reflexive-engaged, emancipatory and actionist sociology.

The sociological canon reconfigured: Empire, colonial critique, and contemporary sociology

2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 545-557 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anaheed Al-Hardan
Keyword(s):  
Political Change ◽  
Colonial Modernity ◽  
Contemporary Sociology ◽  
The World ◽  
Structural Relations ◽  
Modern Experience ◽  
Relations Of Power ◽  
Important Shift

The essay reviews three books that were published consecutively in the last three years, and argues that they represent an important shift in sociology that could potentially reconfigure the discipline and the discipline’s theoretical canon. This is because these books make the modern experience of European empires, colonialism, and, in many instances, incomplete decolonization central to sociology. They also question the discipline’s origin narratives and these narratives’ implications in colonial modernity. Thus, the books hold up a mirror reflecting back onto the discipline of sociology its own implication in European empires and colonization and demonstrate how sociology’s imperial episteme continues to shape the discipline today. This article reviews these books and focuses on how they engage in the double task of the deconstruction of sociology’s complicity in empire and the construction of a colonial critique-centered sociology. This is a sociology, the essay argues, which is invested in analyzing structural relations of power in view of the legacies of empire and colonialism. It is also one that asks questions relevant to contemporary realities for the purposes of effecting political change in the world.

scholarly journals Dobro wspólne okiem socjologa — kilka uwag porządkujących

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 49-63
Author(s):  
Bartosz Mika
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Social Good ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
Collective Ownership ◽  
The Third ◽  
Contemporary Sociology ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Common

This text can be defined as an attempt to look at the question of the common good through sociological glasses. The author suggests that many of the issues subsumed under  the term “the common good” have already been elucidated and described in detail on the basis of classical and contemporary sociology. If it is assumed that the common good can be understood triply, as (1) a postulate of the social good, (2) materially, as an object of collective ownership, and (3) as an effect of the individual’s life in society, then it must be admitted that, at least in the third case, reference to the collected achievements of sociology is necessary in order to describe the common good properly.

Styles of Illusion

2001 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-173 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Theory Method ◽  
Contemporary Sociology ◽  
Ethnographic Data ◽  
The Uk

This paper argues that one of the most prevalent styles in contemporary sociology – style referring to a complex of theory, method and treatment of the literature – systematically allows space for the misrepresentation of reality. The theoretical core of the style in question is a view of identity as formed through the active consumption of discourse, its preferred methodology is that of qualitative fieldwork whilst a largely impressionistic literature is treated as a source of authoritative commentary on the influence of specific discourses. The theoretical and methodological elements of this style interact so that its treatment of ethnographic data functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy for whatever presuppositions can be constructed from its treatment of the literature. This thesis is illustrated through an analysis of the claims made by Paul du Gay (1996), and Musson and Cohen (1997) that enterprise discourse had achieved hegemonic status in the UK during the last decade of the Twentieth Century.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document