Comments on: Tiny sketch of French sociology

By: Assorted Links « Permutations

Assorted Links « Permutations — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 20:02:56 +0000

[…] Tiny Sketch of French Sociology. […]

By: Michael Metcalf Bishop

Michael Metcalf Bishop — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:44:08 +0000

Thanks, btw, for sharing this interesting info about French sociology.

By: Michael Metcalf Bishop

Michael Metcalf Bishop — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:42:53 +0000

You can learn something about uchicago sociology from the student interests and MA titles here:
http://sociology.uchicago.edu/people/az-students.shtml

This list emphasizes some of the more prestigious alumni publications in recent years.

Faculty research interests can be found here:
http://sociology.uchicago.edu/people/researchinterests-faculty.shtml

Naturally there are limits on what we can learn from titles and keywords.

My impression is that the faculty (and the upper echelon of the discipline generally) is somewhat more quantitative than the students, but there is still quite a bit of qualitative research going on at uchicago and in American sociology.

By: Fr.

Fr. — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 11:26:44 +0000

In fact, CSE has recently merged with a Paris-1 unit to form a new CNRS research unit, which we call “UMR”. The website has the details:

Le CSE et le CRPS ont le plaisir de vous annoncer la création du Centre européen de sociologie et de science politique de la Sorbonne (CESSP-Paris). Née de la fusion de nos deux centres, cette nouvelle unité est l’UMR 8209 de l’Université Paris-Panthéon-Sorbonne et du CNRS, avec l’EHESS comme établissement partenaire.

By: eli

eli — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 18:10:54 +0000

Let me just note one additional small difference from American academic custom. In the list of dissertation titles I translated above, I notice the frequent use of a period “.” to separate the two phrases in a title, whereas in American use two phrases would inevitably be separated by a colon “:”. This title for instance:

Oenophile discursive practices between normativity and appropriation. Contribution to a sociology of food cultures

… would certainly have a colon in an American context. This just strikes me as an intriguing minor difference in textual norms.

By: eli

eli — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:58:07 +0000

Thanks for your comment, pseudonymous visitor! I edited the post per your remark so that it now describes the EHESS as "one of the most important" social science institutions. I hadn't thought much about social science at the ENS, though now that I look at their faculty, I do see some people I recognize. And the CSE (Center for European Sociology) is itself part of the EHESS, is it not? Anyway, I'm not really surprised that the research world is geographically centered in Paris. The map of doctoral enrollments that I posted the other day suggested that the vast majority of new doctorates come from the Parisian center, and it's predictable that research and phd production would fit together quite closely.

By: Fr.

Fr. — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:21:46 +0000

Interesting—I do not think I can contradict your sketch on any aspect. I can only stress something you acknowledge only implicitly: French soc is very centralized. Outside of Parisian labs (ENS, more prestigious by the way, EHESS, CSE-Bourdieu…), I can identify only two or three units that produce something of critical mass in the French soc academe (LEST, applied soc of profs/orgs in Marseille; CLERSE, with some mathsoc and socnets).