Classical and Contemporary Social Theory; Sociology of Culture; Historical and Comparative Sociology; Sociology of the State; Nations and Nationalism; Cultural Policy; Cultural Globalization; Epistemology of the Social Sciences; Sociology of Knowledge.

The Confluence and Presumptions of Liberalism & Humanism in Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms

by Daniel Buk

This is a an unedited second paper.

In this paper, which I treat in second in the same series the previous one started, I further make explicit the... more In this paper, which I treat in second in the same series the previous one started, I further make explicit the democratic principles inherent in Cassirer's philosophy. I look for the source of Cassirer's initial engagement with liberal thought and trace it to his eyewitness account of the growing völkisch movements and later the political ascent of the Nazis in Germany.

I particularly focus on Cassirer's observations of aphasia, which he defines as the absence of symbolic thought. I examine my own question whether or not the cultural destruction that preceded the Final Solution (such as library destruction and book burning) was a calculated attempt to induce aphasia in the German public so they would become literally unable to detect a symbolic indebtedness in their own intellectual environment or national context to those the Nazis wanted to persecute.


I briefly examine a similar development in the Russian Revolution and the transition from the Soviet Union to the new Russia.

To briefly sum up, I look at how the corruption of language leads to the manipulation and the corruption of civic discourse, leading to a gradual perversion of any notion of a social contract. This aforementioned theme is continued from the first paper as it sharpens in this.

Ernst Cassirer's Philosophy of Symbolic Forms and Its Place in Democratic & Anthropocentric Legal Thought

by Daniel Buk

I wrote this paper for a class at the end of 2010. Both the professor I wrote it for and my adviser wanted me to try and get it published, after I edited it down from 50 pages to a journal-length article, and to present it at a conference. Unfortunately, I didn't find the time as of yet.

After I had published this paper, I would have uploaded it here for all who are interested to see. Unfortunately, I don't know when I can find the time to edit them and otherwise make it presentable, so after almost two years, I gave up on the idea of putting up published work on here and finally figured I may as well upload my unedited draft onto here before too long.

The reason that many of you may notice that my argument centers around the American Pragmatists is because the class I wrote this for revolved around the Pragmatists' contributions to democratic thought.

I will attempt to discover a complete Pragmatist interrelation between idea and action- what Hegel refers to as Geist,... more I will attempt to discover a complete Pragmatist interrelation between idea and action- what Hegel refers to as Geist, and of praxis (literally “practice”).

First, I agree with the general proposition that political philosophy nearly always ends in a philosophy of knowledge (and in a Hegelian sense, conversely implicitly begins in a philosophy of knowledge), and thus I will therein argue that, as Cassirer propounds, the end of all philosophy is anthropology- it is the study of how humanity lives and interacts by and through their social contexts and how humanity synthesizes these into evermore contexts in a continuum that defines itself. How we perceive the world, how we acquire knowledge, how we understand our place in the world is essential to the creation of society.

We arguably need “The Other” as a reference to know ourselves- to define or characterize ourselves against or in tandem with (“knowing oneself likewise in the other”- Hegel), thus the whole project of epistemology can be directed toward political philosophy by way of social epistemology- society/civilization is arguably the product of such a consensus of epistemological reference points.

Managing the Tensions of Essentialism - draft (with Sue Lampitt)

by Robbie Duschinsky

Draft only; forthcoming in Sociology

This article will propose a new interpretation of Pierre Bourdieu, as a theorist of purity and impurity. Bourdieu’s... more This article will propose a new interpretation of Pierre Bourdieu, as a theorist of purity and impurity. Bourdieu’s writings indicate that through the adjudication of things or people as relatively impure or pure an image is constructed of their essential truth. Building from Bourdieu, we will show how themes of purity and impurity can be used to manage the tensions associated with attempts to impute an essence to human nature or to reality, ensuring that moral and epistemological significance of complexity is masked. This is the reason why themes of purity and impurity so often attend polarised worldviews, and why they are frequently mobilised for justifying and operating biopolitical processes of social stratification and regulation.

The Impact of Social Architecture on Knowledge Sharing and Organisational Learning

by Deborah Blackman

The enduring myth of the American Dream: Mobility,marginalization, and hope

by Heather Wyatt-Nichol

(2011) International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior, 14(2):258-279.

Social science, epistemology, and the problem of relativism

by Nico Stehr

Co-authored by Volker Meja

Central aspects ofKarl Mannheim's sociology of knowledge paradoxically fell victim to the dualism he himself had... more Central aspects ofKarl Mannheim's sociology of knowledge paradoxically fell victim to the dualism he himself had deplored. This kind of sociology of knowledge, according to
the commonly accepted argument, invariably becomes entangled and then entrapped in the problem of relativism, by asserting - as a research hypothesis - a general existential connectedness of thinking. It insists that all knowledge claims are contingent and can be comprehended as sets of belief which, far from being self-evident, are in need of legitimation. One credible answer has been the claim that the sociology of knowledge is immune to the charge of relativism. The classic sociology of knowledge defensively insisted that it is quite possible to do sociology of knowledge without falling victim to relativistic contradictions. This 'resolution' of the relativism charge by the founders of the sociology of knowledge involves very different arguments, but generally converges on the view expressed for example by W ern er Stark ( 1958: 152) that the
'sociology of knowledge is primarily concerned with the origin of ideas, and not with their validity'. This argument means that epistemological issues are increasingly treated in a specialized fashion and emerge as the legitimate subject of epistemology.1
We argue that this all too frequent dogmatic separation between epistemological and social scientific discourse contributes little to a solution of the relativism problem, and
that this separation must therefore be overcome.

Group conflict and class formation in South-East Asia

by Hans-Dieter Evers

Should environmental issues be securitised?

by Owais Rajput

Environmental issues
The variables that have defined national security for the most part of the World’s history... more Environmental issues
The variables that have defined national security for the most part of the World’s history have largely been military in nature. Security was primarily made up of the physical defence of the country, its people and whatever they possessed. Profound factors outside the traditional area of military operations have been realised that could affect the securities of many countries.
It is within this background that environmental issues have raised to importance, and the term ‘Environmental Security’ has entered the language of environmentalists, policy makers and security planners. With the ending of the cold war, the usual concepts of the nature of national security and the methods to achieve it have changed. The global powers at the time were engaged in military containment of each other, as in the case of America and the Soviet Union containment of each other.

Law, Politics, and the Conception of the State in State Recognition Theory

by William Worster

The competing theories of state recognition and their failings actively demonstrate that recognition of a state does... more The competing theories of state recognition and their failings actively demonstrate that recognition of a state does not have any normative content per se, but rather, that the rules of state recognition, although legal rules, are legal vehicles for political choices. We have the dilemma of concurrently wanting the right cases to result in independent states while prohibiting the wrong ones from becoming so, and so we sail between political choices, using the language of law. The state is neither truly free to recognize another entity nor entirely bound. Differing cases require different legal criteria and different legal results. This flexibility in state recognition theory though, while depriving the act of any inherent legal meaning, has value in its utility for establishing lawful relationships.

This paper will argue that the reason we find it difficult to resolve the controversy over state recognition theory is because the international legal system translates political controversies into legal questions that can then be addressed through legal means. Legal actors, by announcing preference for one side of the question, often reveal certain legal and moral choices they are making about the nature of the state and the legitimacy of the international legal system - law and politics. In the area of state recognition, no theory of recognition has extinguished competition because no political choice has gained universal acceptance. The predominant political choice is most frequently deliberate indeterminacy, a co-existence of mutually opposing arguments. This indeterminacy is most likely deliberate because it permits the underlying rationale for the legal actor’s policies to change and evolve to suit the situation.

Issue 11.2, Postcolonial Europe, Editorial

by Moving Worlds: A Journal of Transcultural Writings

2012, « The Historicity of the Neoliberal State », in Social Anthropology, volume 20, n° 1, pp. 80-94

by Mathieu Hilgers

Debate with Loic Wacquant “Three Steps to a Historical Anthropology of Actually Existing Neoliberalism." Social Anthropology, 20, 1, with responses in the next issue: Jamie Peck, Nick Theodore, and Neil Brenner, Stephen Collier, Daniel Goldstein, Johanna Bockman, Don Kalb...

Classes and nations in recent historical sociology

by Daniel Chernilo

Everyday Religion and Identity in a Western Manitoban Chinese Community: Christianity, the KMT, Foodways and Related Events. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 2009 77(3):573-608

by Alison Marshall

Immigrating to the Canadian prairies in the late 1870s, a predominantly male Chinese population first settled in... more Immigrating to the Canadian prairies in the late 1870s, a predominantly male Chinese population first settled in Winnipeg, Manitoba, then in Brandon and cities, towns, and villages created by new branch lines of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) in the 1880s. From the earliest time of the province's post-colonial settlement, men could join the Chinese Freemasons (Hongmen/Zhigongtang) whose 1863 headquarters was established in Barkerville, British Columbia, and later the Chinese Benevolent Association (CBA) in 1884 in Victoria. By 1910, a Winnipeg Freemasons "lodge" (probably a restaurant) existed that also housed a local branch of the Tongmenghui (Chinese United League). Two years later, it became a secret KMT (Zhongguo Guomindang or Chinese Nationalist League in the West) office and one year after that a rural outpost opened in Brandon. While the men had found comfort in the fellowship provided by Freemasons and CBA membership, in the KMT they had Sun Yatsen (1866–1925) who, like them, came from a southern village and was now living away from China. This essay examines the front and back regions of everyday religiosity that emerged out of KMT involvement and relationships, reverence for Sun Yatsen, and a nominal Christian identity in a Western Manitoban Chinese Community.

A Quest for Universalism

by Daniel Chernilo

Sociology and the nation-state: Beyond methodological nationalism

by Daniel Chernilo

Bernard Mandeville: la legitimación de la fantasía

by esther pascual

Retos culturales de México frente a la globalización

by Abeyamí Ortega

Coord: Arizpe, Lourdes
Colección: Las Ciencias Sociales. Segunda Década
Series: Conocer para Decidir
Área: Globalización
Materia: Globalización cultural Mexicanos en los Estados Unidos Mujeres-Empleo Indígenas – cultura Cultura popular – México Política cultural – México
Coeditor(es): H. Cámara de Diputados, LIX Legislatura.
ISBN: 970-701-879-8
NO. de catálogo: 042615-01
Edición: octubre de 2006

Autores: Néstor García Canclini, Florence Toussaint, Abeyami Ortega Domínguez, Edith Pérez Flores, Cristina Amescua,  Ma. Eugenia Ramírez Parra, Héctor Tejera Gaona, Astrid Juárez Tapia, María Ana Portal, Raúl Béjar, Héctor Rosales, Mercedes Pedrero Nieto, Iris Meza Bernal, Cristina Oehmichen, Adriana González Mateos, Maya Lorena Pérez ruiz, Luis Manuel Arias Reyes, Marcos Sandoval Cruz, Blanca González Rosas, Esther Hernández Palacios, Gilberto Gutiérrez, Ishtar Cardona, Josefa Guzmán Bulnes, Tiosha Bojórquez Chapela, Cristina Amescua, Enrique Nalda, Ana Rosas Mantecón, Rafael Segovia, Eduardo Nivón Bolán, Hiram Villalobos Audifred, Arturo I. Saucedo González, Carlos J. Villaseñor Anaya.

Frente a la globalización levantamos la mirada hacia fuera de las fronteras de México para captar y analizar los... more Frente a la globalización levantamos la mirada hacia fuera de las fronteras de México para captar y analizar los nuevos desafíos que enfrentamos en esta era global. Lo que vemos, a través de los estudios incluidos en este libro, es que hay que cambiar la percepción común sobre lo que pasa en México con la globalización cultural. Ni las relaciones culturales de los mexicanos con procesos globales son nuevas, ni su impacto es siempre negativo. Al contrario, dinamiza porque presenta nuevos retos.

Servire l'Ideologia: Storiografia e Nazionalismo nella Romania di Ceausescu

by Francesco Zavatti

This article originally appeared on Modena History Institute's "Annale 2011", Edizioni Artestampa, Modena, 2011, pp. 44-51. Written in Italian (English version will come soon).

Outrageous state, sectarianized citizens: deconstructing the 'textbook controversy'in the Northern Areas, Pakistan

by Nosheen Ali

La profilaxis del viento. Instituciones represivas y sanitarias en la Patagonia argentina, 1880-1940

by Ernesto Bohoslavsky