PhD candidate in sociology here, ask me anything

Alright, you meme loving fucks, after and , here's the third of these cancerous threads.

Try not to troll it too hard, though; in turn I'll try to give you serious answers.

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en.wiktionary.org/wiki/doggerel
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Are you a SJW? Do you agree with them? Is the feminism/queerness/regressive complex taught in classes?

No. No. In some, but even gender studies try to tune the justice issues down in favor of engagement with hyper-jargonist theory.

How would you characterize postwar sociology in Britain and America? What are its basic assumptions about its functions? Does American sociology depart from or just nuance Parsons' confidence in the field as the alpha-and-omega of the human sciences?

How does the field deal with hermeneutics? What do theoretical sociologists think of the nomothetic-idiographic distinction?

Do theoretical sociologists read anthropological and historical theory? What do sociologists think of historical theory, and practicing historians? Do they know about distinctions within historiography like "social theory" as a softened form of "historicizing" sociology applicable to their own discipline?

How interdisciplinary is modern sociology in general? Is it fashionable to consider it a walled garden these days, or to consider it ~discursively open~ with the other humanities?

What are the current annoying paradigms that need to die?

>How would you characterize postwar sociology in Britain and America? What are its basic assumptions about its functions? Does American sociology depart from or just nuance Parsons' confidence in the field as the alpha-and-omega of the human sciences?
Hard to say 'cause I'm a yuropoor. from my impression, sociology in the US is oriented more strongly toward a tradition that stems from big science, i.e. trying to support government policies, producing demographic data, and being more pragmatical in general. In turn, it has hardly produced any notable scholars or theories in the last 30 years. The European tradition is more theory-laden and therefore esoteric, and it could not outsource stuff like gender studies, science and technology studies, queer studies, etc. to the same extent as in the US. Humanities are weaker here, leading to a dominance of sociology together with political science and philosophy. So in a way, yes, Parsons may have been right, but for different reasons in the US and Europe.

>How does the field deal with hermeneutics? What do theoretical sociologists think of the nomothetic-idiographic distinction?
Not so well. Phychoanalysis has largely dropped out of fashion in the analysis of textx, and apart from it, there are only few who take hermeneutics seriously. European sociology has largely come to the conclusion that asking for the ''''''''''original intent'''''''''' of an ''''''''''''''''''''''author'''''''''''''''''''''' is futile. And no serious sociologist would consider himself a nomotheticist.


>Do theoretical sociologists read anthropological and historical theory? What do sociologists think of historical theory, and practicing historians? Do they know about distinctions within historiography like "social theory" as a softened form of "historicizing" sociology applicable to their own discipline?
Yes, but the French more so than most others. there seems to be some silent agreement between historians and sociologist not to venture too deep into each other's territory, so pre-1945 stuff is usually left to historians. Here in Germany, however, history is a much slower and much more conservative discipline.

>How interdisciplinary is modern sociology in general? Is it fashionable to consider it a walled garden these days, or to consider it ~discursively open~ with the other humanities?
Again, depends on what you do and where you do it. ironically, anglophone sociology might be more open to interdisciplinarity despite having a more focused agenda and less need to cooperate with X studies. A lot of the continental European sociologies, at least in the bigger countries, tend to stick to themselves. My supervisor warned me not to get too interdisciplinary if I wanted a job after my PhD.

>What are the current annoying paradigms that need to die?
I can think of a lot that annoy me, but killing paradigms has been a bad idea in the past.

Thanks man. Sorry to overload you with questions, also. I'm studying a lot of sociology for my thesis, but it's all pre-war stuff, and all in terms of its eventual impact on other disciplines (through the French, mostly), and I just realized lately that I have almost no idea of what the modern discipline looks like. Very interesting answers.

If you don't mind me asking, since you're German: What do the German Humanities / Social Sciences "feel" like in general, post-Communism? That's another thing I'm really fuzzy on. How did Communist-era stuff get re-integrated with Western stuff, if at all? Did it change its outer form but keep its basic inner content, or was there a real cutoff point where a lot of Marxist thought (e.g.) was simply dropped? Or maybe East German stuff was just never very "dis-integrated" to begin with. I have no idea.

how 2 get girlfriend?

You should really just act like yourself. Be who you are. Pretending to be someone else would only feel. Show who you are on the inside.

Communist stuff was never en vogue here, and even student groups became disenfranchised with it after 1990. The last Marxist strongholds were probably anthropology and world systems theory, and even they understood Marxism in an academic way. East Germany was mostly disassembled, economically, politically, and academically; there's barely anything left. Not that it ever had a strong sociologist tradition to begin with.

pic related

Do I need specialized equipment, or will a box cutter suffice?

There's a great book about post war working class and mass media's effect, The Uses of Literacy (Hoggett, 1957) It's better than anything Chomsky could do thirty years later in the US, and covers what different class assumptions about working class media and life at the time and before the war were like.

ugh ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''stop this'''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

Nice dubs, have two interdisciplinary courses
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0GhgsPtaMBH2SW7s7NJ3q_WnxE-rJekW
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrpPxpTiVwQ

sry, my colleagues just ''''really'''' like to use scare quotes

You joke about it but just being yourself will get you a girlfriend. That is a fact.

>>>/mcd/

What can I do with a sociology major? I need to declare and I might go double with econ/sociology. And what's the general 'attitude' among most sociology departments in America (if you're American, that is)?

>Pretending to be someone else would only feel.

there's a girl at the coffee shop in the building i work who has a sociology degree, so i guess u can peddle coffee, i tried to offer her a job but she was so vain she thought i was hitting on her and so didn't take me up on it, have fun then lol

Not a murrican. I guess sociology can be a solid minor to economics if you choose your classes wisely. No idea about the attitude in the departments, but I can say from my German experience that it varies considerably between departments.

you can flip burgers/be a barista/frogpost on forums

thats it i think

>implying real gender studies isn't highly abstracted critical theory to begin with

Yes, but critical theory does not necessarily equal social justice. In any case it's not tumblr SJW feminism, the social critical element is largely a sociologist (i.e. material) one.

Do you like my poem?

Give me back your empty streets,
Show me the dread of your sad days past.
The end came so fast, I did not see your defeats.
Now new conquerors in your squares amass.

This city died and its spirit died with it.
It's promised exaltation came too late.

Is Luhman still relevant?

Not OP, but I like it. Reminds me of Cavafy.

Thank you, it's my first ever poem.

The theory people cite him as a reverence. All the others prefer Bourdieu unless they're from an explicitly Luhmannian chair..

One note though: do you mean "It's" or "Its" in the last line? If you meant the former, you might want to change "came" to "come", but I suspect you intended the latter.

The latter, thanks for noticing I sometimes mix the two up. I'm not a native English speaker.

it's a doggerel and you should be ashamed of trying to make people read it in an unrelated thread

Well, you're making mistakes native speakers do, so maybe spend less time on Veeky Forums and more reading books in English if you're going to get tested.

>a doggerel
how the hell is that a funny or sexy poem? paradise lost is closer to a doggerel. stop using technical words you don't understand in a technical terms thread.

>1. (poetry) Of a crude or irregular construction. (Originally applied to humorous verse, but now to verse lacking artistry or meaning.)

en.wiktionary.org/wiki/doggerel

A doggerel is the historical construction; if you wanted to use the lay and more general use, you'd write "It's doggerel" not "a doggerel". Please expose yourself to common usage from more than a common use dictionary.