There has been an outpouring of research on right-wing populist conservatism since the advent of ... more There has been an outpouring of research on right-wing populist conservatism since the advent of the Trump presidency and right-wing movements in Europe. Yet, little research has been devoted to divisions among conservatives themselves, especially among conservative academics. Although Trump has maintained remarkable unity within the Republican Party for electoral reasons, he has fostered sharp divisions among conservative intellectuals and academicians. This article compares 102 politically conservative professors who are Trumpists and 80 conservative professors who are anti-Trumpists. All 182 function as public intellectuals who advocate their views in print and digital media. Drawing on recent research in the sociology of intellectuals and particularly Pierre Bourdieu's analytical field perspective, this article proposes a fielding political identities and practices framework to show how these two groups of professors (Trumpists and anti-Trumpists) differ in where they teach, their intellectual orientations, their scholarly productivity, where they network with think tanks, scholarly professional associations, and government agencies, and their stances on key issues surrounding the Trump presidency. The academic Trumpists embrace the right-wing populist wave mobilized by Trump and the conservative academic critics resist this move. This polarization of views between these two groups of conservative professors is enduring and rooted in two distinct social networks that connect positions in the academic field to affiliations with think tanks, government agencies, and professional associations in the field of power that reinforce their respective political identities. This research contributes to political sociology, the sociology of intellectuals, and the sociology of conservative politics in American higher education.
A reflexive history of sociological thought calls for uncovering the hidden intellectual assumpti... more A reflexive history of sociological thought calls for uncovering the hidden intellectual assumptions that shape social theorizing often in unfruitful ways. According to Pierre Bourdieu, small number of binary oppositions haunt contemporary thinking by forcing unreflected perceptions into taken-for-granted alternatives that divide, simplify, and rank complex and interconnected social realities into rigid hierarchical classifications. Such is the case in much theorizing of the transition from traditional to modern societies --- the modernity problematic --- that is a unifying theme in classical social theory. Chad Goldberg, in Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought , deploys this kind of reflexive analysis by showing how the Jew/gentile binary has figured, sometimes positively mostly negatively, in the theoretical imagination of many of the classical sociologists in their views of modernization.
Of all contemporary European sociological theorists, only Pierre Bourdieu has yet to find his def... more Of all contemporary European sociological theorists, only Pierre Bourdieu has yet to find his definitive American interpreter. Partly because of the fragmented nature of our disciplinary field, Bourdieu’s complex corpus has been appropriated largely in bits by specialists who are unaware of or unconcerned about the integral whole. So in a manner reminiscent of the Indian folk tale of the blind men and the elephant, there are many American Bourdieus: an anthropologist of Algeria, a sociologist of education, an analyst of art and culture, a researcher of stratification. Bourdieu has contributed to this fragmentary appropriation by adamantly refusing to “theorize,” that is, present his general concepts and ideas in a form abstracted from his empirical research. This faulty American reception of Bourdieu’s sociology will hopefully change with the publication of David Swartz’s new book, which is the first successful and accessible overview of Bourdieu’s entire corpus. Culture and Power puts all the parts of the elephant back together, revealing not merely the power and breadth of the animal but the warts and wrinkles as well. Swartz is in the right position to accomplish this sympathetic but probing treatment. As a student at the Sorbonne in the 1970s, he attended Bourdieu’s seminars but did not become a disciple. Familiar with the Parisian intellectual field, yet viewing it from the remove of the American university, Swartz achieves a felicitous balance between insider and outsider. The result is a book unsurpassed in the breadth and depth of its comprehension of this major sociological theorist. But readers looking for a mere introduction to Bourdieu’s work had best look elsewhere, for this is a highly sophisticated work that presents a wealth of details, complexities, and nuances. Before diving into his exposition of Bourdieu’s basic concepts, Swartz gives us an enlightening chapter on his career and position in France’s intellectual field. Bourdieu’s relentless criticism of the role of culture in general and education in particular in reproducing social inequalities is explained by his own origins as a petit-bourgeois outsider who, despite his remarkable upward mobility, has always felt marginalized by the upper-class culture of France’s grandes écoles. Bourdieu’s concepts and research are insightfully interpreted as strategic moves against competitors in this complex and contentious Parisian intellectual field. Swartz then moves on to explicate the general concepts that inform all of Bourdieu’s research. His utmost objective is to extend the notion of self-interested action usually associated with economics to cultural practice. For Bourdieu, all social action is motivated by the pursuit of profits
The author analyzes his contribution in introducing Bourdieu to the Anglophone world (and to the ... more The author analyzes his contribution in introducing Bourdieu to the Anglophone world (and to the US in particular). By doing so, he presents the reader with an abundance of anecdotes designed to illustrate observations regarding intellectual autonomy, symbolic capitals, and the international circulation of sociological ideas. Self-analysis is viewed as a straightforward and blunt version of other standard, more euphemized, academic practices (like the introductory literature review that opens scientific papers): thus, it is also supposed to be a tool for writing better.
A comment on Mariano Croce's “The Levels of Critique. Pierre Bourdieu and the Political Poten... more A comment on Mariano Croce's “The Levels of Critique. Pierre Bourdieu and the Political Potential of Social Theory.”
American sociology, as I point out elsewhere (2013; 2006), has undergone considerable disciplinar... more American sociology, as I point out elsewhere (2013; 2006), has undergone considerable disciplinary and subdisciplinary specialization and segmentation over the last thirty years. Various fields and subfields with strong scholarly (theoretical and methodological) boundaries have emerged creating a fragmented array of sociological inquiry. Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam (hereafter FM) offer in ATheory of Fields an integrative response to this balkanization of American sociology due to subfield proliferation, specialization, and segmentation. In their book FM attempt to rectify the centrifugal forces of specialization by identifying concerns common to several subfields, which they are able to gather under one conceptual umbrella—strategic action fields. They see emerging across the literatures of social movements, political sociology, organizations, economic sociology, and institutional theory in sociology and political science common efforts to grapple with the creation, institutionalization, and transformation of “mesolevel social orders” where actors compete for material and status rewards. In what resembles an unacknowledged variation of Robert Merton’s famous idea of multiple independent discoveries, FM believe they have one; namely, this “surprising discovery of fields” (209) across numerous disciplines and subdisciplines to account for these mesolevel social orders. In lieu of calling them just markets, organizations, networks, systems, or institutions, FM contend that the language of “strategic action field” is more appropriate. Moreover, this framework would correct for the one-sided-material-interest focus in economic sociology, the lack of agency in institutional analysis, and the insufficient attention to durable structures in social movement research. For FM, a strategic action field (saf) is
By virtually dominating French intellectual life (literature, philosophy, culture) during the ear... more By virtually dominating French intellectual life (literature, philosophy, culture) during the early post-World War II period, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) embodied what Pierre Bourdieu calls a "total intellectual"one who responds to and helps frame public debate on all the intellectual and political issues of the day. During his lifetime and even after his death in 1980, Sartre's thinking and political engagements provoked sharp reactions, both positive and negative, in France and abroad. Marxism, decolonization struggles, and violence are three key themes on which Sartre's public positions continue to generate considerable debatea debate that remains relevant today. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) is considered by many to be the "philosopher of the twentieth century." He came to exemplify a certain form of public intellectual, what Bourdieu critically calls a "total intellectual," by virtually dominating French intellectual life (literature, philosophy, culture) during the early post-World War II period. When France laid him to rest in 1980, a huge turnout of some 50,000 following in his funeral procession was called "the last demonstration of the 1960s." The centenary of his birth some 25 years later in 2005 was less celebratory. Indeed, as Annie Cohen-Solal remarks in the opening article of this Theory and Society symposium devoted to Sartre, the French press, with few exceptions, overwhelmingly treated Sartre's centenary negatively. Moreover, the contrast to 1980 was paralleled by another: Cohen-Solal juxtaposes the positive international recognition of Sartre's contributions with the generally negative assessment at home.
... In mcmoriam: Pierre Bourdieu 1930-2002 / David L. Swartz 17 Chapter 2: Rethinking classical t... more ... In mcmoriam: Pierre Bourdieu 1930-2002 / David L. Swartz 17 Chapter 2: Rethinking classical theory: The sociological vision of Pierre Bourdieu / Rogers Bruhaker 25 Chapter 3: Pierre Bourdieu and the sociology of religion: A central and peripheral concern / Erwan Dianteill 65 ...
There has been an outpouring of research on right-wing populist conservatism since the advent of ... more There has been an outpouring of research on right-wing populist conservatism since the advent of the Trump presidency and right-wing movements in Europe. Yet, little research has been devoted to divisions among conservatives themselves, especially among conservative academics. Although Trump has maintained remarkable unity within the Republican Party for electoral reasons, he has fostered sharp divisions among conservative intellectuals and academicians. This article compares 102 politically conservative professors who are Trumpists and 80 conservative professors who are anti-Trumpists. All 182 function as public intellectuals who advocate their views in print and digital media. Drawing on recent research in the sociology of intellectuals and particularly Pierre Bourdieu's analytical field perspective, this article proposes a fielding political identities and practices framework to show how these two groups of professors (Trumpists and anti-Trumpists) differ in where they teach, their intellectual orientations, their scholarly productivity, where they network with think tanks, scholarly professional associations, and government agencies, and their stances on key issues surrounding the Trump presidency. The academic Trumpists embrace the right-wing populist wave mobilized by Trump and the conservative academic critics resist this move. This polarization of views between these two groups of conservative professors is enduring and rooted in two distinct social networks that connect positions in the academic field to affiliations with think tanks, government agencies, and professional associations in the field of power that reinforce their respective political identities. This research contributes to political sociology, the sociology of intellectuals, and the sociology of conservative politics in American higher education.
A reflexive history of sociological thought calls for uncovering the hidden intellectual assumpti... more A reflexive history of sociological thought calls for uncovering the hidden intellectual assumptions that shape social theorizing often in unfruitful ways. According to Pierre Bourdieu, small number of binary oppositions haunt contemporary thinking by forcing unreflected perceptions into taken-for-granted alternatives that divide, simplify, and rank complex and interconnected social realities into rigid hierarchical classifications. Such is the case in much theorizing of the transition from traditional to modern societies --- the modernity problematic --- that is a unifying theme in classical social theory. Chad Goldberg, in Modernity and the Jews in Western Social Thought , deploys this kind of reflexive analysis by showing how the Jew/gentile binary has figured, sometimes positively mostly negatively, in the theoretical imagination of many of the classical sociologists in their views of modernization.
Of all contemporary European sociological theorists, only Pierre Bourdieu has yet to find his def... more Of all contemporary European sociological theorists, only Pierre Bourdieu has yet to find his definitive American interpreter. Partly because of the fragmented nature of our disciplinary field, Bourdieu’s complex corpus has been appropriated largely in bits by specialists who are unaware of or unconcerned about the integral whole. So in a manner reminiscent of the Indian folk tale of the blind men and the elephant, there are many American Bourdieus: an anthropologist of Algeria, a sociologist of education, an analyst of art and culture, a researcher of stratification. Bourdieu has contributed to this fragmentary appropriation by adamantly refusing to “theorize,” that is, present his general concepts and ideas in a form abstracted from his empirical research. This faulty American reception of Bourdieu’s sociology will hopefully change with the publication of David Swartz’s new book, which is the first successful and accessible overview of Bourdieu’s entire corpus. Culture and Power puts all the parts of the elephant back together, revealing not merely the power and breadth of the animal but the warts and wrinkles as well. Swartz is in the right position to accomplish this sympathetic but probing treatment. As a student at the Sorbonne in the 1970s, he attended Bourdieu’s seminars but did not become a disciple. Familiar with the Parisian intellectual field, yet viewing it from the remove of the American university, Swartz achieves a felicitous balance between insider and outsider. The result is a book unsurpassed in the breadth and depth of its comprehension of this major sociological theorist. But readers looking for a mere introduction to Bourdieu’s work had best look elsewhere, for this is a highly sophisticated work that presents a wealth of details, complexities, and nuances. Before diving into his exposition of Bourdieu’s basic concepts, Swartz gives us an enlightening chapter on his career and position in France’s intellectual field. Bourdieu’s relentless criticism of the role of culture in general and education in particular in reproducing social inequalities is explained by his own origins as a petit-bourgeois outsider who, despite his remarkable upward mobility, has always felt marginalized by the upper-class culture of France’s grandes écoles. Bourdieu’s concepts and research are insightfully interpreted as strategic moves against competitors in this complex and contentious Parisian intellectual field. Swartz then moves on to explicate the general concepts that inform all of Bourdieu’s research. His utmost objective is to extend the notion of self-interested action usually associated with economics to cultural practice. For Bourdieu, all social action is motivated by the pursuit of profits
The author analyzes his contribution in introducing Bourdieu to the Anglophone world (and to the ... more The author analyzes his contribution in introducing Bourdieu to the Anglophone world (and to the US in particular). By doing so, he presents the reader with an abundance of anecdotes designed to illustrate observations regarding intellectual autonomy, symbolic capitals, and the international circulation of sociological ideas. Self-analysis is viewed as a straightforward and blunt version of other standard, more euphemized, academic practices (like the introductory literature review that opens scientific papers): thus, it is also supposed to be a tool for writing better.
A comment on Mariano Croce's “The Levels of Critique. Pierre Bourdieu and the Political Poten... more A comment on Mariano Croce's “The Levels of Critique. Pierre Bourdieu and the Political Potential of Social Theory.”
American sociology, as I point out elsewhere (2013; 2006), has undergone considerable disciplinar... more American sociology, as I point out elsewhere (2013; 2006), has undergone considerable disciplinary and subdisciplinary specialization and segmentation over the last thirty years. Various fields and subfields with strong scholarly (theoretical and methodological) boundaries have emerged creating a fragmented array of sociological inquiry. Neil Fligstein and Doug McAdam (hereafter FM) offer in ATheory of Fields an integrative response to this balkanization of American sociology due to subfield proliferation, specialization, and segmentation. In their book FM attempt to rectify the centrifugal forces of specialization by identifying concerns common to several subfields, which they are able to gather under one conceptual umbrella—strategic action fields. They see emerging across the literatures of social movements, political sociology, organizations, economic sociology, and institutional theory in sociology and political science common efforts to grapple with the creation, institutionalization, and transformation of “mesolevel social orders” where actors compete for material and status rewards. In what resembles an unacknowledged variation of Robert Merton’s famous idea of multiple independent discoveries, FM believe they have one; namely, this “surprising discovery of fields” (209) across numerous disciplines and subdisciplines to account for these mesolevel social orders. In lieu of calling them just markets, organizations, networks, systems, or institutions, FM contend that the language of “strategic action field” is more appropriate. Moreover, this framework would correct for the one-sided-material-interest focus in economic sociology, the lack of agency in institutional analysis, and the insufficient attention to durable structures in social movement research. For FM, a strategic action field (saf) is
By virtually dominating French intellectual life (literature, philosophy, culture) during the ear... more By virtually dominating French intellectual life (literature, philosophy, culture) during the early post-World War II period, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) embodied what Pierre Bourdieu calls a "total intellectual"one who responds to and helps frame public debate on all the intellectual and political issues of the day. During his lifetime and even after his death in 1980, Sartre's thinking and political engagements provoked sharp reactions, both positive and negative, in France and abroad. Marxism, decolonization struggles, and violence are three key themes on which Sartre's public positions continue to generate considerable debatea debate that remains relevant today. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) is considered by many to be the "philosopher of the twentieth century." He came to exemplify a certain form of public intellectual, what Bourdieu critically calls a "total intellectual," by virtually dominating French intellectual life (literature, philosophy, culture) during the early post-World War II period. When France laid him to rest in 1980, a huge turnout of some 50,000 following in his funeral procession was called "the last demonstration of the 1960s." The centenary of his birth some 25 years later in 2005 was less celebratory. Indeed, as Annie Cohen-Solal remarks in the opening article of this Theory and Society symposium devoted to Sartre, the French press, with few exceptions, overwhelmingly treated Sartre's centenary negatively. Moreover, the contrast to 1980 was paralleled by another: Cohen-Solal juxtaposes the positive international recognition of Sartre's contributions with the generally negative assessment at home.
... In mcmoriam: Pierre Bourdieu 1930-2002 / David L. Swartz 17 Chapter 2: Rethinking classical t... more ... In mcmoriam: Pierre Bourdieu 1930-2002 / David L. Swartz 17 Chapter 2: Rethinking classical theory: The sociological vision of Pierre Bourdieu / Rogers Bruhaker 25 Chapter 3: Pierre Bourdieu and the sociology of religion: A central and peripheral concern / Erwan Dianteill 65 ...
Uploads
Papers by David Swartz