Wednesday, 05 June 2024 at 17:00 in the faculty meeting room of the Sowi
The ontology of the social and the relevance of German-language classics of sociology for a crisis-ridden academic discipline in the 21st century
This lecture provides a brief insight into a part of a book currently in preparation that examines the relevance of "classical" social and societal theories - to use a distinction recently redefined by Andreas Reckwitz - since Georg Simmel for the major current issues of a globally orientated sociology. In particular, I will focus on a critique of often abbreviated readings in the international reception of Max Weber, Georg Simmel and other German-speaking sociologists. Such a critique is part of a historical analysis that points to a "German-language lineage of sociology" that has received too little attention to date: although it is extremely heterogeneous and only partially "crosses" the Frankfurt School, it allows for characteristic emphases and perspectives from which today's sociology, with its weaknesses and blind spots, could in turn benefit.
This lecture will illustrate this using three examples. I will begin with a discussion of central ideas in Georg Simmel's sociology: that of "circles of social bonding"; and of Simmel's basic notion of "interactions". These fundamental categories in Simmel's work, I argue, allow for a much-needed reassessment of contemporary identity politics and atomisation. My second example relates to Norbert Elias' historical juxtaposition of autarky and geographically far-reaching "entanglements". Here, too, an ontology of the social is recognisable from which contemporary sociology could benefit. More specifically, based on Elias' account of the correlating processes of civilisation, the more complex interdependencies, and pacification, I venture my second assertion here: that arguments critical of globalisation should be reconsidered with regard to their unintended, albeit quite expectable, side effects. My third example is of a methodological nature and relates to Max Weber's sociology of understanding. My line of argument in this regard builds on Rainer Lepsius' (2016: 4-5) reflections on Weber's "tripolar" schema: the latter claims to recognise the complex (or quasi "multi-track") connections between meanings/ideas/values, social actions, and structures/institutions. My third and equally bold assertion is that later and current attempts to anchor qualitative studies in Max Weber's understanding sociology often fail to live up to Weber's ambition and claim.
Christian Karner is currently Professor of Sociology at the University of Lincoln and was previously - in addition to research stays in Poland, Greece and the USA - for a long time at the University of Nottingham and as a Leverhulme post-doctoral fellow. Christian is currently co-editor-in-chief of Sociological Research Online. His long-standing research interests and resulting publications focus on nationalism (especially in Austria), ethnicity, globalisation, urban sociology, and the politics of memory. His most recent books are Nationalism Revisited: Austrian Social Closure from Romanticism to the Digital Age (Berghahn, 2020) and Sociology in Times of Glocalisation (Anthem, 2022). His editorships include The Use and Abuse of Memory (with Bram Mertens, 2013), with Dr Bernhard Weicht The Commonalities of Global Crises (2016) and most recently The Sociology of Globalisation (with Dirk Hofäcker, 2023). This talk is based on a book Christian is currently working on, which will be published in the Routledge and British Sociological Association series on "Sociological Futures".