Antisemitism and the Constitution of Sociology

"Modern antisemitism and the modern discipline of sociology not only emerged in the same period, but--antagonism and hostility between the two discourses notwithstanding--also overlapped and complemented each other. Sociology emerged in a society where modernization was often perceived as destroying unity and "social cohesion." Antisemitism was likewise a response to the modern age, offering in its vilifications of "the Jew" an explanation of society's deficiencies and crises. Antisemitism and the Constitution of Sociology is a collection of twelve essays providing a comparative analysis of modern antisemitism and the rise of sociology. This volume addresses three key areas: the strong influence of writers of Jewish background and the rising tide of antisemitism on the formation of sociology; the role of antisemitism in the historical development of sociology through its treatment by leading figures in the field, such as Emile Durkheim, Talcott Parsons, and Theodor W. Adorno; and the discipline's development in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust. Together the essays provide a fresh perspective on the history of sociology and the role that antisemitism, Jews, fascism, and the Holocaust played in shaping modern social theory. "--

List of contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Theory of Society Talks Back to Its Travesty

Marcel Stoetzler

Part 1. The Antisemitic Contexts of Sociology’s Emergence
1. Durkheim’s Sociology and French Antisemitism

Chad Alan Goldberg

2. Sociology’s Case for a Well-tempered Modernity: Individualism, Capitalism, and the Antisemitic Challenge

Marcel Stoetzler

3. Fairness as an Impetus for Objective, Scientific Social Research Methods: The Reports about Jewish Traders in the 1887 Usury Enquête of the Verein für Socialpolitik 

Irmela Gorges

4. Coldly Admiring the Jews: Werner Sombart and Classical German Sociology on Nationalism and Race

Y. Michal Bodemann

Part 2. Sociology’s Reaction to Antisemitism

5. Rereading Marx on the “Jewish Question”: Marx as a Critic of Antisemitism?

Robert Fine

6. From Assimilationist Antiracism to Zionist Anti-antisemitism: Georg Simmel, Franz Boas, and Arthur Ruppin

Amos Morris-Reich

7. The Rise of Sociology, Antisemitism, and the Jewish Question: The American Case 

Richard H. King

8. Civilization(s), Ethnoracism, Antisemitism, Sociology

Roland Robertson

Part 3. The Reformulation of Sociology in the Face of Fascist Antisemitism

9. Talcott Parsons’s “The Sociology of Modern Anti-Semitism”: Anti-antisemitism, Ambivalent Liberalism, and the Sociological Imagination

Jonathan Judaken

10. The Irrationality of the Rational: The Frankfurt School and Its Theory of Society in the 1940s

Eva-Maria Ziege

11. Gino Germani, Argentine Sociology, and the Study of Antisemitism

Daniel Lvovich, translated by Lars Stubbe and Maria Valeria Galvan

12. Antisemitism and the Power of Abstraction: From Political Economy to Critical Theory 

Werner Bonefeld

13. Conclusion: The Dialectic of Social Science and Worldview

Detlev Claussen, translated by Marcel Stoetzler

Contributors

Index

About the author

Marcel Stoetzler is a senior lecturer in sociology at Bangor University, UK, working on social theory and intellectual history. He has a strong interest in Critical Theory, especially Adorno; feminist theory; and the theory and history of antisemitism, especially in relation to liberalism and nationalism.
 

Product details

Authors	Marcel Stoetzler, Marcel (EDT) Stoetzler
Assisted by	Marcel Stoetzler (Editor)
Publisher	University of Nebraska Press
Languages	English
Product format	Hardback
Released	01.07.2014
EAN	9780803248649
ISBN	978-0-8032-4864-9
No. of pages	390
Dimensions	165 mm x 240 mm x 30 mm
Series	University of Nebraska Press; University of Nebraska Press
Subjects	Non-fiction book; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories

Product details

• Authors: Marcel Stoetzler, Marcel (EDT) Stoetzler
• Assisted by: Marcel Stoetzler (Editor)
• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.07.2014
• EAN: 9780803248649
• ISBN: 978-0-8032-4864-9
• No. of pages: 390
• Dimensions: 165 mm x 240 mm x 30 mm
• Series: University of Nebraska Press; University of Nebraska Press
• Subjects: Non-fiction book; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories