Oxford Handbook of Emile Durkheim

Émile Durkheim remains one of the most controversial, and one of the most deeply misunderstood, classics of social theory. The Oxford Handbook of Émile Durkheim takes stock of the different recent debates on Durkheimian sociology, and makes them accessible to a wide audience spanning various disciplines; this includes crucial debates that, due to language barriers, are not easily accessible for an English-reading public. In doing so, this volume is an important resource for all scholars and students looking to understand Durkheimian sociology.

List of contents

• 1. Introduction: Some Reasons for (Re)reading Durkheim Today


• Hans Joas and Andreas Pettenkofer


• 2. Durkheim's Signature Project: The Science of Morality as Rational Moral Art


• Mark S. Cladis


• 3. Solidarity and Attachment in Durkheim's Sociological Thought


• Serge Paugam


• 4. The Sociality of Mind: Key Arguments, Inner Tensions, and Divergent Appropriations of Durkheim's Sociology of Knowledge


• Frithjof Nungesser


• 5. In Defense of Collective Consciousness: Reassessing Durkheim's Argument


• Francesco Callegaro


• 6. Religious Rituals and Logical Thought in Durkheim: The Level of Existence of Social Things


• Bruno Karsenti


• 7. The Dreyfus Affair and Durkheim's Experience of Anti-Semitism


• Pierre Birnbaum


• 8. Durkheim and the Philosophy of His Time


• Jean-Louis Fabiani


• 9. Durkheim's Team: L'Année sociologique


• Marcel Fournier and Paul Carls


• 10. Durkheim and Bergson, Durkheimians and Bergsonians


• Heike Delitz


• 11. Durkheim, Pragmatism, and Sociology


• Romain Pudal


• 12. Émile Durkheim's Germany


• Wolf Feuerhahn


• 13. The Modern Individual


• Willie Watts Miller


• 14. Durkheim and Economic Sociology


• Philippe Steiner


• 15. Reflecting on Durkheim and His Studies on Law through Cancellations of British Citizenship


• Devyani Prabhat


• 16. Émile Durkheim and the Sociology of Religion


• Matthias Koenig


• 17. Durkheim's Ambivalence towards Art


• Edward Tiryakian and Josefina Cintron Tiryakian


• 18. Durkheim and Social Movements


• Kerstin Jacobsson


• 19. Durkheim and the Sociology of Human-Animal Relations


• Robert Seyfert


• 20. Durkheim and the Sociality of Space


• Markus Schroer


• 21. Émile Durkheim and the Modern Family


• François de Singly


• 22. Durkheim, Tarde, Latour


• Bjørn Schiermer Andersen


• 23. Sociology of the Sacred: The Revitalization of the Durkheim School at the Collège de Sociologie and the Renewal of a Sociology of Sacralization by Hans Joas


• Stephan Moebius


• 24. Lévi-Strauss's Critique of Durkheim


• Jing Xie


• 25. Ordinary Rituals: Durkheim, Mead, Goffman


• Frédéric Keck


• 26. Durkheim and the New Sociology of Morality


• Steven Lukes

About the author

Hans Joas is Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion at Humboldt University Berlin and Visiting Professor of Sociology and Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. from Freie Universität Berlin in 1979 (G. H. Mead: A Contemporary Re-examination of His Thought, MIT Press, 1985, 1997). Among his numerous prizes are the Max Planck Research Award in 2015; the Prix Paul Ricoeur in 2017 and the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award of the German Sociological Association in 2022. His last book in English is The Power of the Sacred. An Alternative to the Narrative of Disenchantment, Oxford UP, 2021.

Andreas Pettenkofer studied sociology at the Free University of Berlin, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the University of Bielefeld, and received his PhD at the Max Weber Centre, University of Erfurt. After positions at the University of Göttingen and at the Fernuniversität in Hagen, he is now a fellow at the Max Weber Centre, University of Erfurt, where he heads the group "The Local Politicization of Global Norms".

Summary

Émile Durkheim remains one of the most controversial, and one of the most deeply misunderstood, classics of social theory. His work differs from the dominant version of sociology that has essentially accepted the modernist self-description of contemporary societies; and it squarely contradicts the individualism that has come to dominate the social sciences. For everybody who is interested in constructing theoretical alternatives to this individualism, Durkheim's sociology can be a highly useful inspiration - not only because of the solutions it suggests, but already because of the questions it asks. Making use of the theoretical possibilities offered by the Durkheimian tradition, however, requires going beyond the familiar appropriations.

Therefore, The Oxford Handbook of Émile Durkheim takes stock of the different recent debates on Durkheimian sociology, and makes them accessible to a wide audience spanning various disciplines; this includes crucial debates that, due to language barriers, are not easily accessible for an English-reading public. The handbook's chapters elucidate the controversial key concepts of Durkheimian sociology; situate them within the contemporary political and theoretical debates they were originally responding to; offer surveys of empirical research that uses Durkheimian concepts (on topics that were already central for Durkheim's own work as well as on topics that Durkheim hardly touched upon), thus demonstrating the possibilities of a Durkheimian sociology; bring out the divergent, and competing, ways in which Durkheim's ideas have been appropriated and reformulated within more recent theoretical developments in the social sciences. In doing so, this volume is an important resource for all scholars and students looking to understand Durkheimian sociology.

Additional text

This new collection of essays regarding the thought and reception of the work of Émile Durkheim is a masterful corrective to one of social science's most important, but also most misunderstood, founding figures. Too often dismissed as a strict positivist and conservative, Durkheim has been forgotten and neglected by many in recent years. This book deserves our attention because it demonstrates (from a variety of vantage points and perspectives) his relevance to our current social theoretical efforts....Highly recommended.

Product details

• Authors: Hans (Department of Sociology Joas
• Assisted by: Hans Joas (Editor), Joas Hans (Editor), Andreas Pettenkofer (Editor)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 16.04.2024
• EAN: 9780190679354
• ISBN: 978-0-19-067935-4
• No. of pages: 504
• Series: Oxford Handbooks
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > Sociological theories; Sociology, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology of Religion, Social interaction, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Social Theory, Social and ethical issues