The Sacred Project of American Sociology

The Sacred Project of American Sociology PDF Author: Christian Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199377146
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Counter to popular perceptions, contemporary American sociology is and promotes a profoundly sacred project at heart. Sociology today is in fact animated by sacred impulses, driven by sacred commitments, and serves a sacred project. Sociology appears on the surface to be a secular, scientific enterprise--its founding fathers were mostly atheists. Its basic operating premises are secular and naturalistic. Sociologists today are disproportionately not religious, compared to all Americans, and often irreligious. The Sacred Project of American Sociology shows, counter-intuitively, that the secular enterprise that everyday sociology appears to be pursuing is actually not what is really going on at sociology's deepest level. Christian Smith conducts a self-reflexive, tables-turning, cultural and institutional sociology of the profession of American sociology itself, showing that this allegedly secular discipline ironically expresses Emile Durkheim's inescapable sacred, exemplifies its own versions of Marxist false consciousness, and generates a spirited reaction against Max Weber's melancholically observed disenchantment of the world. American sociology does not escape the analytical net that it casts over the rest of the ordinary world. Sociology itself is a part of that very human, very social, often very sacred and spiritual world. And sociology's ironic mis-recognition of its own sacred project leads to a variety of arguably self-destructive and distorting tendencies. This book re-asserts a vision for what sociology is most important for, in contrast with its current commitments, and calls sociologists back to a more honest, fair, and healthy vision of its purpose.

The Sacred Project of American Sociology

The Sacred Project of American Sociology PDF Author: Christian Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199377146
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 176

Get Book

Book Description
Counter to popular perceptions, contemporary American sociology is and promotes a profoundly sacred project at heart. Sociology today is in fact animated by sacred impulses, driven by sacred commitments, and serves a sacred project. Sociology appears on the surface to be a secular, scientific enterprise--its founding fathers were mostly atheists. Its basic operating premises are secular and naturalistic. Sociologists today are disproportionately not religious, compared to all Americans, and often irreligious. The Sacred Project of American Sociology shows, counter-intuitively, that the secular enterprise that everyday sociology appears to be pursuing is actually not what is really going on at sociology's deepest level. Christian Smith conducts a self-reflexive, tables-turning, cultural and institutional sociology of the profession of American sociology itself, showing that this allegedly secular discipline ironically expresses Emile Durkheim's inescapable sacred, exemplifies its own versions of Marxist false consciousness, and generates a spirited reaction against Max Weber's melancholically observed disenchantment of the world. American sociology does not escape the analytical net that it casts over the rest of the ordinary world. Sociology itself is a part of that very human, very social, often very sacred and spiritual world. And sociology's ironic mis-recognition of its own sacred project leads to a variety of arguably self-destructive and distorting tendencies. This book re-asserts a vision for what sociology is most important for, in contrast with its current commitments, and calls sociologists back to a more honest, fair, and healthy vision of its purpose.

The Sacred Project of American Sociology

The Sacred Project of American Sociology PDF Author: Christian Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199377138
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
This text shows counter-intuitively, that the secular enterprise that everyday sociology appears to be pursuing is actually not what is really going on at sociology's deepest level. Sociology today is in fact animated by sacred impulses, driven by sacred commitments, and serves a sacred project. The book re-asserts a vision for what sociology is most important for, in contrast with its current commitments, and calls sociologists back to a more honest, fair, and healthy vision of its purpose.

The Sacred Project of American Sociology

The Sacred Project of American Sociology PDF Author: Christian Stephen Smith
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780199377169
Category : Religion and sociology
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
This text shows counter-intuitively, that the secular enterprise that everyday sociology appears to be pursuing is actually not what is really going on at sociology's deepest level. Sociology today is in fact animated by sacred impulses, driven by sacred commitments, and serves a sacred project. The book re-asserts a vision for what sociology is most important for, in contrast with its current commitments, and calls sociologists back to a more honest, fair, and healthy vision of its purpose.

Souls in Transition

Souls in Transition PDF Author: Christian Smith
Publisher: OUP USA
ISBN: 0195371798
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Based on candid interviews with thousands of young people tracked over a five-year period, this book reveals how the religious practices of the teenagers portrayed in Soul Searching have been strengthened, challenged, and often changed as they have moved into adulthood.

Sacred Circles, Public Squares

Sacred Circles, Public Squares PDF Author: Arthur E. Farnsley II
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253111293
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
This study of the religious landscape of Indianapolis -- the summative volume of the Lilly Endowment's Project on Religion and Urban Culture conducted by the Polis Center at IUPUI -- aims to understand religion's changing role in public life. The book examines the shaping of religious traditions by the changing city. It sheds light on issues such as social capital and faith-based welfare reform and explores the countervailing pressures of "decentering" -- the creation of multiple (sub)urban centers -- and civil religion's role in binding these centers into one metropolis. Polis Center Series on Religion and Urban Culture -- David J. Bodenhamer and Arthur E. Farnsley II, editors

Moral, Believing Animals

Moral, Believing Animals PDF Author: Christian Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199731977
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 173

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Book Description
What kind of animals are human beings? And how do our visions of the human shape our theories of social action and institutions? In Moral, Believing Animals, Christian Smith advances a creative theory of human persons and culture that offers innovative, challenging answers to these and other fundamental questions in sociological, cultural, and religious theory. Smith suggests that human beings have a peculiar set of capacities and proclivities that distinguishes them significantly from other animals on this planet. Despite the vast differences in humanity between cultures and across history, no matter how differently people narrate their lives and histories, there remains an underlying structure of human personhood that helps to order human culture, history, and narration. Drawing on important recent insights in moral philosophy, epistemology, and narrative studies, Smith argues that humans are animals who have an inescapable moral and spiritual dimension. They cannot avoid a fundamental moral orientation in life and this, says Smith, has profound consequences for how sociology must study human beings.

Moving Beyond Borders

Moving Beyond Borders PDF Author: Alberto Lopez Pulido
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252056167
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
Moving Beyond Borders examines the life and accomplishments of Julian Samora, the first Mexican American sociologist in the United States and the founding father of the discipline of Latino studies. Detailing his distinguished career at the University of Notre Dame from 1959 to 1984, the book documents the history of the Mexican American Graduate Studies program that Samora established at Notre Dame and traces his influence on the evolution of border studies, Chicano studies, and Mexican American studies. Samora's groundbreaking ideas opened the way for Latinos to understand and study themselves intellectually and politically, to analyze the complex relationships between Mexicans and Mexican Americans, to study Mexican immigration, and to ready the United States for the reality of Latinos as the fastest growing minority in the nation. In addition to his scholarly and pedagogical impact, his leadership in the struggle for civil rights was a testament to the power of community action and perseverance. Focusing on Samora's teaching, mentoring, research, and institution-building strategies, Moving Beyond Borders explores the legacies, challenges, and future of ethnic studies in United States higher education. Contributors are Teresita E. Aguilar, Jorge A. Bustamante, Gilberto Cárdenas, Miguel A. Carranza, Frank M. Castillo, Anthony J. Cortese, Lydia Espinosa Crafton, Barbara Driscoll de Alvarado, Herman Gallegos, Phillip Gallegos, José R. Hinojosa, Delfina Landeros, Paul López, Sergio X. Madrigal, Ken Martínez, Vilma Martínez, Alberto Mata, Amelia M. Muñoz, Richard A. Navarro, Jesus "Chuy" Negrete, Alberto López Pulido, Julie Leininger Pycior, Olga Villa Parra, Ricardo Parra, Victor Rios, Marcos Ronquillo, Rene Rosenbaum, Carmen Samora, Rudy Sandoval, Alfredo Rodriguez Santos, and Ciro Sepulveda.

Max Weber in America

Max Weber in America PDF Author: Lawrence A. Scaff
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691147795
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
Lawrence Scaff provides new details about Weber's visit to the United States---what he did, what he saw, whom he met and why and how these experiences profoundly influenced Weber's thought an immigration, capitalism, science and culture, Romanticism, race diversity, Protestantism, and modernity. Scaff traces Weber's impact on the development of the social sciences in the United States following his death in 1920, examining how We ber's ideas were interpreted, translated, and disseminated by American scholars such as Talcott Parsons and Frank Knight, and how the Weberian canon, codified in America, was reintroduced into Europe after World War II. --

What Is a Person?

What Is a Person? PDF Author: Christian Smith
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226765946
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
The task of understanding human beings, what we ourselves are, our constitution and condition, is a perennial problem in philosophy and related disciplines. Smith argues here that our understanding of human persons is threatened by technological development and capricious academic theories alike, seeking to deny or relativize the personhood of humanity. Smith's book puts a stake in the ground, in defense of a view of the human that is genuinely humanistic in the traditional sense and capable of sustaining with intellectual coherence things like modern human rights and universal benevolence.

Sacred Ground

Sacred Ground PDF Author: Eboo Patel
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 0807077496
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
A “thought-provoking, myth-smashing” exploration of American identity and a passionate call for a more tolerant, interfaith America (Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State) There is no better time to stand up for your values than when they are under attack. Alarmist, hateful rhetoric once relegated to the fringes of political discourse has now become frighteningly mainstream, with pundits and politicians routinely invoking the specter of Islam as a menacing, deeply anti-American force. In Sacred Ground, author and renowned interfaith leader Eboo Patel says this prejudice is not just a problem for Muslims but a challenge to the very idea of America. Patel shows us that Americans from George Washington to Martin Luther King Jr. have been “interfaith leaders,” illustrating how the forces of pluralism in America have time and again defeated the forces of prejudice. And now a new generation needs to rise up and confront the anti-Muslim prejudice of our era. To this end, Patel offers a primer in the art and science of interfaith work, bringing to life the growing body of research on how faith can be a bridge of cooperation rather than a barrier of division and sharing stories from the frontlines of interfaith activism. Patel asks us to share in his vision of a better America—a robustly pluralistic country in which our commonalities are more important than our differences, and in which difference enriches, rather than threatens, our religious traditions. Pluralism, Patel boldly argues, is at the heart of the American project, and this visionary book will inspire Americans of all faiths to make this country a place where diverse traditions can thrive side by side.