Schools of Thought: Twenty-Five Years of Interpretive Social Science

Published by Princeton University Press 2002

Schools of Thought

Twenty-Five Years of Interpretive Social Science

Edited by: Joan Wallach Scott and Debra Keates

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691228389

Overview
Contents

About this book

Schools of Thought brings together a cast of prominent scholars to assess, with unprecedented breadth and vigor, the intellectual revolution over the past quarter century in the social sciences. This collection of twenty essays stems from a 1997 conference that celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Institute for Advanced Study's School of Social Science. The authors, who represent a wide range of disciplines, are all associated with the School's emphasis on interpretive social science, which rejects models from the hard sciences and opts instead for a humanistic approach to social inquiry.

Following a preface by Clifford Geertz, whose profound insights have helped shape the School from the outset, the essays are arranged in four sections. The first offers personal reflections on disciplinary changes; the second features essays advocating changes in focus or methodology; the third presents field overviews and institutional history; while the fourth addresses the link between political philosophy and world governance. Two recurring themes are the uses (and pitfalls) of interdisciplinary studies and the relation between scholarship and social change. This book will be rewarding for anyone interested in how changing trends in scholarship shape the understanding of our social worlds.

The contributors include David Apter, Kaushik Basu, Judith Butler, Nicholas Dirks, Jean Elshtain, Peter Galison, Wolf Lepenies, Jane Mansbridge, Andrew Pickering, Mary Poovey, Istvan Rev, Renato Rosaldo, Michael Rustin, Joan W. Scott, William H. Sewell, Jr., Quentin Skinner, Charles Taylor, Anna Tsing, Michael Walzer, and Gavin Wright.

Author / Editor information

Joan W. Scott is Harold Lindner Professor of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study. Her most recent book is Only Paradoxes to Offer: French Feminists and the Rights of Man. Debra Keates directs publications for the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study. She is coeditor of Transitions, Environments, Translations: Feminisms in International Politics.

Reviews

"Schools of Thought is a tremendous contribution to scholarship in the broadest sense, or perhaps one should say, meta-scholarship. It is also loaded with rich, stimulating, and provocative essays by a roster of brilliant scholars. I can't think of anything quite like this book. It captures, in a many-faceted way, what has truly been a revolution in the social sciences in the past twenty-five years. It will be extremely widely read across the social sciences, and across many of the humanities as well."—Sherry B. Ortner, Columbia University

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
INTRODUCTION. School Building A Retrospective Preface Clifford Geertz Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
PART ONE Blurred Genres: Reflections on Disciplinary Practices
CHAPTER 1 Political Theory after the Enlightenment Project Quentin Skinner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	15
CHAPTER 2 Twenty-five Years of Social Science and Social Change A Personal Memoir Wolf Lepenies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
CHAPTER 3 Economic History as a Cure for Economics Gavin Wright Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	41
CHAPTER 4 Can the "Other" of Philosophy Speak? Judith Butler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
CHAPTER 5 Reflections on Interdisciplinarity Renato Rosaldo Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	67
PART TWO The State of the Art: New Methods and New Questions
CHAPTER 6 After History? Joan W. Scott Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
CHAPTER 7 The Global Situation Anna Tsing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	104
CHAPTER 8 Modernity and Identity Charles Taylor Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
CHAPTER 9 The Role of Norms and Law in Economics: An Essay on Political Economy Kaushik Basu Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	154
CHAPTER 10 Material Culture, Theoretical Culture, and Delocalization Peter Galison Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
CHAPTER 11 Science as Alchemy Andrew Pickering Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	194
PART THREE Thick Description: Field Overviews and Institutional History
CHAPTER 12 Whatever Happened to the "Social" in Social History? William H. Sewell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
CHAPTER 13 Postcolonialism and Its Discontents: History, Anthropology, and Postcolonial Critique Nicholas B. Dirks Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	227
CHAPTER 14 Structure, Contingency, and Choice: A Comparison of Trends and Tendencies in Political Science David E. Apter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	252
CHAPTER 15 Interdisciplinarity at New York University Maty Poovey Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	288
PART FOUR The World in Pieces: Political Philosophy and World Governance
CHAPTER 16 Political Theory and Moral Responsibility Jean Bethke Elshtain Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	315
CHAPTER 17 A "Moral Core" Solution to the Prisoners' Dilemma Jane Mansbridge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	330
CHAPTER 18 Reinterpreting Risk Michael Rustin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	348
CHAPTER 19 Retrotopia: Critical Reason Turns Primitive Istvan Rev Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	364
CHAPTER 20 International Society: What Is the Best that We Can Do? Michael Walzer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	388
AUTHOR NOTES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	403