Charles Lemert - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Charles Lemert

Routledge Handbook of Social and Cultural Theory, 2012

Routledge Handbook of Identity Studies, 2012

Capitalism and its Uncertain Future, 2021

Prismas Revista De Historia Intelectual, 2006

Proyecto académico sin fines de lucro, desarrollado bajo la iniciativa de acceso abierto

The Sociological Quarterly, 1994

The difference between "reading" and "rereading" is the difference between "getting through" and ... more The difference between "reading" and "rereading" is the difference between "getting through" and "living with, again and again." The mark of a rereader is that she never reads simply to get-through. Even when it happens that she does not reread a particular text, the act of first reading almost always revolves around the question of whether or not she will make the text at hand part of her life-a reading to live-with again and again. Classic texts are those that invite rereadings. They become part of the lives of readers. There is an irony in this. There are some classics that many people live-with without ever having read the texts themselves. Oedipus is reread in this way in daily conversation by persons who have never heard of Sophocles, much less read Shakespeare, Freud, or Juliet Mitchell. Similarly, the King James Version of the Christian scriptures has so deeply influenced the modem English language that even those who would never think of gettingthrough that bible for serious religious reasons nonetheless live-with it in their daily lives. Since the beginning of its modern era after World War 11, sociology has been divided over just this issue. For example, few sociologists have been better educated in the classics or possessed a more classic literary touch than George Homans. Yet Homans was principal among those who were appalled, among other things, at Talcott Parsons's method of writing theory in relation to rereadings of classic theories. In his day, Homans stood for a definition of social science that defined its work as explanation by precise propositions on the behaviors of men, as he put it with supreme eloquence in The Nature ofSocial Science. He was, thereby, one of the classic writers in a tradition that believes in a kind of science that considers itself defeated by too much preoccupation with the classics. Those in this tradition believe that what one must do is get-through certain readings in order to get to the point of generating precisely formulated empirically-based propositions contributing to the accumulated knowledge of the field.

Contexts, 2011

... He is the author, most recently, of Why Niebuhr Matters. Next Section. ... It was Florence wh... more ... He is the author, most recently, of Why Niebuhr Matters. Next Section. ... It was Florence who died most recently, about twenty years after Helen went Home (as Florence would have put it, with a capital H). That was 1975, just months after Gertrude had passed (as she would have ...

Introduction to Contemporary Social Theory, 2022

Introduction to Contemporary Social Theory, 2014

Preface 1. The Textures of Society 2. The Contemporary Relevance of the Classics 3. The Frankfurt... more Preface 1. The Textures of Society 2. The Contemporary Relevance of the Classics 3. The Frankfurt School 4. American Pragmatisms 5. Structuralism 6. Structures, Functions and Culture 7. Post-Structuralism 8. The Interaction Order 9. Theories of Structuration 10. Variations on the Theory of Power and Knowledge 11. Contemporary Critical Theory 12. Feminism and Post-Feminist Theory 13. Postmodernity 14. World-Systems Analysis and Its Entailments 15. Globalization. Afterword