Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory
- The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 The Emergence of Social Theory
- 2 “What Is a Classic?”
- 3 Karl Marx
- 4 The Marxist Legacy
- 5 Émile Durkheim: Theorist of Solidarity
- 6 What’s in a Name?
- 7 Max Weber
- 8 Weberian Social Theory
- 9 Georg Simmel and the Metropolitization of Social Life
- 10 Pounding on Parsons: How Criticism Undermined the Reputation of Sociology’s Incurable Theorist
- 11 Symbolic Interactionism
- 12 Erving Goffman and Dramaturgical Sociology
- 13 Structuralism
- 14 Norbert Elias, Civilising Processes, and Figurational (or Process) Sociology
- 15 Phenomenology and Social Theory
- 16 Pierre Bourdieu: An Intellectual Legacy
- 17 Developing Ethnomethodology: Garfinkel on the Constitutive Interactional Practices in Social Systems of Interaction
- 18 Jürgen Habermas
- 19 Anthony Giddens, Structuration Theory, and Radical Politics
- Index
- References
2 - “What Is a Classic?”
Variations on an Ancient Theme
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 December 2020
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Edited by
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory
- The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Preface
- 1 The Emergence of Social Theory
- 2 “What Is a Classic?”
- 3 Karl Marx
- 4 The Marxist Legacy
- 5 Émile Durkheim: Theorist of Solidarity
- 6 What’s in a Name?
- 7 Max Weber
- 8 Weberian Social Theory
- 9 Georg Simmel and the Metropolitization of Social Life
- 10 Pounding on Parsons: How Criticism Undermined the Reputation of Sociology’s Incurable Theorist
- 11 Symbolic Interactionism
- 12 Erving Goffman and Dramaturgical Sociology
- 13 Structuralism
- 14 Norbert Elias, Civilising Processes, and Figurational (or Process) Sociology
- 15 Phenomenology and Social Theory
- 16 Pierre Bourdieu: An Intellectual Legacy
- 17 Developing Ethnomethodology: Garfinkel on the Constitutive Interactional Practices in Social Systems of Interaction
- 18 Jürgen Habermas
- 19 Anthony Giddens, Structuration Theory, and Radical Politics
- Index
- References
Summary
This article interrogates the idea of a classic, locating its significance in sociology in terms of its understanding in far-ranging fields of human inquiry and exploration, particularly philosophy, art, and literature. It explores the question: Why do “classics” remain important whenever social scientists, novices or veterans, reconsider their discipline’s history and likely future?
Alan Sica is a Professor of Sociology at Pennsylvania State University, where he is the Founder and Director of the Social Thought Program. He has served as Editor of Contemporary Sociology and Chair of the American Sociological Association’s Theory Section. He is the recipient of the ASA’s History of Sociology Section’s Distinguished Achievement Award. His books include Weber, Irrationality, and Social Order (1988), What Is Social Theory? The Philosophical Debates (1998), and The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in the Sixties (2005).
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- The Cambridge Handbook of Social Theory , pp. 24 - 44Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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