By Tom Mills In a recent article for the British Journal of Sociology I offered a critical, and for the most part sympathetic, engagement with Actor Network Theory (ANT) in which I focused particularly on Bruno Latour’s provocative critique of… Read More ›
Social Theory 
Academic Autism: Its Institutional Presence and Treatment
Over the weekend, Steve Fuller published this blog post which has understandably been the object of many complaints. Steve is one of a number of people who have accounts which enable them to post directly on the site, without the… Read More ›
Ontology Etc
Philosophy often operates at such a high level of abstraction it is difficult to see how it can be useful to practicing social scientists. The work of Roy Bhaskar is no different. Renowned for its difficulty, its technicality, and its… Read More ›
Computational social science and the promise of a reflexive, empirically robust activist-sociology
By John-Paul Smiley What is the role for sociology going forward? What should it look like as a discipline? Discussions of this topic have become commonplace (see, for example, Flyvberg: 2001: Rutzou: 2016). The failure of the majority of researchers in… Read More ›
The legacy of Zygmunt Bauman
I’ve been looking forward to this book for months. The author wrote a fantastic review essay in The Sociological Review. This is the author’s account of his book from the BSA Theory mailing list: Members of the group may be interested… Read More ›
Social morphogenesis: five years of inquiring into social change
Postmodernity. Second modernity. Network Society. Late modernity. Liquid modernity. Such concepts have dominated social thought in recent decades, with a bewildering array of claims about social change and its implications. But what do we mean by ‘social change’? How do… Read More ›
Theory as practice: for a politics of social theory, or how to get out of the theory zoo
By Jana Bacevic [These are my thoughts/notes for the “Practice of Social Theory“, which Mark Carrigan and I are running at the Department of Sociology of the University of Cambridge from 4 to 6 September, 2017]. Revival of theory? It… Read More ›
Ten Theses on Liberalism
When I was first exposed to liberalism as a political philosophy, I was told that its founders were Spinoza and Locke, two thinkers who have always struck me as having rather little in common, except some common foes — especially… Read More ›
How Democracy Can Generate Progressive Collective Intelligence in Two Steps
First, citizens don’t vote for a representative simply based on who they judge as best matching their interests, but rather on who they judge as best matching their interests given the candidate’s chances of winning in the election. Second, the… Read More ›
Call for Participants: The Practice of Social Theory
First Cambridge summer school in social theory University of Cambridge, Department of Sociology, 4-6 September 2017 Conveners: Jana Bacevic (University of Cambridge) and Mark Carrigan (The Sociological Review) Passionate about social theory? Want to learn more about how it is… Read More ›
Adventures in Peer Review Land: The Micro-structure of Academic Intellectual Property Transfer
I serve on the editorial board of several journals. In one such journal, the custom is to circulate all the articles that passed the external review process so that the board can officially give its approval for publication. We get… Read More ›
The Politics of Agency
Ever since I was a philosophy student, I’ve been interested in how we conceptualise individuals and groups. The two are connected in my mind because, if groups are composed of individuals, our concept of individuals is going to condition our… Read More ›
Darwin’s Dilemma
• Science is the epitome of human achievement, whereby we distinguish ourselves most clearly from other animals. • Yet, our best science says that our sense of superiority from other animals is false and quite possibly self-deception. • Either we… Read More ›
Social Morphogenesis: Five Years of Inquiring Into Social Change
Postmodernity. Second modernity. Network Society. Late modernity. Liquid modernity. Such concepts have dominated social thought in recent decades, with a bewildering array of claims about social change and its implications. But what do we mean by ‘social change’? How do… Read More ›
The Reflexive Researcher: The Pain and Gains of Reflexivity
By Meenakshi Sarkar Recently, the British Sociological Association organised a postgraduate and early career researcher regional event – Public sociology and the role of the researcher: Engagement, communication and academic activism on 29th March 2017, at the DeMontfort University, Leicester. The… Read More ›
How can the social sciences keep up with socio-technical change?
At a recent symposium I saw Ben Williamson give an excellent lecture about the rapidly developing field of educational data science and how it is reshaping educational practice. Some of the material is summarised here for those interested. It was a really… Read More ›
Call for Papers: The Journal of Repressive Social Theory
In recent years, calls for a reconsideration of critique, its place and value, have multiplied. The proposition that critique has run out of steam took on a new urgency with the vote for Brexit and the election of Donald Trump…. Read More ›
A Nobel Peace Prize for Sublimation
I originally wrote the following in October 2012, just after the European Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to the European Union makes the most sense when you consider the front-runners, which included Julian… Read More ›
After Positivism
In this talk where he discusses previous presentations, Professor Daniel Little talks about what should come after positivism for social sciences. He argues that social sciences have suffered heavily from the twin pillars of positivism and naturalism. The question that… Read More ›
The Impact of Social Theory
The Sociological Review has just published a thought-provoking review of Doug Porpora’s Reconstructing Sociology: The Critical Realist Approach. It gives a lucid, though brief, overview of the book’s core arguments: seven myths which afflict American sociology and seven philosophical counter-points. But… Read More ›
Margaret Archer and Bernard Lahire as post-Bourdieusian social theorists
In an interesting chapter Frederic Vandenberghe explores the role of the individual in Bourdieu’s Sociology, as well as the critiques which Margaret Archer and Bernard Lahire make of it. His intention is to respond to a sociology he sees as hegemonic by… Read More ›
A Bleak Social Theory For Bleak Times
Given the number of times I’ve argued with him on Twitter, it was a surprise to discover quite how much I like Steve Hall’s work. There’s an unapologetic bleakness to it which I find appealing, not as a matter of aesthetics but rather… Read More ›
Steve Fuller’s Guide for Teaching Social Theory
January seems to bring out the social theorist in me. My last direct contribution to this topic was around this time last year, when a conversation with a graduate student at Warwick inspired me to propose a guide to reading… Read More ›
On Teaching Theory
This short exchange with Michael Burawoy offers some thought-provoking reflections on teaching social theory. He identifies the major traditions of teaching theory within American sociology, before outlining his own ethnographic approach: The Survey: surveying extracts from a comprehensive range of social theorists, each… Read More ›
Living with theoretical pluralism
How do we live with theoretical pluralism? It’s too often a matter of ‘peace treaties’, avoiding fights by moving disagreements off-stage. But if we do this then are we really occupying the same argumentative space? I don’t think we are… Read More ›
Sociological Catalysts and Operationalising Theory in Practice
by Yusef Bakkali Life as an academic can be a lonely and alienating calling at the best of times; lots of time spent inside one’s own head reflecting on a world playing out someplace beyond the indiscernible turrets and bulwarks… Read More ›
Critical realism and social science: a series of webinars
The Critical Realism Network project has been running webinars on critical realism and social science for the last year. These are all available on their YouTube channel and they cover a lot of ground. Here’s one of the most recent:
Call for Abstracts: Youth, Place and Theories of Belonging
BSA Sociological Futures Proposal Youth, Place and Theories of Belonging Edited by: Garth Stahl, PhD Sadia Habib, PhD Mike Ward, PhD This proposed edited collection draws on interdisciplinary perspectives of space and place in order to investigate young… Read More ›
The Shifting Sources of Hostility to the Accelerated Academy
The hostility to speed in the ‘accelerated academy’ predates the current fashion to complain about it and blame it on neo-liberalism. I was already reviewing a book by the Dutch sociologist and public intellectual, Dick Pels, on ‘fast science’ for… Read More ›