The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass: Studies in the Production of Knowledge - Paperback

by Didier Fassin (Editor)

In recent years, social scientists have turned their critical lens on the historical roots and contours of their disciplines, including their politics and practices, epistemologies and methods, institutionalization and professionalization, national development and colonial expansion, globalization and local contestations, and public presence and role in society. The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass offers current social scientific perspectives on this reflexive moment. Examining sociology, anthropology, philosophy, political science, legal theory, and religious studies, the volume's contributors outline the present transformations of the social sciences, explore their connections with critical humanities, analyze the challenges of alternate paradigms, and interrogate recent endeavors to move beyond the human. Throughout, the authors, who belong to half a dozen disciplines, trace how the social sciences are thoroughly entangled in the social facts they analyze and are key to helping us understand the conditions of our world.

Contributors. Chitralekha, Jean-Louis Fabiani, Didier Fassin, Johan Heilbron, Miriam Kingsberg Kadia, Kristoffer Kropp, Nicolas Langlitz, John Lardas Modern, ﾁlvaro Morcillo Laiz, Am? P駻ez, Carel Smith, George Steinmetz, Peter D. Thomas, Bregje van Eekelen, Agata Zysiak

Author Biography

Didier Fassin is Professor at the Coll鑒e de France in Paris and at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Director of study at the ﾉcole des hautes 騁udes en sciences sociales, he is the author of numerous books, including Life: A Critical User's Manual.

George Steinmetz is Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan. He is the author of various books, including The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire.