Social Thought and Research, Volume 23, Number 1&2 (2000)

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  • Publication
    Dance as Experience: Pragmatism and Classical Ballet
    (Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 2000-04-01) Delinder, Jean Van
    This essay examines the experience of classical ballet and its relationship to everyday life by drawing upon Dewy's emphasis on the importance of integrating the consummatory experience into everyday life, and the necessity of removing any limitations that prevent it from occurring. How can a regimented, formalized dance form such as classical ballet create a consummatory experience for the artist? How can such a structured art form as classical ballet be ephemeral or related to experience? It might be argued that classical ballet's structure is too rule bound, thus limiting the possibility of experience, vis a vis, modern, exploratory dance. The regimen of classical ballet by its very nature is criticized for limiting the freedom of expression that contributes to a consummatory experience. My analysis will focus on the assertion that classical ballet does not limit experience for the artist. Classical ballet is based on logical patterns and once these patterns become recognizable they express experience. By understanding the individual movements that comprise the patterns we achieve consummatory experience. Traditional or "classic" arts can provide a road map to consummatory experience.
  • Publication
    How to Make Out in Graduate School: One Observer's View
    (Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 2000-04-01) Lofland, John
    The establishment of new graduate sociology programs and the rapid expansion of such programs in general have created a deficit of peer socialization as to the latent, unwritten "requirements" of successfully attaining the Ph.D. The present paper seeks partially to correct this deficit through explicating a number of existing but unwritten requirements ofsuccess in graduate sociology. The explication focuses upon six informal aspects of the graduate experience that affect student success and it makes recommendations on how to manage each aspect: 1) being conscious that one should earty decide his personal "data style" and substantive interests; 2) performing early a sizing up of the faculty in terms of their congruence with one and in terms of their national repute, as well as developing relations with congruent facul!}; 3) knowing the factors professors employ in sizing up students; 4) realiiing that accomplished papers are the key to graduate success, and knowing how to manage one's papers; 5) recognizing the relative unimportance of formal examinations; and 6) knowing how to chose and manage one's doctoral thesis topic and committee.
  • Publication
    Tests of Concepts in Herbert Blumer's Method
    (Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 2000-04-01) Weller, Jack
    Herbert Blumer left tlnclear the bearing of his method on substantive arguments thathemade about socialunrest, socialproblems, public opinion, race relations, andmass society. These argllments cOllldscarcelY have been grounded upon that weI/-known fundamental of his method, direct observation of ongoing social interaction. Th~ are, boneoer, consistent with another centralprinciple discussed in Blumer's essay on method empirical tests of concepts. Several of hisarticles onsubstantive concepts suggest thekindsof results that may bepursued with concept testing.
  • Publication
    The World of Youthful Drug Use
    (Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 2000-04-01) Blumer, Herbert; Sutter, Alan; Smith, Roger; Ahmed, Samir
    This report presents the results of our efforts to establish a program designed to induce youthful drug users to abstain from further use of drugs. This program was conducted under Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Grants #65029 and #66022, and ran for a period of eighteen months.
  • Publication
    Dewey and the Project of Critical Social Theory
    (Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 2000-04-01) Kent, Robert J.
  • Publication
    Science in Social Practice
    (Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 2000-04-01) Mead, George Herbert
    This paper represents the text for the Annual Phi Beta Kappa address given at the University of Kansas on Friday evening, March 3, 1911, under the announced title of "Science in Social Practice."
  • Publication
    Alvin W. Gouldner and the Tragic Vision in Sociology
    (Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 2000-04-01) Chriss, James J.
    Alvin Gouldner's life and work is considered within the framework of his own attempt to fashion a reflexive sociology during the second half of his career. In the first half, Gouldner was a functionalist and dutifully contributed insights and theoretical innovations to the paradigm, even while remaining critical of Talcott Parsons' own version of structura/functionalism. Later; by 1962, Gouldner broke from the dominant tradition to become an outspoken critique ofestablishment sociology, in the process becoming more sympathetic to competing theories, especially Marxism. Eventualty, Marxism, too, was found to be inadequate because ofits lack of reflexivity, and Gouldner became further alienated from both traditions of sociology. Concomitantly, Gouldner was battling on personal and professional fronts in his role of social critic. He became increasingly hostile toward others for their willing compliance with prevailing cultural prescriptions, which he believed were robbing human beings of their agency, vitality, and will to power. Lacking authentic knowledge ofoneself, one could not hope to create social theories which benefited society and contributed to the liberation of the human spirit. Gouldner was a tragic hero, for although he came to an understanding of the limitations of human strivings in creating sociallY beneficial social theory, and fought valiantly to establish a program to fill this lacuna, he ultimately failed to deliver upon the promise of these insights because of his own hubris (on the personal front) and the internal paradoxes of reflexive sociology (on the professional front).
  • Publication
    Rereading Harry Braverman's Labor and Monopoly Capital After Twenty years
    (Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 2000-04-01) Staples, Clifford L.; Staples, William G.
  • Publication
    Social Thought and Research, Volume 23, Number 1&2 (2000): Front Matter
    (Department of Sociology, University of Kansas, 2000-04-01)