From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sat Jun 1 08:28:23 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: Lynne Sittig Subject: Re: Job Opportunity To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Date: Sat, 1 Jun 1996 11:26:06 -0400 (EDT) I was asked to pass this along to anyone who might be interested. I believe it was just submitted for the ASA Employment Bulletin. Lynne Sittig > FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY. The Department of Sociology anticipates two > tenure-track assistant professor positions, effective August 1997. Areas of > specialization open, but preference will be given to candidates with > interests in advanced quantitative methods and/or health and health policy. > Successful candidates must demonstrate significant accomplishments in > research and teaching as well as potential for seeking and obtaining > external research support. Ph.D. in Sociology or closely related discipline > required. Applications must be received by September 6, 1996 and should > include: letter spelling out research agenda and teaching interests; > curriculum vitae, names, addresses, and phone numbers of four professional > references. Address to: Isaac W. Eberstein, Chair, Department of > Sociology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306-2011. Florida > State University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sat Jun 1 17:50:06 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Sat, 1 Jun 1996 20:46:46 -0400 (EDT) From: thomas conroy Subject: capitalism, academia and the PhD job market To: SOCGRAD@UCSD.EDU I've just come across an interesting article written by Cary Nelson, a cultural studies scholar, called "Lessons from the job wars: Late capitalism arrives on campus." It's similar, in a lot of ways, to TR Young's recent post, on the "golden age" of sociology. Nelson's piece is from Social Text 44, Vol. 13, No. 3, Fall/Winter 1995 Nelson's argument, like Young's, is, essentially, that higher education - and in particular, the humanities and social sciences - is subject to a complex of economic, social, and political forces. Nelson is not optimistic that "the brutal job market in academia" - subject as it is to a transformation of the American economy - will get better anytime soon. Indeed, he paints a completely gloomy scenario; he writes Over the next decade we are likely to see a gradual increase in the percentage of part-time and fixed-term college teachers, a decrease in the percentage of tenured and tenure track employees, increased teaching loads, and a notable drop in salaries for beginning faculty in some markets. With many college teachers looking more and more like migrant factory labor - lacking health benefits, job security, retirement funds, and any influence over either their employment conditions or the goals of the institutions they work for - the ideology of professionalism seems increasingly ludicrous. While Nelson sees the overproduction of Ph.D.s as partly to blame, he also looks at cultural, economic and political factors and the conservative climate of the past 15 - 20 years, - including the attacks on public education, the cultural right's attacks on "tenured radicals," Thatcherism, racism, attacks on labor, and a lost public mandate for the liberal arts, among other things. Thus, a combination of diminished public support and an overproduction of Ph.D.s help to explain what's going on. Nelson suggests, for those of us soon to enter to job market (and he is sincerely sympathetic toward our plight), the need to get published; (specifically, he says "you need a book to get a job" but this may be a bit discipline, or institution-specific; I take his advice to be a bit more general, and figure publishing can take the form of articles in addition to/instead of a book) however, he also points to the constraints - such as being hired as a low wage lecturer - which make publishing difficult. Ultimately, he is suggesting that we need more leadership and advocacy - by senior faculty, and professional organizations (as an English professor, he singles out the MLA, but one could probably point to the ASA, and other such professional organizations, and call for the same sorts of things; what's needed is a bit more equity and fairness, given the structurally diminished opportunities faced by current apprentice scholars and the potential - which Nelson documents - for overly exploited teaching labor and abusive hiring practices (he cites an instance in which a candidate from his institution was sent a dinner bill, after she had gone to dinner with a Dean during a job search; the Dean wanted her to foot the bill for herself and for him) . Well, there's a bit more in this article, but these are some of the main points. However, let me end with one more quote Thus, real change, if it is to come, may also require mass action from below. Given the low priority most tenured faculty give to addressing our economic problems or confronting graduate student exploitation, it would be a mistake to rely on them. It is one thing to educate tenured faculty and put pressure on them, quite another to depend on them for either solutions or action. Thus I believe it is imperative for the unemployed to rise up and either transform the existing structures of professional disciplanary organizations or pull them down. Building strong organizations for job seekers and planning street theater and perhaps civil disobediance at annual meetings might be places to start. Even if the more disruptive of these actions are not taken - since few people on the market, understandibly enough, wish to risk their chance for a job by disrupting an annual convention - there is real educational value in debating the advisability of these sorts of direct actions. The threat to intervene in talks and cocktail parties could win concessions and help to awaken faculty to conditions they now choose to ignore. (Similarly, serious efforts to unionize graduate students on a campus can win improved working conditions long before the unions themselves are fromally recognized.) In any case, a sympathetic MLA or AHA or APA president might well, for example, be happy to grant time for a brief but effective symbolic intervention at a public event. Such a project might more easily gain faculty support. If we do not begin discussing such options, we will never know what they are. Meanwhile, those who no longer have anything to lose might ask how they can work together to awaken the organizations that have abandoned them. At the very least it is time for job seekers to work together to explore what collective power they may have; choosing whether to exercise it is a separate issue. At present, disciplanary organizations apparently consider job seekers a powerless, temporary, and generally irrelevant constituency. they will either win jobs and acquire different interests or they will give up and disappear. National officers consider it counterproductive to risk alienating permanent members who pay full dues. Moral suasion along apparently will not drive these organizations to do anything to inconvenience or discomfort permanent members. These seem to be the only explanations for the extraordinary and consistent resistance disciplanary organizations display toward even the most modest changes in their practices - such as refusing to permit member departments to require writing samples and dossiers with initial applications. The perceived power relations have to be altered. Job seekers have to become a constituency to be reckoned with, a constituency dangerous to ignore. There is no other option. From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sun Jun 2 00:47:17 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: "Johnston, Michael (G) SOCIO" To: contrib socgrad Subject: test Date: Sun, 02 Jun 96 00:46:00 PDT Encoding: 3 TEXT This is a test From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sun Jun 2 07:28:31 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Sun, 2 Jun 1996 16:26:50 +0200 To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU From: Czerlinski@mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de (Jean Czerlinski) Subject: Sokal hoax Below is a copy of what Sokal wrote about his hoax. I thought I got it from this list, so I was surprised when someone asked about it, but here it is in case you didn't see it and wanted to see it. Jean >>>> >>>>A Physicist Experiments with Cultural Studies >>>>Lingua Franca, May/June 1996, pp. 62-64 >>>>by Alan Sokal, NYU, Physics Department >>>> >>>> The interdisciplinary university is not always a peaceful place. >>>>In recent years, scientists and humanists have cooperated in new ways-and >>>>quarreled in new ways as well. On many campuses, practitioners of "science >>>>studies" take a close look at what scientists do in the laboratory and >>>>theorize boldly about the social construction of scientific knowledge. >>>>Some scientists welcome the attention. Others worry that this sort of >>>>scholarship, when taken too far, threatens the legitimacy and validity of >>>>what they do. >>>>Underlying much of this discussion are some nettlesome questions: How much >>>>knowledge of science does a critic of science need to have? And what >>>>happens to intellectual standards when the notion of objectivity is put >>>>into doubt? These questions are often discussed in highly abstract terms. >>>>But not always. In the essay printed below, professor Alan Sokal of NYU >>>>discusses his unusual attempt to play with-some might say transgress-the >>>>conventions of academic discourse. Lingua Franca invites readers to >>>>respond to Sokal's article. > >>>>"The displacement of the idea that facts and evidence matter by the idea >>>>that everything boils down to subjective interests and perspectives >>>>is-second only to American political campaigns-the most prominent and >>>>pernicious manifestation of anti-intellectualism in our time." Larry >>>>Laudan, Science and Relativism (1990) >>>> >>>>FOR SOME YEARS I'VE BEEN troubled by an apparent decline in the standards >>>>of rigor in certain precincts of the academic humanities. But I'm a mere >>>>physicist: If I find myself unable to make heads or tails of jouissance and >>>>diffirance, perhaps that just reflects my own inadequacy. >>>>So, to test the prevailing intellectual standards, I decided to try a >>>>modest (though admittedly uncontrolled) experiment: Would a leading North >>>>American journal of cultural studies-whose editorial collective includes >>>>such luminaries as Fredric Jameson and Andrew Ross-publish an article >>>>liberally salted with nonsense if (a) it sounded good and (b) it flattered >>>>the editors' ideological preconceptions? >>>>The answer, unfortunately, is yes. Interested readers can find my article, >>>>"Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of >>>>Quantum Gravity," in the Spring/Summer 1996 issue of Social Text. It >>>>appears in a special number of the magazine devoted to the "Science Wars." >>>>What's going on here? Could the editors really not have realized that my >>>>article was written as a parody? >>>>In the first paragraph I deride "the dogma imposed by the long >>>>postEnlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook":that >>>>there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any >>>>individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole- that these >>>>properties are encoded in "eternal" physical laws; and that human beings >>>>can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of these >>>>laws by hewing to the "objective" procedures and epistemological strictures >>>>prescribed by the (so-called) scientific method is it now dogma in cultural >>>>studies that there exists no external world? Or that there exists an >>>>external world but science obtains no knowledge of it? >>>>In the second paragraph I declare, 'Without the slightest evidence or >>>>argument, that "physical 'reality' [note the scare quotes] ... is at bottom >>>>a social and linguistic construct." Not our theories of of physical >>>>reality, mind you, but the reality itself. Fair enough: Anyone who >>>>believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to >>>>try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I >>>>live on the twenty-first floor.) >>>>Throughout the article, I employ scientific and mathematical concepts in >>>>ways that few scientists or mathematicians could possibly take seriously. >>>>For example, I suggest that the "morphogenetic field bizarre New Age idea >>>>proposed by Rupert Sheldrake-constitutcs a cutting-edge theory of quantum >>>>gravity. This connection is pure invention; even Sheldrake makes no such >>>>claim. I assert that Lacan's psychoanalytic speculations have been >>>>confirmed by recent work in quantum field theory. Even nonscientist >>>>readers might well wonder what in heaven's name quantum field theory has to >>>>do with psychoanalysis; certainly my article gives no reasoned argument to >>>>support such a link. >>>>Later in the article I propose that the axiom of equality in mathematical >>>>set theory is somehow analogous to the homonymous concept in feminist >>>>politics. In reality, all the axiom of equality states is that two sets >>>>are identical if and only if they have the same elements. Even readers >>>>without mathematical training might well be suspicious of the claim that >>>>the axiom of equality reflects set theory's "nineteenth-century >>>>liberal origins." >>>>In sum, I intentionally wrote the article so that any competent physicist >>>>or mathematician (or undergraduate physics or math major) would realize >>>>that it is a spoof. Evidently, the editors of Social Text felt comfortable >>>>publishing an article on quantum physics without bothering to consult >>>>anyone knowledgeable in the subject. >>>>The fundamental silliness of my article lies, however, not in its numerous >>>>solecisms but in the dubiousness of its central thesis and of the >>>>"reasoning" adduced to support it. Basically, I claim that quantum >>>>gravity-the still-speculative theory of space and time on scales of a >>>>millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter has >>>>profound political implications (which, of course, are "progressive"). In >>>>support of this improbable proposition, I proceed as follows: First, I >>>>quote some controversial philosophical pronouncements of Heisenberg and >>>>Bohr, and assert (without argument) that quantum physics is profoundly >>>>consonant with "postmodernist epistemology." Next, I assemble a >>>>pastiche-Derrida and general relativity, Lacan and topology, Irigaray and >>>>quantum gravity-held together by vague references to "nonlinearity," >>>>"flux," and "interconnectedncss." Finally, I jump (again without argument) >>>>to the assertion that "postmodcrn science" has abolished the concept of >>>>objective reality. Nowhere in all of this is there anything resembling a >>>>logical sequence of thought; one finds only citations of authority, plays >>>>on words, strained analogies, and bald assertions. >>>>In its concluding passages, my article becomes especially egregious. >>>>Having abolished reality as a constraint on science, I go on to suggest >>>>(once again without argument) that science, in order to be "liberatory," >>>>must be subordinated to political strategies. I finish the article by >>>>observing that "a liberatory science cannot be complete without a profound >>>>revision of the canon of mathematics." We can see hints of an "emancipatory >>>>mathematics," I suggest, "in the multidimensional and nonlinear logic of >>>>fuzzy systems theory; but this approach is still heavily marked by its >>>>origins in the crisis of late-capitalist production relations." I add that >>>>"catastrophe theory, with its dialectical emphasis on >>>>smoothness/discontinuity and metamorphosis/unfolding, all >>>>indubitably play a major role in the future mathematics; but much >>>>theoretica work remains to bc done before this approach can become a >>>>concrete tool of progressive political praxis." >>>>It's understandable that the editors of Social Text were unable to evaluate >>>>critically the technical aspects of my article (which is exactly why they >>>>should have consulted a scientist). What's more surprising is how readily >>>>they accepted my implication that the search for truth in science must be >>>>subordinated to a political agenda, and how oblivious they were to the >>>>article's overall illogic. >>>> >>>>WHY DID I DO IT? >>>> >>>>While my method was satirical, my motivation is utterly serious. What >>>>concerns me is the proliferation, not just of nonsense and sloppy thinking >>>>per se, but of a particular kind of nonsense and sloppy thinking: one that >>>>denies the existence of objective realities, or (when challenged) admits >>>>their existence but downplays their practical relevance. At its best, a >>>>journal like Social Text raises important issues that no scientist should >>>>ignore - questions, for example, about how corporate and government funding >>>>influence scientific work. Unfortunately, epistemic relativism does little >>>>to further the discussion of these matters. >>>>In short, my concern about the spread of subjectivist thinking is both >>>>intellectual and political. Intellectually, the problem with such >>>>doctrines is that they are false (when not simply meaningless). There is a >>>>real world; its properties are not merely social constructions; facts and >>>>evidence do matter. What sane person would contend otherwise? And yet, >>>>much contemporary academic theorizing consists precisely of attempts to >>>>blur these obvious truths. >>>>Social Text's acceptance of my article exemplifies the intellectual >>>>arrogance of Theory-postmodernist literary theory, that is-carried to its >>>>logical extreme. No wonder they didn't bother to consult a physicist. If >>>>all is discourse and "text," >>>>then knowledge of the real world is superfluous; even physics becomes just >>>>another branch of cultural studies. if, moreover, all is rhetoric and >>>>language games, then internal logical consistency is superfluous too: a >>>>patina of theoretical sophistication serves equally well. >>>>Incomprehensibility becomes a virtue; allusions, metaphors, and puns >>>>substitute for evidence and logic. My own article is, if anything, an >>>>extremely modest example of this well-established genre. >>>>Politically, I'm angered because most (though not all) of this silliness is >>>>emanating from the self-proclaimed Left. We're witnessing here a profound >>>>historical volte-face. For most of the past two centuries, the Left has >>>>been identified with science and against obscurantism-, we have believed >>>>that rational thought and the fearless analysis of objective reality (both >>>>natural and social) are incisive tools for combating the mystifications >>>>promoted by the powerful not to mention being desirable human ends in their >>>>own right. The recent turn of many "progressive" or "leftist" academic >>>>humanists and social scientists toward one or another form of epistemic >>>>relativism betrays this worthy heritage and undermines the already fragile >>>>prospects for progressive social critique. Theorizing about "the social >>>>construction of reality" won't help us find an effective treatment for AIDS >>>>or devise strategies for preventing global warming. Nor can we combat >>>>false ideas in history, sociology, economics, and politics if we reject the >>>>notions of truth and falsity. >>>>The results of my little experiment demonstrate, at the very least, that >>>>some fashionable sectors of the American academic Left have been getting >>>>intellectually lazy. The editors of Social Text liked my article because >>>>they liked its conclusion: that "the content and methodology of postmodern >>>>science provide powerful intellectual support for the progressive political >>>>project." They apparently felt no need to analyze the quality of the >>>>evidence, the cogency of the arguments, or even the relevance of the >>>>arguments to the purported conclusion. >>>> >>>> OF course, I'm not oblivious to the ethical issues involved in my >>>>rather unorthodox experiment. Professional communities operate largely on >>>>trust; deception undercuts that trust. But it is important to understand >>>>exactly what I did. My article is a theoretical essay based entirely on >>>>publicly available sources, all of which I have meticulously footnoted. >>>>All works cited are real, and all quotations are rigorously accurate; none >>>>are invented. Now, it's true that the author doesn't believe his own >>>>argument. But why should that matter? The editors' duty as scholars is to >>>>judge the validity and interest of ideas, without regard for their >>>>provenance. (That is why many scholarly journals practice blind >>>>refereeing.) If the Social Text editors find my arguments convincing, then >>>>why should they be disconcerted simply because I don't? Or are they more >>>>deferent to the so-called "cultural authority of technoscience" than they >>>>would care to admit? >>>>In the end, I resorted to parody for a simple pragmatic reason. The >>>>targets of my critique have by now become a selfperpetuating academic >>>>subculture that typically ignores (or disdains) reasoned criticism from the >>>>outside. In such a situation, a more direct demonstration of the >>>>subculture's intellectual standards was required. But how can one show >>>>that the emperor has no clothes? Satire is by far the best weapon; and the >>>>blow that can't be brushed off is the one that's self-inflicted. I offered >>>>the Social Text editors an opportunity to demonstrate their intellectual >>>>rigor. Did they meet the test? I don't think so. >>>>I say this not in glee but in sadness. After all, I'm a leftist too (under >>>>the Sandinista government I taught mathematics at the National University >>>>of Nicaragua). On nearly all practical political issues-including many >>>>concerning science and technology-I'm on the same side as the Social Text >>>>editors. But I'm a leftist (and a feminist) because of evidence and logic, >>>>not in spite of it. VVby should the right "wing be allowed to monopolize >>>>the intellectual high ground? >>>>And why should self-indulgent nonsense-whatever its professed political >>>>orientation-be lauded as the height of scholarly achievement? >>>> >>>>Alan Sokal is a professor of physics at New York University. He is >>>>coauthor with Roberto Fernandez and Jiirg Fr6hlich of Random Walks, >>>>Critical Phenomena, and Triviality in Quantum Field Theory (Springer, >>>>1992). >>>> >>>>FROM "TRANSGRESSING THE BOUNDARIES": >>>> >>>>Thus, general relativity forces upon us radically new and counterintuitive >>>>notions of space, time, and causality; so it is not surprising that it has >>>>had a profound impact not only on the natural sciences but also on >>>>philosophy literary criticism, and the human sciences. For example, in a >>>>celebrated symposium three decades ago on Les Langages Critiques et les >>>>Sciences de I'Homme, Jean Hyppolite raised an incisive question about >>>>Jacques Derrida's theory of structure and sign in scientific discourse >>>>Derrida's perceptive reply went to the heart of classical general >>>>relativity: >>>> >>>>The Einsteinian constant is not a constant is not a center. It is the very >>>>concept of variability-it is, finally the concept of the game, In other >>>>words, it is not the concept of something-of a center starting from which >>>>an observer could master the field-but the very concept of the game. >>>> >>>>In mathematical terms, Derrida's observation relates to the invariance of >>>>the Einstein field equation G,,=8icGT,,, under nonlinear space-time >>>>diffeomorphisms (self-mappings of the space-time manifold which are >>>>infinitely differentiable but not necessarily analytic). The key point is >>>>that this invariance group "acts transitively": this means that any >>>>space-time point, if it exists at all, can be transformed into any other. >>>>In this way the infinite-dimensional invariance group erodes the >>>>distinction between observer and observed; the it of Euclid and the G of >>>>Newton, formerly thought to be constant and universal, are now perceived in >>>>their ineluctable historicity; and the putative observer becomes fatally >>>>de-centered, disconnected from any epistemic link to a space-time point >>>>that can no longer be defined by geometry alone. > From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sun Jun 2 09:30:04 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: "Johnston, Michael (G) SOCIO" To: karageor@ucla.edu, contrib socgrad Subject: Re: capitalism, academia and the PhD job Date: Sun, 02 Jun 96 09:31:00 PDT Encoding: 241 TEXT Soc-graders, I forwarded the message about Capitalism, adademia and the PHD job market to the students in my department. Here is a response. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ //Michael, feel free to forward these to the list from which the original came// > > Over the next decade we are likely to see a gradual increase in the > percentage of part-time and fixed-term college teachers, a decrease > in the percentage of tenured and tenure track employees, increased > teaching loads, and a notable drop in salaries for beginning faculty > in some markets. With many college teachers looking more and more like > migrant factory labor - lacking health benefits, job security, > retirement funds, and any influence over either their employment > conditions or the goals of the institutions they work for - the > ideology of professionalism seems increasingly ludicrous. //For those 'not on the bus' so to speak, but entirely serious for those 'on the bus'. As usual this has become a situation akin to fighting over life-boats on the Titanic// >While Nelson sees the overproduction of Ph.D.s as partly to blame, he //The term 'over-production' accepts the very same market-commodity logic that is in fact causing the 'problem'. 'Over-production' like 'over-population' depend entirely on the regime of production and consumption.// >also looks at cultural, economic and political factors and the >conservative climate of the past 15 - 20 years, - including >the attacks on public education, the cultural right's attacks on "tenured >radicals," Thatcherism, racism, attacks on labor, and a lost public >mandate for the liberal arts, among other things. Thus, a combination of >diminished public support and an overproduction of Ph.D.s help to explain >what's going on. //To wit, it is the commodification and spectacularization of academia. This is all a struggle over the 'use-value' of instructors which is tautologically a pre-requisite for their 'exchange-value'. The solution to this problem from OUR point of view is not to limit the supply of instructors automatically (via the 'market') but consciously and at our own discretion. This is a CLASSIC social dilemma, wherein the dominant strategy of all self-interested individual actors results in a collectively AND individually sub-optimal outcome.// >Nelson suggests, for those of us soon to enter to job market (and he is >sincerely sympathetic toward our plight), the need to get published; >(specifically, he says "you need a book to get a job" but this may >be a bit discipline, or institution-specific; I take his advice to >be a bit more general, and figure publishing can take the form of >articles in addition to/instead of a book) however, he also points to >the constraints - such as being hired as a low wage lecturer - which >make publishing difficult. //These individualistic solutions will only exacerbate the problem. This is like telling grazers in a commons which is rapidly being depleted that they should each become more efficient grazers. In this way we would all merrily and rationally march towards self-destruction. The only solution is to DE-commodify our labor. This can only be done collectively, or it will not be done at all.// Ultimately, he is suggesting that we need >more leadership and advocacy - by senior faculty, >and professional organizations (as an English professor, he singles out >the MLA, but one could probably point to the ASA, and other such >professional organizations, and call for the same sorts of things; what's >needed is a bit more equity and fairness, given the structurally diminished >opportunities faced by current apprentice scholars and the potential - >which Nelson documents - for overly exploited teaching labor and abusive >hiring practices (he cites an instance in which a candidate from his >institution was sent a dinner bill, after she had gone to dinner with a >Dean during a job search; the Dean wanted her to foot the bill for >herself and for him) . //This has nothing to do with 'a bit more equity and fairness' So long as the payoffs remain the same, the result will be predictably the same. It is NOT as easy as Nelson appears to put it.// >Well, there's a bit more in this article, but these are some of the main >points. However, let me end with one more quote > > Thus, real change, if it is to come, may also require mass action from > below. //MAY require? Who is Nelson kidding, other than him/herself? Who else has any incentive (material, moral, whatever) to do it FOR us? Nobody. We do not currenlty have these incentives to do it for ourselves. Come on, it's not like we don't study these problems when they confront others. Maybe Nelson, being an English professor is unfamiliar with these processes, but we social scientists are, for sure.// Given the low priority most tenured faculty give to addressing //Nelson makes it sound like this is some kind of irrational behavior on their part. On the contrary, it is ENTIRELY rational for them to do exaclty as they're doing.// > our economic problems or confronting graduate student exploitation, it > would be a mistake to rely on them. It is one thing to educate tenured > faculty and put pressure on them, quite another to depend on them for > either solutions or action. //NO SHIT! This is life on a plateau surrounded by cliffs!// Thus I believe it is imperative for the > unemployed to rise up and either transform the existing structures of > professional disciplanary organizations or pull them down. //Gee, that's novel! Where is the theory of how that 'imperative need' will be fulfilled? Who are the agents, which are their resources, and so on and so forth. This is pathetic. This is like Utopian Socialism microwaved for the 1990's// Building > strong organizations for job seekers and planning street theater and > perhaps civil disobediance at annual meetings might be places to start. //This is circular thinking. It reminds me of my students answering the question of who could be the revolutionary agents in today's society by saying it will be those who will have a revolutionary consciousness. Well, DUH! That was really helpful . . . NOT! HOW are those strong organizations for job seekers going to be built? By whom and WHY?// > Even if the more disruptive of these actions are not taken - since > few people on the market, understandibly enough, wish to risk their > chance for a job by disrupting an annual convention - there is real > educational value in debating the advisability of these sorts of > direct actions. //What Nelson gives with one hand, Nelson takes away with the other. Nelson defeats his/her own argument here. The incentives are all WRONG for these collective actions to be undertaken. If they are not going to be undertaken, 'debating' their advisability will do didley-squat. The point is to debate their advisability so that they CAN and ARE undertaken.// The threat to intervene in talks and cocktail parties > could win concessions and help to awaken faculty to conditions they > now choose to ignore. //What balloney! They 'choose' to ignore them, because they are not force to recognize them, and interventions or worse the threat of interventions will certainly not FORCE them to recognize them.// (Similarly, serious efforts to unionize graduate > students on a campus can win improved working conditions long before > the unions themselves are fromally recognized.) //What kind of crap is this? Can 'win'? In what way? No union, no collective contract, thus nothing is 'WON'. This is like saying that an internally cohesive and self-governing community does not need a state. Well DUH, it already IS a state. If we could WIN contractually the things that a union could win, then we would be effectively be organized LIKE a UNION already, and have the POWER of a UNION already.// In any case, a > sympathetic MLA or AHA or APA president might well, for example, be > happy to grant time for a brief but effective symbolic intervention > at a public event. Such a project might more easily gain faculty > support. If we do not begin discussing such options, we will never > know what they are. Meanwhile, those who no longer have anything to lose > might ask how they can work together to awaken the organizations > that have abandoned them. //They have 'nothing to lose'? Is Nelson on DRUGS? Most of the Western proletariat did not agree with Marx (who had a THEORY) that they did NOT in fact have nothing to lose but their chains, and Ph.D's will? YEAH RIGHT! Nomad-teaching may suck, but it sure as hell beats homelessness, incarceration, part-time (hard-time) or seasonal work, etc. etc.// > At the very least it is time for job seekers to work together to > explore what collective power they may have; choosing whether to > exercise it is a separate issue. //Why the constant timid equivocation? What's up with that? What's the point of exploring the collective power that we may have, if it is not for figuring out how to most effectively EXERCIZE that power? This sounds like Young-hegelianism all over again. If we THINK we have power, that is enough!// At present, disciplanary organizations > apparently consider job seekers a powerless, temporary, and > generally irrelevant constituency. //This is because WE ARE!// They will either win jobs and > acquire different interests or they will give up and disappear. //PRECISELY!// National > officers consider it counterproductive to risk alienating permanent > members who pay full dues. Moral suasion along apparently will not > drive these organizations to do anything to inconvenience or discomfort > permanent members. These seem to be the only explanations for the > extraordinary and consistent resistance disciplanary organizations > display toward even the most modest changes in their practices - such > as refusing to permit member departments to require writing samples > and dossiers with initial applications. The perceived power relations > have to be altered. //I love the 'perceived' part! How spectaclist and post-modern. How praytell is that 'perception' going to be changed with OTHER than actual change in the power relations? By brain-washing? By miracle tricks? By talking about them? Geez!// Job seekers have to become a constituency to > be reckoned with, a constituency dangerous to ignore. There is no > other option. //Again, WHERE IS THE THEORY OF THIS CONSTITUENCY FORMATION? The dinosaurs had no other option but to adapt to a changing environment. SO THE HELL WHAT? The need for something does NOT automatically produce that which fulfills it. This is like telling a person who wants to do a triathlon that they have no option but to develop their aerobic capacity, without telling them how to do it, and having told them before how their other commitments mitigate against them doing it to begin with. Some analysis . . .// Stavros N. Karageorgis C.Phil. UCLA - Sociology From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sun Jun 2 09:55:09 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: "Johnston, Michael (G) SOCIO" To: contrib socgrad , "McKeever, Matt (G) c/o Dudley" , "Karageorgis,Stavros(G) c/o BOL" , "Garot, Robert (G) SOCIO" , "Campbell, Chris (G) c/o HUP" Subject: 18-1 Job Ratio for New PhD's Date: Sun, 02 Jun 96 09:56:00 PDT Encoding: 29 TEXT Soc-graders, At a recent meeting of graduate students and faculty at UCLA, a senior student mentioned some of his experiences with the job market this year. I am drawing out the implications of his experience for non-crinologists and would like to see if this analysis resonates with the experience and/or knowledge of others. This student mentioned that he received a letter from one of the places he applied which said that there were more than 750 applicants. Assuming that this job was not for a criminologist (the student is not) and that most of the applicants were not criminologists, this means that there were very roughly 750 non-crimonologists looking for entry level jobs this year. Tis student also mentioned that there were about 60-80 job openings at the entry level, most of which were criminology. As a very rough estimate, why don't we say there were 40 non-criminologist jobs. This means that there is a ratio of 750 to 40 (about 18 to 1), of non-crimonological jobs to non-crimonologists. In other words, 17 of us 18 non-crimonologists will not get a job as a sociologist. I would like to think that this analyis is way off. Can someone show me the faults? Michael Johnston UCLA From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sun Jun 2 12:24:13 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Sun, 2 Jun 1996 12:23:03 -0700 (PDT) From: Laura Miller To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Subject: job ratio You bet this analysis is way off. It's true that there were far more jobs for criminologists than any other field, but 40 non-crim jobs is a ridiculous number -- I must have applied for 40 soc jobs myself, and of course I only applied to open positions or those areas I could conceivably match. If someone was very industrious, they could count the positions listed in the ASA Employment Bulletin for peak job period -- say from August through January. I'm sure it would be several times more than 40. The number of 750 on the job market is also not a meaningful figure. First of all, it's hard to believe that one position drew that many -- for one open position, my rejection letter said there were about 400 applicants -- which is plenty high as far as I'm concerned, but it's not 750. There may have been other positions that attracted such a number, for none I heard of (in sociology). Secondly, it is highly unlikely that literally everyone on the job market applies for the same positions. Even open positions will not attract all job-seekers, as people avoid applying because they think an open position is too much of a long-shot, they cannot or will not locate to a certian part of the country, etc. I don't know what the correct number of junior people on the job market is -- I think it's important to find out. But you can't figure it out on the basis of who's applying for one position. The sociology job market is much more fragmented than that. Laura Miller lmiller@ucsd.edu From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sun Jun 2 17:00:20 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Sun, 02 Jun 96 19:55:22 EDT From: Alan Davidson Subject: Job projections way off To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU The other sense in which it is way off is whereas there might be more crim. and gender jobs (aside from the regular staple courses senior faculty don't want to be caught teaching, such as methods, stats, and theory), there are also far more folks in those areas. Never mind my main contributions in graduate school have been in the areas of religion, sexuality, and social theory. From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Sun Jun 2 17:01:07 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Sun, 02 Jun 96 19:58:21 EDT From: Alan Davidson Subject: One final point To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Another final point is our department was looking for two positions -- one social psych./family and one open with rank open, and at the time the search was called off for budget reasons, we had about 425 applications. From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Tue Jun 4 00:51:17 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 00:50:24 -0700 To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU From: lichter@ucla.edu (Michael I. Lichter) Subject: exo-sociology The following is an abridged excerpt from the novel _So Long and Thanks for All the Fish_ by Douglas Adams. Ford Prefect is from Betelgeuse, and Arthur Dent is a confused earthling. The flying saucer in which Ford Prefect had stowed away had stunned the world... It had come down with a wonderful disregard for anything beneath it and crushed a large area of some of the most expensive real estate in the world, including much of Harrods... After a long, heart-stopping moment of internal crashes and grumbles of rending machinery, there marched from it, down the ramp, an immense silver robot, a hundred feet tall. It held up a hand. "I come in peace," it said, adding after a moment of further grinding, "take me to your Lizard." Ford Prefect, of course, had an explanation for this... "It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see..." "You mean it comes from a world of lizards?" "No," said Ford, ... "nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people." "Odd," said Arthur, "I thought you said it was a democracy." "I did," said Ford. "It is." "So," said Arthur, hoping he wasn't sounding ridiculously obtuse, "why don't the people get rid of the lizards?" "It honestly doesn't occur to them," said Ford. "They've all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they voted in more or less approximates to the government they want." "You mean they actually *vote* for the lizards?" "Oh yes," said Ford with a shrug, "of course." "But," said Arthur, going for the big one again, "why?" "Because if they didn't vote for a lizard," said Ford, "the wrong lizard might get in..." Ford shrugged again. "Some people say that the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them," he said. "They're completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone's got to say it." -- Michael Lichter UCLA Department of Sociology From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Tue Jun 4 09:04:31 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Tue, 04 Jun 96 11:56:58 EDT From: Christine Ann Overdevest Subject: Sociology, Nature & Bio Sci (fwd) To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Christine Overdevest US Forest Service Southeastern Station Forestry Sciences Lab 320 Green St. Athens GA 30602 706/546-2451 ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Return-Path: Sender: owner-envtecsoc@csf.colorado.edu From: Loren Lutzenhiser To: ENVIRONMENT TECHNOLOGY and SOCIETY I thought that the following, from the Chronicle of Higher Education, might be of interest to E&T Section members. -LL >> A glance at the June 3 issue of "National Review": >> >> Sociologists ignore biology at their peril, writes Frank >> Slater. By defining sociological theories and principles >> without considering biological facts, "the practice of >> sociology today is often as fanciful as the alchemy of the >> Middle Ages." Mr. Slater writes that the recently published >> "Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology" offers the best >> examples of this "essential flaw" of current sociology. The >> book defines "childhood" as "constructed on the inabilities of >> children as political, intellectual, sexual, or economic >> beings," thus serving "the need of capitalist states." Mr. >> Slater writes that only "willful ignorance of the most >> elementary facts of biology" could lead sociologists to ignore >> scientific evidence that transcends cultures on the states of a >> child's development. "Rather than accept biology as a bridge to >> the natural sciences, sociologists spend a large part of their >> time rationalizing their failure to cross it," Mr. Slater >> writes. "As a result, sociology today is like a decaying >> medieval city cut off from the rest of the world." (The >> magazine may be found at your library or newsstand.) >> _______________________________________________________________ >> >> * via the World-Wide Web, at http://chronicle.com From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Tue Jun 4 11:27:41 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 11:22:30 -0700 (PDT) From: Laura Miller To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Subject: list transfer Dear Subscribers, Sometime in the next week, the Socgrad list will be transferred from UCSD to a listserver at the University of Colorado. There should be some benefits to this, e.g., the socgrad archives will be available via gopher and world wide web, a web page may be established, and so on. There is no need for you to do anything, as the subscriber list will be automatically transferred. There may be a brief interruption in messages being posted, but hopefully, no one will notice anything other than that messages are originating from Colorado rather than from California. At that point, messages to the list should be sent to socgrad@csf.colorado.edu But when it happens, we'll send further instructions on posting messages, unsubscribing, etc. Laura Miller lmiller@ucsd.edu From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Tue Jun 4 14:00:43 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 13:59:52 -0700 To: Christine Ann Overdevest , socgrad@UCSD.EDU From: lichter@ucla.edu (Michael I. Lichter) Subject: Re: Sociology, Nature & Bio Sci (fwd) Ah, the "National Review", my favorite science journal :). This criticism of sociology reveals a lot more about the prejudices and ignorance of the author (Frank Slater, not Christine Overdevest) than about sociology's problems. Slater is obviously unfamiliar with the concept that biology has social meaning, and, equally important, what we understand as biological "fact" is constructed in interaction with this meaning (without getting too deeply into epistemology). The dictionary he cites is obviously referring to the social meaning of "childhood", which anthropologists, sociologists, and historians have well documented as varying across time, place, and culture. Slater has no argument, because he misses the point of the dictionary entry, which is not talking about biology per se and does not need to. On the other hand, he does inadvertently point out the continuing failure of sociology to have more than a superficial impact on how people (especially right-wing people) view the world. Usually, when people criticize sociology as ignoring biology, what they mean is that sociology doesn't give space to biological determinism in behavior. We don't credit the "maternal instinct". We don't believe that black people are inherently better basketball players. In an article I read a few years ago, Stephen Jay Gould, a much more knowledgeable source than Mr. Slater appears to be, admonished social scientists (or maybe it was leftists, I don't remember for sure :) that they need to be more cognizant of biological arguments, that "biology is not a right wing plot." I personally think that sociology is about as cognizant of "biological facts" as it needs to be, and that the enterprise of dividing up observed behavior into socio-cultural and biological components is not one we want or need to get mired in. By the way, does anybody know of any findings in human ethology that would be of general sociological use? I saw an interesting "article" on the web (with Quicktime movies!) about flirting behavior, looking at things like body movements and eye contact, which concluded something like "flirting behavior varies a lot within cultures, and varies even more between cultures." I'm sure there's a place for this kind of methodology, but this doesn't seem to tell us anything that sociological study would not. Michael At 11:56 AM 6/4/96, Christine Ann Overdevest wrote: > >> A glance at the June 3 issue of "National Review": > >> > >> Sociologists ignore biology at their peril, writes Frank > >> Slater. By defining sociological theories and principles > >> without considering biological facts, "the practice of > >> sociology today is often as fanciful as the alchemy of the > >> Middle Ages." Mr. Slater writes that the recently published > >> "Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology" offers the best > >> examples of this "essential flaw" of current sociology. The > >> book defines "childhood" as "constructed on the inabilities of > >> children as political, intellectual, sexual, or economic > >> beings," thus serving "the need of capitalist states." Mr. > >> Slater writes that only "willful ignorance of the most > >> elementary facts of biology" could lead sociologists to ignore > >> scientific evidence that transcends cultures on the states of a > >> child's development. "Rather than accept biology as a bridge to > >> the natural sciences, sociologists spend a large part of their > >> time rationalizing their failure to cross it," Mr. Slater > >> writes. "As a result, sociology today is like a decaying > >> medieval city cut off from the rest of the world." (The > >> magazine may be found at your library or newsstand.) > >> _______________________________________________________________ > >> > >> * via the World-Wide Web, at http://chronicle.com -- Michael Lichter UCLA Department of Sociology From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Wed Jun 5 06:53:14 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 09:40:58 -0400 (AST) From: Reinaldo Alarcon To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU =09Subscribe Reinaldo Alarc=F3n From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Wed Jun 5 07:53:07 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 10:50:05 -0400 (EDT) From: blyden b potts To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Subject: sokal hoax I find it very interesting that Sokal, to assert the empirical reality of the laws of physics, invites readers to test them by jumping out his apartment window. The implicit argument here is that an empirical reality exists because/when some condition holds universally for all subjects. Thus the object of (empirical) science would be to find what holds for all subjects under some set of general conditions -- which, incidentally, is empirically unprovable absent assumptions which allow the researcher to generalize from some subset since we cannot measure all subjects at all sets of conditions -- and, failing that to isolate the conditions under which, and the extent or probability to which, some "law" holds. Despite his argument for empirical reality, it seems Sokal can only support its existence on the grounds that subjective (ie. social) experience is universally shared with respect to some empirical property. Blyden Potts From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Wed Jun 5 09:57:28 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU From: ewelton@cogsci.ucsd.edu (Eric C. Welton) Subject: Re: sokal hoax To: kaptbly@umich.edu (blyden b potts) Date: Wed, 5 Jun 96 9:55:41 PDT In-Reply-To: ; from "blyden b potts" at Jun 5, 96 10:50 am > > > I find it very interesting that Sokal, to assert the empirical reality > of the laws of physics, invites readers to test them by jumping out his > apartment window. The implicit argument here is that an empirical > reality exists because/when some condition holds universally for all > subjects. Thus the object of (empirical) science would be to find what > holds for all subjects under some set of general conditions -- which, > incidentally, is empirically unprovable absent assumptions which allow > the researcher to generalize from some subset since we cannot measure all > subjects at all sets of conditions -- and, failing that to isolate the > conditions under which, and the extent or probability to which, some > "law" holds. Despite his argument for empirical reality, it seems Sokal > can only support its existence on the grounds that subjective (ie. social) > experience is universally shared with respect to some empirical property. > > Blyden Potts > Really, don't you think you illustrate his point rather well. Your assertions are as unfounded as his --- you cannot prove anything about the world on an in principle basis. By your own logic and by the mentality of (postmodern) critically minded social scientists, you, perhaps more than we mere scientists and engineers (who build the buildings, the networks, the computers, the cars, etc. that you use, and who have impacted your life far more than you have impacted ours) should understand that this sort of radical relativism wipes out any in--principle claim to the sanctity of any conceptual structure (and even, in the extreme, to the frameworks which give rise to the notion of conceptual structure). Perhaps your comments are, like Sokal's, bait for the imprudent --- if so then it is clear that I have taken the bait. What needs to be recognized is the distinction between in principality and in practicality. Sometimes in principlality wipes out in practicality, as you suggest. In this sense, that which is in principle impossible ought not be attempted. For example, there is an in principle problem with trying to fly by jumping off your roof. This is an in princiality that limits in practicality. There are, however, other cases of the in principle/in practice distinction that do not have this structure. For example: In principle, computers cannot multiply arbitrarily large numbers. This is a fact of the structure of multiplication since one operand needs to be recorded in its entirety ahead of time. To help clarify this point, addition can be performed on a digit by digit basis --- that is, you can generate a sum by adding a digit from each operand one at a time and propagating some information downstream. There exist no such multiplication algorithms as any standard textbook on computer arithmetic will explain. This means that if you you build a computer, no matter how big, I can find two numbers that they cannot multiply. Note that this assumes I have infinite space in which to store my numbers before I feed them to the computer. What does this mean? Does it mean that one ought not try to use computers to multiply numbers? No. On the contrary. Computers can multiply enough numbers that we can happily pretend that computers can multiply any two arbitrary numbers. Would you not buy a computer because there exist two numbers it cannot multiply? Similar arguments hold for other facets of computability theory. In particular, any computer ever built is equivalent, in the Chomsky hierarchy, to a Type 3 grammar. Turing machines (e.g. the conceptual model of a universal computer) are equivalent to Type 0 languages. This in practice, people pretend that actual computers behave like Turing machines. Note that in both of these cases, the in principle impossibility is ignored for the purposes of in practice utility. Stated another way, in principle impossibility does not limit probability in practice. Next, consider how this applies to your comments about Sokal's writing. Your decomposition of the problem --- e.g. ``it seems Sokal can only support its existence on the grounds that subjective (ie. social) experience is universally shared with respect to some empirical property.'' rests on a tacit assumption of a unified ontology which gives rise to notions like ``experience,'' particularly of the sort that can have a subjective type, of grounding criterion, of sharing capacities, of relations such as ``with respect to'', of cognizers relative to which empirical properties may be determined, and so forth. What you are doing in your comments (and probably thinking in general) is hiding from the nasty implications of relativism. You are implicitly accepting a reality where the empirical/classical/whatever scientists accept reality explicitly, often with the recognition that such a concept is only an assumption. The explicit can be dealt with directly; its effects can be recognized and discussion of its relevance can be framed coherently. The implicit is the real danger and it seems to me that you've simply moved the concept of reality into the folds and undertones of discourse, losing the ability to face the consequences of radical relativism. You will be hard pressed to find a physicist that believes that the ``laws of physics'' are anything other than convenient working hypothesis and conceptual structures of great practical utility. Check out Feynman's lectures on quantum physics --- he clearly states that the theory is so absurd it is almost impossible to imagine that it describes something real. Instead, this Nobel laureate argues, the theory just seems to work really well as far as other theories and engineering tasks are concerned --- and that this is the metric upon which we ought to assess it. If you want cultural criticism to have any real utility it might be wise to leave the protected realm of in--principalities and deal with the world as it is in practice. A philosophy is only as good as the life it makes _probable_. cheers, Eric C. Welton -a pragmatic radical relativist From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Wed Jun 5 14:57:51 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 23:54:58 +0200 To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU From: Czerlinski@mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de (Jean Czerlinski) Subject: Re: Sociology, Nature & Bio Sci (fwd) Hello folks! I've posted a lot in the past to this list about the relation of biology to sociology and don't care to repeat myself. I'll just try to sketch out some ideas relevant to the present discussion. I'm a bit in a rush, so this isn't as organized and thought-out as I'd like, but I think I'd better post it before everyone forgets the discussion.... ------------------ To the original post: SLATER WAS RIGHT THAT THE DEFINITION IS BAD Here is the beginning of the dictionary definition from *The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Sociology* which Slater criticized: childhood. The term 'child' can be used to mean either an offspring or someone who has not reached full economic and jural status as an adult in a society. Individuals in the latter state are passing through an age-related period known as childhood. As you can see, it starts alright (although I question the use of the words "economic and jural"). However, then it has some weird passages later, from which Slater selectively quotes to achieve his full effect. Here's the relevant part: Other writers have pointed out that childhood is constructed on the inabilities of children as political, intellectual, sexual and economic beings, despite empirical evidence to the contrary. This construction implies that children must be protected (primarily by women) in the family, which serves the needs of capitalist states for the reproduction and socialization of the labour-force, at minimum cost to the state. The child also provides state agencies with the excuse to intervene in irregular families, and to change or dismember them, if they do not comply with certain norms. So, there you have it-- strange claims and gratuitous functionalism, without citations to relevant literature (my guess is because there isn't any). It does not belong in an otherwise very good dictionary (which normally includes citations, for instance), and now it's ended up doing discredit to our discipline. ---------- To the broader issues: BIOLOGY (AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE) AS SKELETONS First I would like to warn Michael and others against caricaturing biology or any other fields (perhaps unintentionally!): > mean is that sociology doesn't give space to biological determinism in > behavior. We don't credit the "maternal instinct". We don't believe that > black people are inherently better basketball players. Biology does not mean "determinism" and it does not mean "racism"-- any more than sociology inherently means "left-wing". If you make straw men of others, you can't be surprised that they then make straw men of you-- as Slater did to all of us in sociology. "But biology is deterministic!" you might object. Do you also really believe social structure is as deterministic as some authors have painted it to be? Perhaps biology and social structure are equally strong-- shaping things but not forcing them down a particular path. Actually, I still think this is the wrong metaphor for how both of these forces work. In my view, the forces that impinge on us are not like fences within which we make our "free" choices. Rather, they are the bodily skeleton that enables us to move in certain ways and hinders us from moving in other ways. And the more we understand our skeletons, the better we can move. Imagine trying to learn to throw a ball. You can't seem to get it to go very far. Your coach advises you to throw it harder, but this just makes you feel more frustrated, because this was the obvious thing you were trying to do. In my view, this is just like the policy analyst telling married couples to "try harder" to stay together and not divorce. But imagine you now have a coach who knows something of anatomy. She immediately recognizes that you're throwing the ball "from the elbow"-- which puts less muscle behind it and gives you a bad angle. So she tells you to try lifting your elbow, holding your arm in an "L" shape, and using your shoulder muscles to throw. This not only increases power but frees the action of your arm to improve accuracy. Voila! Olympic trainers just take this all to a higher level. If you understand anatomy, you will be aware not so much of the "limits" and "constraints" it puts on you but rather how it works and how to use it to the fullest to achieve your goals. But what then is the "anatomy" that policy makers need to know? Frankly, I think this-- and developing the new tools and methods for this-- is the challenge of today's sociology. (That's more the methodological direction I've been advocating in other posts rather than this multiple-regression-etc. stuff.) My own guess is that this anatomy will include "social structure", though recast in a very different form than it's ever had before-- not as "fences" that channel us down certain paths. I also feel fairly certain that it will include biology-- though, again, as a SKELETON and not as deterministic "drives" or limiting "fences". Let's try an example, which is when things always get hard. What should the policy advisor do about the increasing divorce rate? Well, he can look cross-culturally to see if / how other cultures organize their marriage structures to see what some of the practical possibilities are AND WHAT CONDITIONS THEY NEED. Have there been earlier societies that collapsed when too many marriages dissolved-- is this really a problem to worry about? But he can also look cross-species to learn a few things. For example, chimpanzees tend to have one male controlling several females. But the more abundant food is, the more females are able to live close together and thus band together to gain power over the males. Does this maybe accord with the fact that human women also gain power when there are overall more resources? But let us also not forget our other closest relative (just as close as chimps, though it's not as widely known), bonobos. Here the females run the society, and everyone trades sex for favors-- and so has sex with everyone. No monogamy. In what ways are we like or unlike the bonobos, so that we might live similarly?? That's in the direction of the skeleton-type of research that I think needs to be done. Slowly, some of it is being done. -- More examples: -- A. gender relations Suppose we want a change in our culture's gender relations. We should certainly look at how they worked in other times and places. We could also look at similar species. What are the conditions under which there is more equality (e.g. more resources for the chimps) and when is there less? B. the "maternal instinct" In a throw-away comment, Michael criticized the idea of a "maternal instinct". But it has often been documented that, just as some baby mammals and birds imprint on their mothers and vice-versa, human babies and mothers can, under the right conditions for this (not necessarily the only right conditions!), also develop a special, strong bond with each other. The baby cries the moment the mother is out of sight. The mother recognizes her own baby's cry from a crowd of others. This seems to me to be not only useful but wonderful-- one of the special experiences of being human, and I look forward to the day when I will have my own baby. (And, yes, it's believed that fathers can have a similar bond if they are present early on.) Of course, humans, just as many (but not all) other animals, can survive if such a bond does not form. However, such children tend to be overly anxious and can grow up to have various psychological problems (although what's a "problem" may depend on your perspective). The point is that biology offers us this mechanism, among others, to assist in the long process of a child's growing up. C. childhood So now we've returned full circle to Slater's topic. > Slater has no argument, because he misses the point of the > dictionary entry, which is not talking about biology per se and does not > need to. I disagree strongly. Sociologists and anthropologists who study childhood cross-culturally should have some idea of the biological constraints on how and how fast a child is capable of doing different things. Is it cruel if a parent punishes a three-year-old for wetting his/her pants, is the biologically child too young to know better? Surely, there must be some minimum age for this. Yes, cultures differ in when they give different responsibilities to children. But we should know what the minimum limits are. AND WE SHOULD KNOW WHAT CONDITIONS THESE REQUIRE. Inadequate nutrition, for example, can slow or stunt development. In rural China right now millions of children are permanently mentally retarded because of lack of iodine. So families can't ask them to help on the farm anymore, and they will have to have more children, and no one is quite sure about the social impacts as the children age..... ----- Well, that's all I'm going to say for now. Let me just point out that the really tricky part, in describing / understanding both social forces and biological ones, is values. Society and biology are not as passive as our skeleton but deeply affect what we want to do in the first place. Integrating values into our methods is an even more daunting challenge. Wishing you many more sociological adventures, Jean Jean Czerlinski Czerlinski@mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Wed Jun 5 18:21:12 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Wed, 5 Jun 1996 18:20:07 -0700 To: Czerlinski@mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de (Jean Czerlinski), socgrad@UCSD.EDU From: lichter@ucla.edu (Michael I. Lichter) Subject: Re: Sociology, Nature & Bio Sci (fwd) Jean, While is not surprising that you find the claims of a literature with which you are not familiar "strange", your haste to denounce these claims as a disgrace to our Fine and Noble discipline does seem out of place. I will get back with references when I get a chance. Your primary objection to dictionary entry in question, from what I can tell, is that it calls childhood a socially defined condition, rather than an objectively defined one. In fact, it cites (or rather indicates there are) authors who find social understandings of children's inabilities across modern capitalist societies to be at odds with empirical evidence of children's actual capabilities. You apparently believe that the correct definition would include something of the order "childhood begins at birth and ends at puberty, and includes the following stages of mental and physical development: ...", leaving out all this claptrap about capitalism and the state. In other words, substituting scientific understandings for sociological ones. Frankly, I am suspicious of trans-cultural, trans-historical scientific understandings of stages of development, scales of ability and so on. I don't have to show that they are "wrong" to act as if they come out of specific social arrangements which make them social artifacts rather than The Truth. This does not excuse us from engaging them, but I think that as sociologists we are obliged to not take them at face value. I think your analogy of "the skeleton" to social structure is generally an apt one, but it doesn't help in integrating understandings of social structure and biology. In my view, the social is built on the biological, but not in any straightforward way. Women are often seen as less physically capable than they actually are, and men as more capable. The retarded (if you'll excuse my use of this constructed category) are treated as children, when they are obviously chronologically not. And even in as basic an area as sex, biology is often ambigious, so that social definitions can only be arbitrary. To take this into account in the skeleton analogy is to put bones in bizaare places, to create joints that work sometimes one way, and sometimes another, and so on. Also, the very diversity you cite, the contrast between chimps and bonobos, is reason to be wary of comparisons between non-human social arrangments and our own. The "animal world" is a good place to stoke our imaginations about our own arrangements and variation, but all too often people disregard the obvious cavaets and make ridiculous statements based on animal research (and I include scientists here, like the head of the Violence Initiative, who made a statement comparing inner city youths to rampaging gorillas). As for biological determinism goes, you are being rather defensive. I said some people who complain about biological lacks in sociology have an agenda which is determinist in nature, and that's all. Michael -- Michael Lichter UCLA Department of Sociology From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Thu Jun 6 09:18:15 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU socgrad@ucsd.edu; Thu, 06 Jun 1996 11:13:52 -0500 (CDT) Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 11:13:52 -0500 (CDT) Date-warning: Date header was inserted by ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu From: Candice Nelsen Subject: Listserver commands request To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU Does anyone have instructions for maintaining/controlling a person's SOCGRAD listserver subscription? I am trying to find out how to subscribe, unsubscribe, etc. If you have them, please forward them to me at: NELSENCL@CTRVAX.VANDERBILT.EDU Thanks in advance! Candice Nelsen From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Thu Jun 6 09:40:10 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 12:37:38 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Cassell To: Sociology Graduate Student Discussion Subject: Employment Workshop at 1996 ASA Annual Meeting in NYC (fwd) FYI; this might be of interest to those thinking about a career in applied sociology. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Cassell jwcassell@UNC.EDU Institute for Research in Social Science Phone: 919-962-0782 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Fax: 919-962-4777 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3355 USA ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 09:47:35 -0400 From: Joyce Iutcovich To: appsoc@indiana.edu, SPA@guvax.acc.georgetown.edu Subject: Employment Workshop at 1996 ASA Annual Meeting in NYC >From JWOOLWICH@aol.com Mon, 03 Jun 1996 18:13:43 >Date: Mon, 3 Jun 1996 18:06:02 -0400 >From: JWOOLWICH@aol.com >To: C_AUSTER@acad.fandm.edu, bailey@soc.sscnet.ucla.edu, > XBN3@vm.cc.purdue.edu, ATKAM@asuvm.inre.asu.edu, > roussel@u.washington.edu, shelton@uta.edu, JWOOLWICH@aol.com, > Bllowell@aol.com, COLLINPH@ucbeh.san.uc.edu, > MKIMMEL@ccum.sunysb.edu, FALCON@nuhub.dac.neu.edu, > ctgilkes@colby.edu, Iutcovich@cluster.gannon.edu, > JBW@hermes.bc.edu, nixon@midget.towson.edu, > HOLLEY@saturn.montclair.edu, gyoung@american.edu, > JGMASON@minerva.cis.yale.edu, JRL40@albnyvm1, > REINHARZ@brandeisbitnet, GERSTEL@sadri.umass.edu >Subject: Employment Workshop at 1996 ASA Annual Meeting in NYC > >Content-ID: <0_19444_833839561@emout15.mail.aol.com.244118> >Content-type: text/plain > >Below is the e-mail which promotes our committee's workshop. This was sent >to over 100 Sociology Departments across the US using an electronic list >provided by ASA. The electronic list is not inclusive of all departments' >addresses so feel free to send/share this information with anyone who may be >interested. > >Thanks Jennifer > > >To all Department Chairs/Interested Parties- > > >Negotiating the Sociological Job Market is a workshop that will be conducted >at the ASA 1996 Annual Meeting in New York City. As the sponsors of this >workshop, the Committee on Employment invite all interested faculty and >students to attend and learn about potential employment opportunities by >federal, contract, insitutional, marketing research organizations. This >meeting is geared towards all levels and interests; and much time will be >provided for inqiuries from the audience. > >Please download, print, and distribute the attached file which consists of a >poster publicizing this workshop. Also feel free to e-mail this letter and >attachment to anyone who may be interested. For those who are unable to >download the file the information is also presented below. > >Thank you for your time and we look forward to seeing you at the workshop. > >Sincerely, >Jennifer Woolwich >Co-Chair >Committee on Employment > > >American Sociological Associations > > >COMMITTEE ON EMPLOYMENT > >PRESENTS > > > >NEGOTIATING THE SOCIOLOGICAL JOB MARKET > > >Meet with potential employers, Learn what skills are in demand, Acquire >leads, Get professional exposure > > > >Where: American Sociological Associations 1996 Annual Meeting > New York Hilton and Towers / Sheraton Hotel and Towers > New York City > >When: Session 150 > Saturday, August 17, 1996 > 12:30 pm - 2:15 pm > >Who: Contract Research - RAND and Westat, Inc. > Federal Government - Peace Corps. > Marketing - Nickelodean Cable Channel > Institutional Research - Fashion Institute of Technology > Health Outcomes - University of Michigan Managed Care > > > >Undergrads and Grad students >Come with your questions, concerns, and ambitions. > > > >WE LOOK FORWARD TO MEETING WITH YOU! >Content-ID: <0_19444_833839561@emout15.mail.aol.com.244119> >Content-type: application/octet-stream; > name="POSTER.DOC" > >Attachment Converted: C:\EUDORA\POSTER.DOC > Joyce Iutcovich (814) 871-5334 Associate Provost FAX: 814-871-5889 Gannon University E-Mail: iutcovich@cluster.gannon.edu 109 University Square Erie, PA 16541-0001 From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Thu Jun 6 09:43:40 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Thu, 6 Jun 1996 12:41:42 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Cassell To: Candice Nelsen Subject: Re: Listserver commands request In-Reply-To: <01I5L4F4DD6Q8XOGAU@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu> On Thu, 6 Jun 1996, Candice Nelsen wrote: > Does anyone have instructions for maintaining/controlling a person's SOCGRAD > listserver subscription? I am trying to find out how to subscribe, > unsubscribe, etc. > > If you have them, please forward them to me at: > NELSENCL@CTRVAX.VANDERBILT.EDU > > Thanks in advance! > > Candice Nelsen > You can geet a copy by sending the word help in the body of an email message addressed to listserv@ucsd.edu Jim ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Cassell jwcassell@UNC.EDU Institute for Research in Social Science Phone: 919-962-0782 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Fax: 919-962-4777 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3355 USA From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri Jun 7 07:16:45 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 16:13:55 +0200 To: lichter@ucla.edu (Michael I. Lichter), socgrad@UCSD.EDU From: Czerlinski@mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de (Jean Czerlinski) Subject: Re: Sociology, Nature & Bio Sci (fwd) Dear Michael, -- on straw men and science It seems you don't care about or disagree with my pleadings not to make straw men, because now you have made a straw man of me: >You apparently believe that the correct >definition would include something of the order "childhood begins at birth >and ends at puberty, and includes the following stages of mental and >physical development: ...", leaving out all this claptrap about capitalism >and the state. In other words, substituting scientific understandings for >sociological ones. Rather, I believe something more like your own description of how you think it is: >are) authors who find social understandings of children's inabilities >across modern capitalist societies to be at odds with empirical evidence of >children's actual capabilities. For me, this "empirical evidence of children's actual capabilities" is *exactly* what science (biology or psychology or whatever) is supposed to discover for us. (I do not deny that science is also a social institution itself. But it's also one of the best tools for critical thinking and self- reflection and radicalism that we have-- it is often via science that we challenge the "truth" of other "scientific" findings!) (I also don't deny that various social constructions can serve various people's interests; I objected only to the gratuitousness and lack of justification for the functionalism in the entry.) Unfortunately, this is *not* what the dictionary entry says, and that was the basis of Sokal's objection. He then went on to use this one entry's failure to characterize all of sociology, and that's how he made a straw man of us. Indeed, many right-wingers have used their own caricatures of biology to support their political agenda (another type of straw man). We can respond either by accepting their caricatures and shrinking from biology or by trying to understand biology for what it really is. I intend to do the latter. --- on the skeleton analogy >I think your analogy of "the skeleton" to social structure is generally an >apt one, but it doesn't help in integrating understandings of social >structure and biology. In my view, the social is built on the biological, >but not in any straightforward way. The skeleton is *not* a straightforward way. That was the whole point of using it in contrast to the idea of biology as a fence within whose perimeter we act-- that was too straightforward for me. On the other hand, I admit that the skeleton analogy leaves some things out, just as all analogies and models and thinking tools do. That is the price you pay for saying something more than listing all known facts. I am eager to hear what other thinking tools they are for the relation of biology and sociology. >Women are often seen as less >physically capable than they actually are, and men as more capable. The >retarded (if you'll excuse my use of this constructed category) are treated >as children, when they are obviously chronologically not. And even in as >basic an area as sex, biology is often ambigious, so that social >definitions can only be arbitrary. To take this into account in the >skeleton analogy is to put bones in bizaare places, to create joints that >work sometimes one way, and sometimes another, and so on. I think you have misunderstood what I meant by a skeleton, but I don't care to launch into a large discussion on it now. --- etc. >Also, the very diversity you cite, the contrast between chimps and bonobos, >is reason to be wary of comparisons between non-human social arrangments >and our own. What are you talking about??? The very diversity I cite simply proves that biology is not a "simple determinism" and can be used in different ways (just as our skeleton can). >The "animal world" is a good place to stoke our imaginations >about our own arrangements and variation, but all too often people >disregard the obvious cavaets and make ridiculous statements based on >animal research (and I include scientists here, like the head of the >Violence Initiative, who made a statement comparing inner city youths to >rampaging gorillas). That's what I meant by right-wing caricatures. >As for biological determinism goes, you are being rather defensive. I said >some people who complain about biological lacks in sociology have an agenda >which is determinist in nature, and that's all. That is certainly a good point; I admit I hadn't caught it the first time. Cheers, Jean From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri Jun 7 10:05:35 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri, 7 Jun 1996 12:01:32 -0500 (CDT) To: Socgrad Network , Sam Bell , Stjepan Mestrovic Subject: Discussion on the Slater article Date: Fri, 07 Jun 96 12:00:23 -0500 From: Tim Chester -- [ From: Tim Chester * EMC.Ver #2.5.02 ] -- I think most of everyone who has been discussing the Slater article in National Review have been caught up in the "trees" of the article, as opposed to concentrating on the overall "forest". Thus, I wish to make a few points. 1. Slater's article, overall, does point out some of the flaws with sociology as it exists today, namely its total emphasis on social determinism, when in fact what exists is a much more complex process, which consists of social, biological, and cognitive processes. Understanding the relationship between these often competing, but somewhat conplimentary forces remains the task of social psychology if it is going to regain much of its lost credibility. 2. It is obvious, from both the cynical tone, as well as the forum that published the article that Slater is obviously biased somewhat to the right. SO WHAT -- if anything, the epistemological shift in cultural studies tell us that all susposed "objective" facts are but mere interpretations -- influenced by the preconceptions of the observer, social critic, or theorist . 3. Despite this shortcoming of the article (its conservative bias), it does not necessarily follow that one must throw out the baby with the bathwater, for if this were true, then all sociological writings must be thrown out as well. 4. Arguing that social-psychological theories need to incorporate insights from biology, and neuro-biology doesn't make one a biological determinist -- nor a racist, capitalist, conservative defender of the status quo -- just as being a neo-marxist does not hold one to being a materialistic economic deterministic. Any such claims are nothing more than transparent sophistry. 5. Thus, what important sensibilities does Slater's article provide us? Broadly speaking, it should speak to the concern that sociology, while claiming to provide a view of the whole of reality, isn't really doing so as long as it strictly adheres to a social determinist view. I can imagine that in the next fifty years our theories will come to more fully incorporate ideas from biology, psychology, and physics into our sociological theories -- if we don't, we fail to offer a complete picture of the whole of reality -- something that severely reduces the interpretative and predictive nature of our sociological arguments. Thus, the lesson that I read out of slater's article is this -- sociology, particularly social psychology -- must begin to consider how the opposing, but yet, complimentary forces of instinct, emotion, rationality interact and influence the biological and social circumstances that any social being encounters. For me, as well as many others on the fringes of the discipline , this is the problem that awaits sociology in the next century. Taking leads from T.R. Young, and others who have written on this network ( as well as publishing many, many articles and books), the epistemological shift in cultural studies (most of the time referred to as the "postmodern shift", but not all epistomological studies reflect postmodern sensibilities ) is slowly, but surely, headed in this direction. To further the discussion, I offer below a recent article on measurement and quantum mechanics. Although it is written for the physical sciences, its revelations have implications for epistomological theories -- that is theories of how individuals know, interact, and influence reality. Taking some of these ideas in to account when considering sociological theories and analysis's would reflect a broader approach to sociological theorizing in the general spirit of Slater's analysis. Here is the article, I offer it to the network, in the hopes of generating a more helpful discussion on the network. Best, Timothy M. Chester, Texas A&M University, Sociology ------- FORWARD, Original message follows ------- Date: Thursday, 06-Jun-96 10:16 PM From: Tim Chester \ Internet: (tmc7049@acs.tamu.edu) Subject: Fwd: abstract quant-ph/9605002 http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/quant-ph/?9605002 > Quantum Physics, abstract > quant-ph/9605002 > > From: cerf@krl.caltech.edu > Date: Thu, 2 May 1996 17:12:39 -0700 (PDT) > > Quantum Mechanics of Measurement > > Author(s): N.J. Cerf , C. Adami (California Institute of Technology) > > Comments: 38 pages, 6 uuencoded postscript figures > Report-no: KRL-MAP-198 > > We show that the recent discovery of negative > (conditional) quantum entropy reveals that measurement in > quantum mechanics is not accompanied by the collapse of a > wavefunction or a quantum jump. Rather, quantum > measurement appears as a sequence of unitary operations > which are reversible in principle, although ususally not > in practice. The probabilistic nature of quantum > measurement emerges from the positive entropy of the > observed subsystem, which however is exactly cancelled by > the negative entropy of the remaining (unobserved) part. > Thence, the entropy of the combined system is unchanged > while measurement itself is probabilistic. In this > framework, uncertainty relations which characterize the > measurement of incompatible variables emerge naturally, as > do all well-known relations of conventional quantum > mechanics. Yet, quantum measurement is unitary, causal, > and free of any ad hoc assumptions. We apply this theory > to standard quantum measurement situations such as the > Stern-Gerlach and double-slit experiments to illustrate > how randomness, inherent in the conventional quantum > probabilities, arises in a unitary framework. Finally, the > present view clarifies the relationship beween classical > and quantum concepts. > > Paper: Source (30kb) , PostScript, or More Options > > (N.B.: delivery types and potential problems) > > refers to , cited by > > ------------------------------------------------ > Links to: xxx, quant-ph, /find, /abs (-/+), /9605, ? > ------------------------------------------------ > > www-admin@xxx.lanl.gov ------- FORWARD, End of original message ------- ------- FORWARD, End of original message ------- From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri Jun 7 10:18:35 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 13:14:51 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Cassell To: Sociology Graduate Student Discussion Subject: LSU job ad. (fwd) FYI - Jim ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Cassell jwcassell@UNC.EDU Institute for Research in Social Science Phone: 919-962-0782 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Fax: 919-962-4777 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3355 USA ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Fri, 7 Jun 1996 11:30:40 CST From: Charles M. Tolbert Subject: LSU job ad. Addressed to: rursoc-l@lsv.uky.edu s-259@lsuvm.sncc.lsu.edu LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY Department of Sociology The Department of Sociology invites applications for an anticipated tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor in the area of Rural Sociology. We are looking for a person with an exceptionally strong research background; that person's specialization should relate to and extend our research on labor market areas (e.g. community development). The position is to begin August 1996, pending final approval. Ph.D. or equivalent degree in Sociology is required. Review of applications will begin in June, 1996 and will continue until the position is filled. Informal inquiries and nominations are welcomed. Send curriculum vitae and three letters of reference to: Forrest A. Deseran, Chair, Search Committee, Department of Sociology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803 (fax: 504-388-5102). LSU is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer From list-relay@UCSD.EDU Fri Jun 7 13:29:30 1996 Return-Path: list-relay@UCSD.EDU Date: Fri, 07 Jun 96 16:24:37 EDT From: Alan Davidson Subject: Sokal affair web site (fwd) To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU, psn-cafe@csf.colorado.edu, Mary , Dennis , Dan ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Date: Fri, 07 Jun 1996 13:23:56 CST From: system@CCTR.UMKC.EDU To: STS-LIST@CCTR.UMKC.EDU Subject: Sokal affair web site Original Post: Greetings, There's so much being written about this Sokal stuff so quickly that it makes sense for someone to keep information resident on the web. Check out http://weber.u.washington.edu/~jwalsh/sokal/ You will be able to find most of the key texts including a link to Sokal's original paper, the article in Lingua Franca, the various published responses and an archive of e-discussions on the topic. cheers, Bart Simon (bssimon@helix.ucsd.edu) Science Studies, UCSD From DCS1@PSUVM.PSU.EDU Sat Jun 8 07:03:43 1996 Received: from UCSD.EDU (mailbox2.ucsd.edu [132.239.1.54]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id HAA11902 for ; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 07:03:30 -0600 (MDT) Received: from none.at.helo (psuvm.psu.edu [128.118.56.2]) by UCSD.EDU (8.7.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id GAA11790 for ; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 06:03:28 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199606081303.GAA11790@UCSD.EDU> Received: from PSUVM.PSU.EDU by PSUVM.PSU.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 9427; Sat, 08 Jun 96 09:00:50 EDT Received: from PSUVM.PSU.EDU (NJE origin DCS1@PSUVM) by PSUVM.PSU.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with RFC822 id 6306; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 09:00:50 -0400 Date: Sat, 8 Jun 96 09:00 EDT From: "Douglas Clayton Smith" Subject: Re: Discussion on the Slater article To: tmc7049@acs.tamu.edu Cc: socgrad@UCSD.EDU, sbell@ballistic.com, sgm5734@tamvm1.tamu.edu In-Reply-To: tmc7049 AT acs.tamu.edu -- Fri, 07 Jun 96 12:00:23 -0500 Just a few comments on the Slater debate... Tim Chester wrote: " Slater's article, overall, does point out some of the flaws with sociology as it exists today, namely its total emphasis on social determinism, when in fact what exists is a much more complex process, which consists of social, biological, and cognitive processes. Understanding the relationship between these often competing, but somewhat complimentary forces remains the task of social psychology if it is going to regain much of its lost credibility." Frankly, I think sociology, in general, and social psychology, in particular do a pretty good job with biology, but of course that depends on what you mean by biology (if that's not too social for you). Do you want to talk genetics? The Minnesota Twin Studies (which even though is inherently biased methodologically, is the pinnacle of social psych genetics research) concluded that about half of the variation in personality traits measured was due to genetic factors. If you buy the study with its flaws and the idea of personality traits (there are branches of social psych that don't), there is still plenty of variation left for social factors. Moreover, if you asked, I don't think that you would find many social psychologists (no matter what theory they subscribe to) that would say that biology is not important when trying to understand behavior. I also suspect that, on the whole, they would suggest that biological factors are mediated by social processes. It's not that biological factors aren't important, it is that other factors are more important. biological determinants are mediated by social processes. For example, if we were to move away from genetic determinism to biological processes, I believe you would find a number of different social psychological studies that would demonstrate this point. For instance, the sociology of emotion has at its core an understanding that certain biological processes are at work...some caused by social and cognitive processes (blushing) and some causing social and cognitive processes (such as the labelling of certain physical stimuli as emotion). I know that some of this debate has focused on childhood. Denzin's study of childhood (1977 I think), does not dismiss physical maturation. Instead physical maturation is the starting point. As the child matures, behaviorist conditioning comes into use to socialize the child into language. However, once language is learned, social processes far outweigh biology, as can be seen in the literature on the sociology of education. If you want to move on up the scale to general chemical processes. The biological effects or noneffects of dioxin, waste incineration, caffiene, cigarettes, irradiated food, global warming, etc. are the subject of much of the environmental and risk literature. My own research right now on municipal waste incineration has at its center the debate on dioxin. The debate occurs at the social level, biological scientists are trusted or disputed depending on who foots the bill for their study. Are you interested in testosterone? If so, I'd suggest any on of Alan Booth's studies on testosterone levels and different social behaviors. I'm not a big fan of these studies for pragmatic reasons, but I guess they have some predictive value (if you're playing chess with a hairy male). [Forgive me, it's been a long night] I could go on, but I'm boring myself. The point is that Slater's claim only works if you narrowly define what biology will mean. Oh, one last point. To me, it's not the lack of biology, but too much biology that caused the decline in social psychology's prestige. To me, social psych fell in prestige due to the increased emphasis on computers and large scale datasets beginning in the 1950s and 60s. The ability to use canned datasets containing mainly demographic variables (demographic variables = sex, age, race , number of children, birth intervals, birth rate, death rate, etc.= biology) which could be used to crank out numerous quick & dirty articles, to me, what slammed social psych. It's interesting to note that demography is now returning to social psych (they prefer to call it event history analysis, but it's still an effort to bring perception back into the understanding of human behavior). Anyway, that's my view. Doug Smith Future Unemployed Sociologist ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chad C. Mulligan was a sociologist. He gave it up. - John Brunner Stand On Zanzibar ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From lmiller@weber.ucsd.edu Sat Jun 8 12:07:18 1996 Received: from weber.ucsd.edu (weber.ucsd.edu [132.239.147.2]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id MAA23191 for ; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 12:07:17 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from lmiller@localhost on ttyu3) by weber.ucsd.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA04702 for socgrad@csf.colorado.edu; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 11:07:15 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 11:07:15 -0700 (PDT) From: Laura Miller Message-Id: <199606081807.LAA04702@weber.ucsd.edu> To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu Subject: completed list transfer Socgrad has now made the transfer to its new home at CSF (Communications for a Sustainable Future) at the University of Colorado. Here is some information you should have for sending messages, unsubscribing, etc. If I've forgotten anything, let me know. To post a message to the list, send your message to: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu Messages will be forwarded from the UCSD address, at least for a while, so hopefully we won't lose anything during the transition period. To unsubscribe from the list, send a message to listproc@csf.colorado.edu and in the body of the message type: unsubscribe socgrad or unsub socgrad or signoff socgrad Any of these commands ought to work, but don't include anything else. When informing others of how to subscribe, tell them to send a message to listproc@csf.colorado.edu and in the body of the message type: subscribe socgrad Yourfirstname Yourlastname Socgrad archives are also now available, either via World Wide Web at http://csf.colorado.edu/socgrad or you can gopher to csf.colorado.edu and look for them under PSN/socgrad, though they may be moving about. While you're there, check out some of the other CSF resources, there's a lot of interest to sociologists. For more information on listserv commands, send a message to listproc@csf.colorado.edu and in the body of the message, type: help Any questions or problems can be addressed to me or to Socgrad's new co-owner, Glenn Muschert. Glenn's address is glenn@osiris.colorado.edu Laura Miller lmiller@ucsd.edu From lmiller@weber.ucsd.edu Sat Jun 8 12:10:22 1996 Received: from UCSD.EDU (mailbox1.ucsd.edu [132.239.1.53]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id MAA23311 for ; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 12:10:21 -0600 (MDT) Received: from none.at.helo (weber.ucsd.edu [132.239.147.2]) by UCSD.EDU (8.7.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id LAA04251 for ; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 11:10:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from lmiller@localhost on ttyu3) by weber.ucsd.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) id LAA04859 for socgrad@ucsd; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 11:10:16 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 11:10:16 -0700 (PDT) From: Laura Miller Message-Id: <199606081810.LAA04859@weber.ucsd.edu> To: socgrad@ucsd.edu Subject: just checking Just checking to see if the forwarding is working properly. Ignore this. From ffdog@earthlink.net Sat Jun 8 23:30:20 1996 Received: from UCSD.EDU (mailbox1.ucsd.edu [132.239.1.53]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id XAA06216 for ; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 23:30:18 -0600 (MDT) Received: from none.at.helo (spain-c.it.earthlink.net [206.85.92.66]) by UCSD.EDU (8.7.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id WAA14350 for ; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 22:30:15 -0700 (PDT) Received: from LOCALNAME (ffdog.earthlink.net [204.250.60.118]) by spain.it.earthlink.net (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id WAA10929 for ; Sat, 8 Jun 1996 22:30:09 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sat, 8 Jun 1996 22:30:09 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199606090530.WAA10929@spain.it.earthlink.net> X-Sender: ffdog@mail.earthlink.net X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.1.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU From: Jerry Blaz Subject: Re: Discussion on the Slater article I read Tim Chester's post, and I read the article he attached. I believe I understood Tim Chester's post. I identified the article he attached as English. Has any progressed any further in the translation of that article into human speech? Jerry Blaz Jerry Blaz/The BOOKie Joint 7246 Reseda Blvd. Reseda, CA 91335 USA (818)345-2983/(818)343-1055 ffdog@earthlink.net Outside of a dog, a man's best friend is a good book. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read. G. Marx From conroyt@acs.bu.edu Sun Jun 9 12:05:32 1996 Received: from acs3.bu.edu (ACS3.BU.EDU [128.197.153.30]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id MAA23281 for ; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 12:05:30 -0600 (MDT) Received: by acs3.bu.edu (8.6.13/BU_SmartClient-1.0) id OAA40109; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 14:03:25 -0400 Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 14:03:25 -0400 (EDT) From: thomas conroy Subject: remember, Weber was a pessimist, too To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu cc: Multiple recipients of list In-Reply-To: <199606081303.GAA11790@UCSD.EDU> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Sat, 8 Jun 1996, Douglas Clayton Smith wrote: (aside from "Just a few comments on the Slater debate"...) : Doug Smith : Future Unemployed Sociologist and ------------------------------------------------------------------------- : Chad C. Mulligan was a sociologist. He gave it up. - John Brunner : Stand On Zanzibar ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey Doug, I appreciate you're sense of humor about our field. I am reminded of a line attributed to Max Weber, who allegedly, when asked why he was doing sociology, said in reply, "to see how much of it I can take" Tom Conroy From lmiller@weber.ucsd.edu Sun Jun 9 13:45:20 1996 Received: from weber.ucsd.edu (weber.ucsd.edu [132.239.147.2]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id NAA26828 for ; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 13:45:18 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from lmiller@localhost on ttyv4) by weber.ucsd.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) id MAA00252 for socgrad@csf.colorado.edu; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 12:45:17 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 12:45:17 -0700 (PDT) From: Laura Miller Message-Id: <199606091945.MAA00252@weber.ucsd.edu> To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Slater article (fwd) The following message was not processed due to the following reasons: - The body of the message has a checksum matching those messages already processed. The message is included below: ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From lichter@ucla.edu Sun Jun 9 02:06:27 1996 Received: from UCSD.EDU (mailbox2.ucsd.edu [132.239.1.54]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id CAA12018 for ; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 02:06:26 -0600 (MDT) Received: from none.at.helo (weber.sscnet.ucla.edu [128.97.42.3]) by UCSD.EDU (8.7.5/8.6.9) with ESMTP id BAA25817 for ; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 01:06:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [164.67.21.88] (ts25-11.wla.ts.ucla.edu [164.67.21.88]) by weber.sscnet.ucla.edu (8.7.1/8.7.1) with SMTP id BAA23541 for ; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 01:06:19 -0700 (PDT) X-Sender: lichter@nicco.sscnet.ucla.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 01:07:05 -0700 To: socgrad@ucsd.edu >From: lichter@ucla.edu (Michael I. Lichter) Subject: Re: Discussion on the Slater article At 10:30 PM 6/8/96, Jerry Blaz wrote: > I read Tim Chester's post, and I read the article he attached. I believe I > understood Tim Chester's post. I identified the article he attached as > English. Has any progressed any further in the translation of that article > into human speech? The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle holds, essentially, that you cannot observe a physical system without disturbing it. People have translated this to the social world to support the (reasonble, in my opinion) argument that by observing a social system (or people in general) you change the phenomenon you are studying. If I understand the abstract attached to Tim's message, the argument made there is that the disturbance you make in observing particles can be, under ideal circumstances, counteracted by a reaction that negates the disturbance. Applied again to social research, this means "if you're real careful, you won't mess anything up". I'm not sure how this was supposed to apply to Sokal's article, but I think it's difficult to argue that his attempt to "observe" the world of post-structural cultural criticism has not perterbed that world quite a bit. Michael -- Michael Lichter UCLA Department of Sociology From DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu Sun Jun 9 13:56:22 1996 Received: from YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (yalevm.ycc.yale.edu [130.132.21.136]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id NAA27142 for ; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 13:56:20 -0600 (MDT) Received: from UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU by YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8362; Sun, 09 Jun 96 15:55:03 EDT Received: from UConnVM.UConn.Edu (NJE origin DAVIDSON@UCONNVM) by UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 8486; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 15:55:46 -0400 Date: Sun, 09 Jun 96 15:49:32 EDT From: Alan Davidson Subject: Social Psychology's demise To: socgrad@CSF.COLORADO.EDU X-Mailer: MailBook 95.01.000 Message-Id: <960609.155544.EDT.DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu> I don't think the demise of Social Psychology has very much to do with whether or not it has been able to incorporate biological factors into its research, or the advent of, and even widely encouraged use of canned data sets in Sociology. In fact, if one looks at some of the more classic "what is wrong" articles from within Social Psychology, such as Sheldon Stryker's stuff the blame is placed on Social Psych. not being "scientific" enough. With respect to the role of biological factors in behavior, one can make the argument that one reason why Sociology more generally declined in popularity beginning in the late 1970's corresponded to a rise in biological theories in the broader society -- sociobiology, cognitive science, and the like. What is ironic is it was a similar debunking of completely behavioristic and psychoanalytic theories of behavior which led to sociology's relative popularity in the 1960's and early 1970's. From lmiller@weber.ucsd.edu Sun Jun 9 18:29:45 1996 Received: from weber.ucsd.edu (weber.ucsd.edu [132.239.147.2]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id SAA02916 for ; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 18:29:44 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from lmiller@localhost on ttyv1) by weber.ucsd.edu (8.7.5/8.7.3) id RAA12773 for socgrad@csf.colorado.edu; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 17:29:43 -0700 (PDT) Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 17:29:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Laura Miller Message-Id: <199606100029.RAA12773@weber.ucsd.edu> To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu Subject: The Algorithms of Social Life (fwd) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- >From 34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU Sun Jun 9 16:29:10 1996 Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu [141.209.1.16]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id QAA01029 for ; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 16:29:08 -0600 (MDT) Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU by CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0411; Sun, 09 Jun 96 18:28:02 EDT Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (NJE origin 34LPF6T@CMUVM) by CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 1524; Sun, 9 Jun 1996 18:28:02 -0400 Date: Sun, 09 Jun 96 18:27:10 EDT >From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: The Algorithms of Social Life To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY Message-Id: <960609.182801.EDT.34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Discussions on nature and culture are ancient indeed; before Aristotle, Plato, and Socrates people were reflecting on the realm of biological necessity and the reach of human culture. The new sciences of Chaos and Complexity have great promise in sorting out the changing forms of social life which both enhance and demean the human project. In this most miniture mini- lecture, I would like to give grad students in sociology a preview of what lies ahead as we fashion a postmodern philosophy of science with which to guide the quest for social knowledge as we enter the the 21st Century. The most general point I want to make is that the elegant and fairly stable structures of social life come about, if Chaos theory is correct, from the non-linear interactions of a constant and a variable allowed to wander within given limits. Much work has been done in the physical and the natural sciences on non-linear dynamics. Little has been done, apart from psychology, in the social sciences. When adequate research designs are put into place and adequate anal- ytic tools are fashioned with which to seek the hidden and very strange social structures hidden in complex data sets, I expect that we will find a most interesting algorithm which drives social life into ever new and ever more interesting patterns. Given the stability of physiology and biology; given the flexibility and openness of psychology together with the limiting effects of culture, we can make sense of these patterns which do not yeild to newtonian dynamics, aristotlean logics, leibnizian mathematics nor the use of rational scaling and analytic techniques. As prelude to those research designs and those research tools, I want to offer a few pointers for those new to non-linear social dynamics: 1. The very nature of scientific enquiry as it is set today, defeats real understanding into the linkages between biology, psychology and sociology...modern science tries to isolate and analyse; the reduction of human behavior to the findings of analytic research eliminates the incredibly complex interactions between biology, psychology and sociology...each discipline, cutting out small runs of behavior in simplistic settings ruins scientific enquiry. 2. Most research designs are contructed to refute, to generalize, to predict with precision, to resist anomalies and to reject contrarity. Chaos theory and non-linearity accept that strange patterns emerge out of complexity; that causality and causal linkages fade and change as dynamics regimes follow one another. Chaos theory accepts incongruities and uncertainties; indeed, it celebrates nonlinearity as a necessary feature of adaptive systems. In the case of the interactions between biology, psychology and social norms/control tactics, causal links can be very complex, hidden deep in very fuzzy structures, changeable such that at times biology rules; at other times psychological moods, styles and habits. Most folks can handle one, two, three critical uncertainties in their lifes; indeed thrive by it...still under conditions of great uncertainty, sociology tends to be set aside in favor of personal style, biological imperative and/or simple physiological reflex. In such a strange dynamical world, 'twould seem impossible for science to exist...indeed, some of the more impatient postmodern- make such claims. Not so. Given better research design; given analytic tools developed in other fields, complex non-linear dynamics yeild to systematic research. There is enough order in even the most chaotic regimes to ground scientific enquiry; ever while the quest for certainty, prediction and control is greatly proscribed. 3. It is far to early in the history of social and biological science to make definitive claims about the biology, psychology and sociology of it all...give the new sciences of chaos and complexity 50 or 100 years then we can speak with more confidence about I.Q., rape, poverty, sexual violence, alcoholism, and any number of social problems and practices now said to be center, alternately, in body and/or group. 4. Meantime, let us assume that there is enough order in most chaotic regimes to serve the knowledge process...despite what the more nihilist postmodern writers say. Let us be thankful that, given the non-linearity of chaotic regimes, that the possibility of human agency exists in ways not possible in a god-hewn world or in one in which precise and permanent causal relationship exist. Let us then work together to build social life worlds in which biology and psychology thrive; in which we can enjoy our biology and sustain our biology; expand and employ our psychology and by the doing, unfreeze and transform the more alienating forms of social life. TR Young From Czerlinski@mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de Mon Jun 10 06:08:54 1996 Received: from canetoad.mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de (canetoad.mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de [192.129.1.30]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id GAA20525 for ; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 06:08:46 -0600 (MDT) Received: from mac29.mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de by canetoad.mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de; (5.65v3.2/1.1.8.2/25Oct95-1145AM) id AA18340; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 14:08:38 +0200 X-Sender: rjean@canetoad.mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 14:08:43 +0200 To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu From: Czerlinski@mpipf-muenchen.mpg.de (Jean Czerlinski) Subject: Re: The Algorithms of Social Life > The most general point I want to make is that the elegant and >fairly stable structures of social life come about, if Chaos theory >is correct, from the non-linear interactions of a constant and a >variable allowed to wander within given limits. Much work has been >done in the physical and the natural sciences on non-linear dynamics. >Little has been done, apart from psychology, in the social sciences. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Check out: Helbing, Dirk. 1995. Quantitative Sociodynamics. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. >From the preface: "This book presents various new and powerful methods for a *quantitative* and *dynamic* description of *social* phenomena based on models for behavioral changes due to individual interaction processes. Because of the enormous complexity of social systems, models of this kind seemed to be impossible for a long time. However, during recent years very general strategies have been developed for the modelling of complex systems that consist of many coupled subsystems. These mainly stem from statistical physics (which delineates fluctuation affected processes by stochastic methods), from synergetics (which describes phase transitions, i.e. self-organization phenomena of non-linearly interacting elements), and from chaos theory (which allows an understanding of the unpredictability and sensitivity of many non-linear systems of equations)." Helbing is a physicist from the Institute of Theoretical Physics in Stuttgart (Germany), where quite a lot of social applications are studied. Helbing's book not only reviews this work but also unifies it all under a single framework. As a physicist he's fairly liberal with supplying equations to describe what he means, so if you want to understand every last detail, you'll need some calculus, linear algebra, and patience. But you don't need to understand every last detail. He also describes in words what he means. Although I think such work is fruitful, I am not as enthused about it as much as T.R. Young because it does not bear the most interesting kinds of fruit, as far as I'm concerned. Helbing is able to describe pedestrian movements, logistic growth, the gravity model for exchange processes, some diffusion models for the spread of information, Lewin's social field theory that describes behavioral changes by dynamic force fields, and game dynamical equations for competition and cooperation. Valuable as such models are, they don't yet address things I consider to be more fundamental about social life, such as identity, meaning, the nature of agency and action, consciousness, and all the 'why' questions. Perhaps we must simply wait another 50-100 years until Helbing's non-linear mathematics can be extended to include such things. But my own intuition is that this won't happen, that these deeper things cannot be described by the laws of non-linear mathematics but are an altogether different sort of beast. I am not even sure they can ever be *fully* described, for they are, in a sense, descriptions themselves, and I wonder if all this self-referentiality can be sustained without a breakdown somewhere (e.g. "This sentence is false."). Auf wiedersehen, Jean From DCS1@PSUVM.PSU.EDU Mon Jun 10 06:19:18 1996 Received: from PSUVM.PSU.EDU (psuvm.psu.edu [128.118.56.2]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id GAA21225 for ; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 06:19:16 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199606101219.GAA21225@csf.Colorado.EDU> Received: from PSUVM.PSU.EDU by PSUVM.PSU.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 4167; Mon, 10 Jun 96 08:16:37 EDT Received: from PSUVM.PSU.EDU (NJE origin DCS1@PSUVM) by PSUVM.PSU.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with RFC822 id 8592; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 08:16:37 -0400 Date: Mon, 10 Jun 96 08:16 EDT From: "Douglas Clayton Smith" Subject: Re: remember, Weber was a pessimist, too To: socgrad@CSF.COLORADO.EDU In-Reply-To: conroyt AT acs.bu.edu -- Sun, 9 Jun 1996 14:03:25 -0400 (EDT) Replies to responses: First to Alan Davidson, Point taken...but I'd say it's a both/and situation (As in both your response and my response.) I mean we (sociologists) wrote some pretty good apologies for the social contexts of behavior during the last 26 years. Some other reasons must also factor in. Second to whoever was asking about ethology studies. Kearl and Gordon's Social Psychology text lists about six studies beginning on page 45. Allyn and Bacon is the publisher...interesting book, but not the text for my social psych course. Lastly to T. Conroy who finds me a pessimistic humorist, Nope, I'm a pragmatist. Humor's the only thing they won't be able to take away or garnish when I default on my student loans in six months ;) I've always had this dream of owning a bar and using the profits to run a small survey research business. That or start a White Castle hamburger stand in State College...I guess it's time to fill out the small business loan forms. As for Weber, I don't guess he stood it for too long considering his stays in the asylum. The rate of insanity among the founders has always amazed me. Of course, given some of the stuff I listen to at professional meetings, I don't guess it should. Peace, Doug ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chad C. Mulligan couldn't give up being a sociologist after all, but since he hates the idea he's mostly drunk these days. - John Brunner Stand On Zanzibar ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu Mon Jun 10 07:34:16 1996 Received: from YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (yalevm.ycc.yale.edu [130.132.21.136]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id HAA25758 for ; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 07:34:13 -0600 (MDT) Received: from UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU by YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 9245; Mon, 10 Jun 96 09:32:55 EDT Received: from UConnVM.UConn.Edu (NJE origin DAVIDSON@UCONNVM) by UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 5443; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 09:33:37 -0400 Date: Mon, 10 Jun 96 09:31:34 EDT From: Alan Davidson Subject: Social Psychology's demise To: socgrad@CSF.COLORADO.EDU X-Mailer: MailBook 95.01.000 Message-Id: <960610.093335.EDT.DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu> The only thing I would add to Doug's comments on my point is I was making a broader point about what the perceived market or uses of sociology were in society at large, which may or may not correlate in a specific way with what sociologists and social psychologists actually do. From lsittig@garnet.acns.fsu.edu Mon Jun 10 08:47:31 1996 Received: from garnet.acns.fsu.edu (garnet.acns.fsu.edu [128.186.195.2]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id IAA29786 for ; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 08:47:29 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from lsittig@localhost) by garnet.acns.fsu.edu (8.7.4/8.7.3) id KAA27283 for socgrad@csf.colorado.edu; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 10:46:51 -0400 From: Lynne Sittig Message-Id: <199606101446.KAA27283@garnet.acns.fsu.edu> Subject: RE: Social Psychology's demise (fwd) To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 10:46:50 -0400 (EDT) X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL17] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit As I passed on the messages concerning social psychology's demise to our resident social psychologist she responded. I am posting her response --- you can reply to her at slosh@coss.fsu.edu. Lynne Sittig > Feel free to pass on. One BIG reason for the demise of Social Psych in the > '70s and '80s is that there were already lots of Social Psychologists and > they were not being heavily recruited. Worse yet, lots of YOUNG Social > Psychologists who were not going to retire for decades (they are starting to > right about now, in fact). On the other hand, at the time, there were not > too many quantitative folks and universities were hiring THOSE in droves (as > I can attest to first hand). So...lots of bright young sociologists flocked > to the numbers. And now the areas are overloaded and every place generally > has at least one. And we have seen the rise of theory, political economy, > and qualitative approaches. > > When all else fails, try a sociological explanation first! > > SLOSH > > >> I don't think the demise of Social Psychology has very much to do with > >> whether or not it has been able to incorporate biological factors into > >> its research, or the advent of, and even widely encouraged use of canned > >> data sets in Sociology. In fact, if one looks at some of the more classic > >> "what is wrong" articles from within Social Psychology, such as Sheldon > >> Stryker's stuff the blame is placed on Social Psych. not being "scientific" > >> enough. With respect to the role of biological factors in behavior, one > >> can make the argument that one reason why Sociology more generally declined > >> in popularity beginning in the late 1970's corresponded to a rise in > >> biological theories in the broader society -- sociobiology, cognitive > >> science, and the like. What is ironic is it was a similar debunking of > >> completely behavioristic and psychoanalytic theories of behavior which > >> led to sociology's relative popularity in the 1960's and early 1970's. > >> > From ghougham@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu Mon Jun 10 13:15:42 1996 Received: from medicine (medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu [128.135.32.3]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id NAA06885 for ; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 13:15:41 -0600 (MDT) Received: from gmed-pc12 (gmed-pc12.bsd.uchicago.edu [128.135.86.162]) by medicine (8.6.10/BSD-3.1) with SMTP id OAA15853 for ; Mon, 10 Jun 1996 14:23:55 -0500 Message-Id: <199606101923.OAA15853@medicine> X-Sender: ghougham@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 2.0.3 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 10 Jun 1996 14:21:17 -0400 To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu From: ghougham@medicine.bsd.uchicago.edu (Gavin Hougham) The recent postings on social psychology, chaos/complexity, non-linearity and most recently "quantum sociodynamics" reminded me of part of the argument in the last chapter of _Habits of the Heart_ (actually, an appendix in the original 1985 edition, but also see the updated edition with a new Introduction dated January, 1996). Bellah, et al.'s essay on "Social Science as Public Philosophy" speaks to some of the groping unease expressed here with the inability of sociology (or social psych, or ethology, or biology...) alone to "get it right." If I am not wrong, I hear lots of people saying either, "Well, OK, but that doesn't explain X, Y, or Z in the right proportions," OR "We are not parsing out to the various disciplines the explanatory tasks in the right proportions." As Lynn S. wrote in a recent post: >> When all else fails, try a sociological explanation first! Bellah et al. speak to these "sociological reasons" in the "professional" nature of the modern academy, and argued: "For knowledge of society as a whole involves not merely the acquisition of useful insights from neighboring disciplines but transcending disciplinary boundaries altogether.... The most important boundary that must be transcended is the recent and quite arbitrary boundary between the social sciences and the humanities." Their remarks also remind me of a much older essay by C.P. Snow (?) on the "two worlds" of science... (cite, anyone?). Starts to sound like what Jean C. called for when she said: >>Valuable as such models are, they don't yet address things I consider >>to be more fundamental about social life, such as identity, meaning, >>the nature of agency and action, consciousness, and all the 'why' >>questions. Well, here is a program for the ambitious: What "discipline" can synthesize and transcend all these boundaries? IS it sociology? Is it the sociology we have now? To what extent have extant or historically placed disciplines (moral philosophy ?) tried, and under what circumstances? What warrants are used in these projects? Have fun. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Gavin Hougham University of Chicago ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From 34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU Tue Jun 11 10:41:29 1996 Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu [141.209.1.16]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id KAA20208 for ; Tue, 11 Jun 1996 10:41:27 -0600 (MDT) Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU by CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6125; Tue, 11 Jun 96 12:40:20 EDT Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (NJE origin 34LPF6T@CMUVM) by CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 9604; Tue, 11 Jun 1996 12:40:21 -0400 Date: Tue, 11 Jun 96 12:35:14 EDT From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: Graduate Student Awards To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY Message-Id: <960611.124019.EDT.34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> The Conflict/Social Action/Change Division of SSSP announced a Grad Student Paper Award. The focus of this year's Award includes: Peace and Conflict Activist Scholarship Social Change Community Activism and University/Community Relations. Enquire NANCY A. NAPLES, Sociology, U/Cal., Irvine, 92717 *********** The Red Feather Institute encourages Grad Students to send papers reflecting Progressive Scholarship on any topic to: TR Young 8085 Essex Weidman, Mi., 48893 Papers selected will recieve a very nice plaque and a suitably vague letter for your files. TR Young From hnashe@hnashe.com Thu Jun 13 07:52:14 1996 Received: from relay-2.mail.demon.net (disperse.demon.co.uk [158.152.1.77]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id HAA13956 for ; Thu, 13 Jun 1996 07:52:09 -0600 (MDT) Received: from post.demon.co.uk ([158.152.1.72]) by relay-2.mail.demon.net id ad23291; 13 Jun 96 14:39 +0100 Received: from hnashe.demon.co.uk ([194.222.38.95]) by relay-3.mail.demon.net id aa15036; 13 Jun 96 13:58 +0100 Message-ID: Date: Thu, 13 Jun 1996 13:58:11 +0100 To: SOCGRAD@csf.colorado.edu From: Philip Marshall Subject: Contributors Wanted MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Turnpike (evaluation) Version 1.12 Contributors Wanted In the summer of 1996, The International Guide for Environmental Solutions will be completed. We require all information/input in the way of editorial, reference material etc mailing lists WWW sites usenet groups etc... for this free service Please visit our test site at www.hnashe.com and e-mail us with your suggestions and what you think should be included. -- Philip Marshall Turnpike evaluation. For information, see http://www.turnpike.com/ From 34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU Sun Jun 16 06:16:45 1996 Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu [141.209.1.16]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id GAA20384 for ; Sun, 16 Jun 1996 06:16:43 -0600 (MDT) Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU by CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 9060; Sun, 16 Jun 96 08:15:17 EDT Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (NJE origin 34LPF6T@CMUVM) by CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 5571; Sun, 16 Jun 1996 08:15:17 -0400 Date: Sun, 16 Jun 96 07:35:04 EDT From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: Father's Day in a Motherless Land To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY Message-Id: <960616.081516.EDT.34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Father's Day is a non-event for most people in America. Some 14% of the population take it seriously enough to spend a dollar on a card and a quarter on a stamp...others ignore it assiduously. I would like to do two things for those of you who are interested in holy days and holidays. First, a few observations on the political economy of patriarchy and family values...then a poem...one of the very few written for fathers...millions for mothers but not one line for fathers...more about which later. The Political Economy of Patriarchy and a Lament for Institution- alized Cruelty: 1. Gender Inequality and the historical role of father emerged with settled agriculture some 40,000 years ago...that role was one of control of property; land, water, buildings, tools, herds, woods, and other features of the natural world upon which claims of ownership could be levied and enforced. 2. Women and children became property of males in patriarchical societies; men do not protect 'their' women...they protect the property value of women on the current marriage market. As property, men came to have the traditional rights of usafruct; the right to use, abuse and gather the fruit of the labor of women and children. 3. Property rights over animals and human beings is not an easy right to enforce. It takes cruelty, force, violence and close control of food and other resources to get such feisty creatures to obey the will of the father. 4. Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution changed all that. In a moment, the ancient rights and privileges of males; the ancient norms, roles and statuses of fathers became dissolved. As women and children were brought into the labor market, they came to possess resources of their own...outside the control of the father/husband/Head of Household. 5. When males/fathers/husbands do not mediate their relationship to the means of production, they become irrelevant...apart from some thin emotional gratitude for biological transfers or some faint remembrance of kind deeds in childhood, fathers are motherless in mass societies...few claim them as significant to the human project. 6. This transformation of the status of the father from Patriarch to non-person has been slow and continues as we pause to cele- brate Father's Day. With the passage of Women's Property Laws in England and the Americas in the late 19th century, women began their long journey from a fatherless family to a father- less land. Now ever more children are without fathers; and, as time goes by, more and more will be without mothers...hostages to the good life; hostages to fortune. Both motherhood and fatherhood, as social forms are destroyed/subverted by the market and by the state. 7. The State plays an increasing role in the control of children as patriarchy fails and as matriarchy erodes. Health, education, crime and social control migrate from the father to the State. And, as the fiscal crisis of the capitalist state continues, the state withdraws support for fatherless children...and passes laws directing that young women abstain from sex and from pregnancy...Light a Penny Candle from a Star! 6. But in a land devoid of family feeling; in a land in which property rights trump human rights, something must be done with those children surplus to the labor market; surplus to the life style of the person who fathered them; surplus to the budget priorities of the state; surplus to the nation in which they were born. In Michigan, the solution is to declare them adults and to put them in prison. Jonathan Swift would be delighted at this happy solution; George Orwell would roll in his grave at this use of the language. 7. So, today we celebrate Father's Day in a Motherless Land. And wonder why our children deny us. ************************* I do have one poem which praises Father....my own advice to men who feel badly that their children do not write to them...or call them on Father's Day is to do as I did...I decided that it would be better to be a mother to my children than to be a father...so I did. They like me better since I ceased to play the father role...I get cards, calls and poems like this: TO MAKE SPRING DANCE My father moved through dooms of love, through sames of am through haves of give, singing each morning our to each night, my father moved through deeps of height. And should some why completely weep, my father's fingers brought her sleep. vainly no smallest voice might cry, for he could make the mountains grow. His flesh was flesh his blood was blood no hungary man but wished him food. no cripple wouldn't creep a mile uphill to only see him smile. his sorrow was as true as bread, no liar looked him in the head. if every friend became his foe, he'd laugh and build a world of snow. My father moved throught theys of we, singing each new leaf out of each tree and every child was sure that spring danced when she heard my father sing. e.e. cummings 1940 with love to all the children, TR From cbrown@siu.edu Mon Jun 17 09:37:43 1996 Received: from saluki-mail.fiber2.siu.edu (SALUKI-MAIL.FIBER2.SIU.EDU [131.230.252.2]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id JAA08128 for ; Mon, 17 Jun 1996 09:37:41 -0600 (MDT) Received: from ws0008.socio.siu.edu by saluki-mail.fiber2.siu.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA25092; Mon, 17 Jun 1996 10:31:17 -0500 Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 10:31:17 -0500 Message-Id: <9606171531.AA25092@saluki-mail.fiber2.siu.edu> X-Sender: cbrown@Saluki-mail.siu.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu From: cbrown@siu.edu (Charles M. Brown) Subject: New Methods & Stats Site Hello All: I thought I would post a new site sponsered by our department: "Social Science Research Methods and Statistics: Resources for Teachers." You can get to the site via our departmental homepage at: http://www.siu.edu/~socio or you can go directly to the social science page via: http://www.siu.edu/~hawkes/methods.html The site has stuff for quantitative and qualitative methods and looks like a good resource for those who might be teaching a stats or methods course. Enjoy! Qapla' Chuck- ??????????????????????????????????????????????? ?? Charles M. Brown ?? "In this last of meeting places ?? Department of Sociology ?? We grope together ?? Southern Illinois University ?? And avoid speech ?? Carbondale, IL 62901 ?? Gathered on this beach ?? (618) 453-2494 ?? of the tumid river" ?? e-mail (cbrown@siu.edu) ?? T.S. Eliot/The Hollow Men ?? WWW: http://www.siu.edu/~socio/chaz.htm ?? ??????????????????????????????????????????????? From MERIN@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Tue Jun 18 23:03:28 1996 Received: from binah.cc.brandeis.edu (binah.cc.brandeis.edu [129.64.1.3]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id XAA10539 for ; Tue, 18 Jun 1996 23:03:27 -0600 (MDT) From: MERIN@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU Received: from BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU by BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU (PMDF V4.3-10 #10451) id <01I62OCWZ71S8WZ749@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU>; Wed, 19 Jun 1996 01:01:02 -0500 (EST) Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 01:01:02 -0500 (EST) Subject: Alberto Melucci To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu Message-id: <01I62OCWZQC28WZ749@BINAH.CC.BRANDEIS.EDU> X-VMS-To: IN%"socgrad@csf.colorado.edu" MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Just wondering if anyone besides a bunch of us at Brandeis are reading Melucci- Nomads of the Present: Social Movements and Individual Needs in Contemporary Society. I would be interested to hear any and all opinions. I find him to be both lucid and provocative. I've heard him called habermasian, but in my opinion this is completely off the mark though I see where the idea comes from. He does discuss democracy in an optimistic fashion perhaps, but he completely questions the problems with critical theory relying on the notion of a humanist subject. I find him making much more of a contribution in terms of a rethinking of power in the manner of Foucault. This summary does not do him justice, but if you have read him, I would love to hear your comments. Thanks, Sarah Merin "Depuis le temps que c'est promis nous irons tous au paradis- C'est un appel sourd, une promesse aveulant qui noie la consciance; ce paradis me pese, son poids incommensurable abruti. . .Myths, they lie heavy, l'immaginaire is our worse enemy, the paradise, what an idea! A guardian still on duty" -- Stereolab From tombrown@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu Tue Jun 18 23:27:19 1996 Received: from jhuml1.hcf.jhu.edu (jhuml1.hcf.jhu.edu [128.220.2.86]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id XAA11079 for ; Tue, 18 Jun 1996 23:27:17 -0600 (MDT) Received: from jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #5488) id <01I62POWLCXS8WX1JZ@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for socgrad@csf.colorado.edu; Wed, 19 Jun 1996 01:26:53 -0400 (EDT) Received: from jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu by jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu (PMDF V5.0-7 #5488) id <01I62POVOUSC8Y5W20@jhmail.hcf.jhu.edu> for socgrad@csf.colorado.edu; Wed, 19 Jun 1996 01:26:52 -0400 (EDT) Received: from jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu by jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu id <872-8>; Wed, 19 Jun 1996 01:26:46 -0400 Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 01:26:34 -0400 From: Thomas F Brown Subject: Re: Alberto Melucci To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu Message-id: <96Jun19.012646edt.872-8@jhunix.hcf.jhu.edu> Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT I've read some Melucci, and found it stimulating, if a bit long-winded in the euro tradition. The most useful part of his social movement theorizing for me is the notion of submerged and/or latent networks. A lot of his ideas about the role of symbolism in movements are also interesting, if a bit less original. Pretentious? Moi? From DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu Thu Jun 20 12:28:21 1996 Received: from YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (yalevm.ycc.yale.edu [130.132.21.136]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id MAA17661; Thu, 20 Jun 1996 12:28:09 -0600 (MDT) Received: from UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU by YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8735; Thu, 20 Jun 96 14:26:42 EDT Received: from UConnVM.UConn.Edu (NJE origin DAVIDSON@UCONNVM) by UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 2983; Thu, 20 Jun 1996 14:27:31 -0400 Date: Thu, 20 Jun 96 14:26:23 EDT From: Alan Davidson Subject: New ESS list (fwd) To: socgrad@CSF.COLORADO.EDU cc: psn-cafe@CSF.COLORADO.EDU X-Mailer: MailBook 95.01.000 Message-Id: <960620.142728.EDT.DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu> A new list focusing on the Eastern Sociological Society ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Jun 96 14:23:31 EDT From: TMILLS@UConnVM.UConn.Edu Organization: University of Connecticut Subject: New ESS list Thought my colleagues should be the first to know about the listserv list ESSOC-L@uconnvm.uconn.edu - it was created a few minutes ago and is now available for subscriptions. It's the official EMail list of the Eastern Sociological Society, of course, and while nothing's going on yet, the conversations will gradually begin as the summer wears on. You could be the first kid on your block with an ESSOC-L subscription! Send EMail to listserv@uconnvm.uconn.edu with a blank subject line and the message reading: Sub essoc-l _fn_ln_ where _fn_ln_ is replaced by your first and last names. Ted ======================================================================= FACULTY RESOURCE LAB TEL. 860 486 5052 (FAX 860 486 1410) UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT, RM MSB036, UBOX 138-F, STORRS, CT 06269-3138 FRL Web page at http://yoda.ucc.uconn.edu/users/millst/index.html * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TED MILLS, COORDINATOR MADHU VODAPALLI, GRADUATE ASSISTANT RENEE SONNENBLICK, GRADUATE ASSISTANT BARBARA JOHNSON, TRAINER/CONSULTANT A SERVICE OF THE UNIVERSITY TEACHING INSTITUTE From 34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU Sun Jun 23 06:04:32 1996 Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu [141.209.1.16]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id GAA24236 for ; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 06:04:31 -0600 (MDT) Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU by CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 8513; Sun, 23 Jun 96 08:03:03 EDT Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (NJE origin 34LPF6T@CMUVM) by CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 4957; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 08:03:03 -0400 Date: Sun, 23 Jun 96 07:35:27 EDT From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: The Deep and Fractal Structures of Social Class To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY Message-Id: <960623.080302.EDT.34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Graduate Students in American Sociology must, sooner or later, come to terms with the new sciences of Chaos and Complexity. To that time, I will offer occasional mini-tutorials on it...beginning with this explication on class segments...it comes in two parts. 1. Chaos theory sets some five dynamical states. Each succeeding regime displays: a. ever-more non-linear processes which produce b. ever-more complex structures. In the case of class structure, this means that as the key variables which produce class structure(s) increase in value, 'bifurcations' (forkings) occur in the course of a) and b), above. With each bifurcation, the number of class sectors increase. Marx began with two classes; bourgeoisie and proletariat. Even in the time of Marx, industrial and finance capital had been organized in such a way to produce several more class sectors/segments. To accomodate the growing complexity of class structure, Marx spoke of 3) a petite bourgeosis as huge companies began to dominate the production and distribution of social goods and services...and 4), a 'surplus' population...those disemployed by the increasing productivity of industrial capitalism. By the time Eric Olin Wright stopped to count class sectors, he found 16. If Chaos theory is relevant to class dynamics, this new class sectors were produced by the increase in key variables. Let us, for discussion purposes, assume so. 2. Each bifurcation produces a doubling of class segments. 2, 4, 8, 16....n. Other nonlinear processes may re-unite class segments so that the count is not always divisible by two. With each new set of class segments, each segment becomes more and more FRACTAL. That is, it takes up a fraction of the time- space available to it. In euclidean geometry, 2+ dimensional structures are solid. They occupy all the space available to them...a point, a line, a cube [or as it turns out, even more complex structures] are not open...it is impossible for two euclidean structures to occupy the same time-space structure...not so fractal structures. Fractal structures are loose with considerable open space within the region they occupy. This becomes a very interesting point when one considers class structures...it means that race, gender, religious and other social structures can have variable causal connections to class. Wow! You won't find this in the neat and tidy dynamics of newtonian physics. There is one more very technical but most interesting point about bifurcations...in deterministic chaos, they occur in a most elegant and precise procession...there is great order in chaotic regimes...the mission of postmodern science ground- ed on Chaos theory is to discover the point at which key factors produce bifurcations. It is very important to remember that non-linear social dynamics are not deterministic in the sense meant in the physical sciences. Faith, imagination, trust, remembrance and forgetting render all structures produced by SYMBOLIC INTERACTION and DEFINITIONS of the Situation semi-deterministic...remember this when physicists and mathematicians among us talk of social physics... Self-similar and qualitatively different fractals/patterns/ attractors do not follow the elegant procession to chaos seen in simple chaotic regimes. Remember this. 3. The Key Variables which Drive Class Bifurcations. There is no research on this point...in sociology, there is no such research design nor are there analytic tools with which to sort out the driving factors in complex class bifurcations. But don't despair. We can always speculate. That's what I've been doing these past seven or eight years. Others, with more insight and a better grasp of the literature are most cordially invited to critique and surpass my speculations. 1. The Division of Labor...capitalism itself drives a division of labor...a technical division of labor which may not have too much relevance to class inequality and class divisions...and a social division of labor...I tend to think that it is the social division of labor which is a key factor. In capitalism, some part of surplus value is expropriated by teh capitalist class...some of it is used to consolidate social and political power...and thus serves as a positive feedback mechanism which produces ever greater class inequality. The social division of labor, as it proceeds, requires additional class sectors to manage/reproduce class relations: managers, supervisions, lawyers, labor specialists and such. It is the value of this parameter/variable which, it seems to me, to drive at least part of the bifurcation process. There are surely more key variables which drive class structures into greater and greater complexity...and into ever more fuzzy structures...among them may be nationalism, racism, ethnicity, religious sensibility...anything which divides rather than unites human beings...not excluding warfare. 4. Feedback. There are three kinds of feedback which affect the number and quality of the fractal structures which emerge from non-linear [chaotic] dynamics. Indeed, the concept of causality is casulty to Chaos theory... but more of that below. 1. Positive feedback tend to 'blow the system apart.' That is, the rational [steady, regular, systematic] appropriation of surplus value will destroy the capitalist system. This effect is registered in both kondratieff waves and in kutznets waves for class dynamics...[think about how positive feedback between speaker and mike create a screech...that's positive feeback at work]. Even at 7% profit per year, the wealth of capitalist class doubles every 14 years. 2. Negative feedback. In the case of class analysis, the more surplus value appropriated, the greater the risk of class warfare. This is a negative effect of a rational system of accumulation. Negative feedback may well work to control/ extinguish human behavior in controlled environments such as a psych lab, a prison or a 'well-run' factory. Yet, in the messy, complex and non-linear runs of human behavior in complex social settings, negative feedback loses causal efficacy...remember that when you hear a lecture on control theory or S-R modelling or Operant Conditioning...and when those who like pain and punishment too much want more and 'better' prisons. 3. Non-linear feedback. Curiously enough, only chaos can cope with chaos...in class analysis, there must be some mechanism for the distribution of surplus profit not rational in terms of class divisions. Enter the Welfare State...as non-rational as one could hope for....it redistributes wealth and thus, preserves class inequality at a safe level. There are other 'non-rational' i.e., non-linear mechanisms at work to save capitalism from the twin beasts of positive and negative feedback. Crime. Crime, as any capitalist will tell you, is ir- rational...irrational within the logics of capitalism that is. Some say that, in the USA, crime accounts for from 8% to 25% of gnp...I doubt it since much of what counts as economic crime is really capitalism before it is legitimated: drugs, pornography, tax evasion and so on are defined as crime. Kinship systems are most irrational...nonlinear. A great deal of wealth is redistributed via the kinship system [itself bifurcating rapidly!]. Indeed the value of goods and services redistributed in the family probably exceeds that of the market...[one can see why 'family values' are so important to Republicans...'tis a great way to transfer costs of production/dis-employ- ment to other class segments. 5. My last point is this min'ture tutorial on Class and Chaos is that both causality and thus control fade and fail as dynamics become ever more nonlinear; as structures become ever more fractal [fuzzy]. Efforts to burn black churches as a control tactic are sub- stantively irrational...they won't work...nor will efforts to control American Patriots, Freemen, Michigan Militias or everyday criminals. The radical program of social justice turns out to be a better way to stabilize chaotic regimes than are progressively higher runs of pain or punishment. Workers, women, criminals, kids and corporations become intrans- igent. Those in both the liberal and conservative camp who think that more and more laws, guards, prisons, computer-track- ing; in a word, more rationality will work are, if Chaos theory is relevant...sadly in error. I will leave you with this last, most encouraging point...there is, in the PSN Archives, several articles which pick up on these points and develop them a bit...PSN is not the place for anything more than a bare bones treatment but I trust this new science of complexity and nonlinearity has piqued your curiousity as it has mine. There are two ways to access these articles: Gopher: gopher csf.colorado.edu [the same server as socgrad] select: Progressive Sociology select: Authors select: Young.TR select whichever article fits your interests. The one on Chaos and Symbolic Interaction is a good place to start. 2. Web Browsers: http://csf.colorade.edu Then follow the pathways abover. Part II to follow. all good luck in your very complex life. TR From DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu Sun Jun 23 10:16:43 1996 Received: from YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (yalevm.ycc.yale.edu [130.132.21.136]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id KAA01159 for ; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 10:16:41 -0600 (MDT) Received: from UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU by YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 2878; Sun, 23 Jun 96 12:15:15 EDT Received: from UConnVM.UConn.Edu (NJE origin DAVIDSON@UCONNVM) by UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 5804; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 12:16:09 -0400 Date: Sun, 23 Jun 96 12:15:48 EDT From: Alan Davidson To: socgrad@CSF.COLORADO.EDU X-Mailer: MailBook 95.01.000 Message-Id: <960623.121607.EDT.DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu> I have been informed that I will be teaching a Social Problems course this fall. Given that it has been some time since I last taught this course, I was wondering what might be available, or useful, especially in terms of readers for this course -- I am especially interested in Social constructionist and "post-constructionist" -- Marxist cultural studies approaches. Thanks for any help. From nelsencl@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu Sun Jun 23 17:29:23 1996 Received: from ctrvx1.Vanderbilt.Edu (ctrvx1.Vanderbilt.Edu [129.59.1.21]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id RAA11202 for ; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 17:29:21 -0600 (MDT) Received: from dial118.Vanderbilt.Edu by ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu (PMDF V5.0-5 #11488) id <01I69AJNFHG08XVT6S@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu> for socgrad@csf.colorado.edu; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 18:28:20 -0500 (CDT) Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1996 18:28:20 -0500 (CDT) Date-warning: Date header was inserted by ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu From: Candice Nelsen X-Sender: nelsencl@ctrvax.vanderbilt.edu To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu Message-id: <01I69AJO299U8XVT6S@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Are commands for controlling one's subscription to the SOCGRAD discussion listserver sent to socgrad@cfs.colorado.edu or to a different address? I would appreciate it if someone could let me know! Please contact me directly at: NELSENCL@CTRVAX.VANDERBILT.EDU Thanks in advance! Candice Nelsen From DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu Sun Jun 23 18:44:02 1996 Received: from UCSD.EDU (mailbox2.ucsd.edu [132.239.1.54]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id SAA13674 for ; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 18:44:00 -0600 (MDT) Received: from none.at.helo (yalevm.ycc.yale.edu [130.132.21.136]) by UCSD.EDU (8.7.5/8.6.9) with SMTP id RAA05720 for ; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 17:43:54 -0700 (PDT) Received: from UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU by YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 3209; Sun, 23 Jun 96 20:42:27 EDT Received: from UConnVM.UConn.Edu (NJE origin DAVIDSON@UCONNVM) by UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 2705; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 20:43:19 -0400 Date: Sun, 23 Jun 96 20:42:47 EDT From: Alan Davidson Subject: address To: Candice , socgrad@UCSD.EDU X-Mailer: MailBook 95.01.000 Message-Id: <960623.204318.EDT.DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu> The address for all subscription activity is listproc@csf.colorado.edu. From DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu Sun Jun 23 19:03:07 1996 Received: from YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (yalevm.ycc.yale.edu [130.132.21.136]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id TAA14182; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 19:03:03 -0600 (MDT) Received: from UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU by YaleVM.CIS.Yale.Edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 3218; Sun, 23 Jun 96 21:01:36 EDT Received: from UConnVM.UConn.Edu (NJE origin DAVIDSON@UCONNVM) by UCONNVM.UCONN.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 3003; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 21:02:28 -0400 Date: Sun, 23 Jun 96 21:01:37 EDT From: Alan Davidson Subject: Fwd: Sokal Text (fwd) To: psn-cafe@CSF.COLORADO.EDU, socgrad@CSF.COLORADO.EDU cc: Mary , Dan , Dennis X-Mailer: MailBook 95.01.000 Message-Id: <960623.210226.EDT.DAVIDSON@UConnVM.UConn.Edu> ----------------------------Original message---------------------------- Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1996 14:13:37 CST From: system@CCTR.UMKC.EDU To: STS-LIST@CCTR.UMKC.EDU Subject: Fwd: Sokal Text The following are Norman Levitt's comments about my post concerning the immense media publicity surrounding the Sokal prank. As you can see he gives permission to post them. Val Dusek --------------------- Forwarded message: From: njlevitt@haven.ios.com (Norman Levitt) To: Valdusek@aol.com (Val Dusek) CC: prg@faraday.clas.Virginia.EDU (Paul R. Gross) Date: 96-06-19 09:45:06 EDT Here are some comments about your recent STS posting, re Alan Sokal's little prank and the issues it raises for and within the left. You may post this to that list--or not--as you see fit. (1) The list of people "in the know" about Alan's gag was quite extensive and wide ranging, politically and otherwise. It included a number of reporters and writers, who accepted the information on their professional honor not to use it until Alan's "Lingua Franca" piece appeared. The problem with Kimball was really one of timing; his intended piece in the "New Criterion" treating the article as the hoax it was would have appeared only a few days after LF, and this would have been cutting it too fine, leading to the erroneous impression (which even now has taken hold of some paranoid minds) that Alan was somehow in cahoots with TNC, NAS, the Olin Foundation, etc. (2) The fact that the story took off the way it did, starting with an AP item, which led to a feature on "All Things Considered", and thence to the New York Times story, and so forth, amazes me no end. I don't think I presume too far when I say that it amazes the hell out of Alan as well. Frankly, I didn't expect to see much beyond a couple of column-inches in Chron. of Higher Ed., if that. (3) The really interesting reaction is that which arose from the Left press--"In These Times", the "Nation"--which was just as gleeful as Kimball!! This is echoed in the reaction of many left-activists in the NYC area (at least) who are thoroughly amused. Partly, this arises from personal factors--a number of prominent "Social Text" types are nowhere as beloved on the Left as they seem to think they are, and their conceit and self-promotion has bred enemies. But there are less personal, and more important reasons, as well. Many honest leftists are just plain sick and tired at what has passed for left-theory in the academic world, specifically the stuff that can be tagged "postmodern", whether Foucauldian, deconstructionist, or "feminist" (heavy scare quotes here). (See Noam Chomsky's remarks on the Net and elsewhere in this regard.) Alan's little prank seems to have catylyzed this discontent, and a lot of long-hidden daggers came out. By the way, amusement at Alan's satunt extends even to some "Social Text" editors!! Maybe someone has a theory of how this is all the work of the Pioneer Foundation--but I doubt it. (3) It's my impression that most of the reporters and editorialists who wrote stories on the affair are fairly left-of-center as well (though some-like Kimball--obviously aren't). They too are pretty sick of having "progressive" thought assimilated to pomo folderol. In any case, it's amazing that such a wide range of political philosophies have responded so uniformly to the hoax, and to it's symbolic status as an index of pomo foolishness. (4) On foundations: the "liberal" foundations can be just as dogmatic as the conservative, perhaps moreso. My direct knowledge is limited, hence anecdotal, but, for what it's worth, here it is: Paul and I ran a conference for NYAS on the recrudescence of irrationalism in contemporary culture (in which category we implicitly included a certain amount of recent "Academic left" twaddle, though that was by no means the main focus0. Part of the funding came from right-wing foundations: Olin and Bradley. The funding was based on an honest description of the conference: that it wouldn't be primarily political and, to the extent that politics was an issue, a wide spectrum of views, including those of the radical left, would be represented. (As it turned out, the most "political" presentation was a denunciation of the Christian Right, and even the "conservataive" stuff was scarcely hard-right.) We got the money without further comments or suggestions from these foundations, nor did we ever hear from them, positively or negatively, about the content of the conference or the views of any speakers. On the other hand, we had an interesting experience with a mainstream foundation, whose special brief is to promote public engagement with, and understanding of science. Initially, the very sensible program officer we contacted was quite enthusiastic and as good as promised us a substantial grant. Thereafter, a few weeks went by without further word. Subsequently, when I contacted the program officer again, he told me, with evident discomfort and embarassment, that our project was not within the mission of his foundation--an arrant white lie, since it fell smack within the foundations own guidelines. There was a faint hint that unnamed others on the foundation staff had hit the roof at the suggestion that any kind of challenge to academic-left pieties--or to sacred cows like EF Keller and S Harding--should be subsidized. I don't know about you, by I certainly heard the elfin footfalls of PC pixies pattering in the underbrush. Make of this what you will. (5) I quite agree that most commentators failed to note the difference between the "Social Text" crowd and hard-core STS--although the notorious ST 46-47 was primarily written by that hard core. I'm also on record as agreeing that an outright STS journal--"Science, Technology, and Human Values" or "Social Studies of Science"--probably wouldn't have accepted Alan's piece. They have a better ear for the way "real scientists" talk, and probably would have found the thing too outlandish. I'm not sure that they would have recognized it as an outright joke however. I was in e-mail contact with one of the ST contributors (I'll let you guess which one) just after ST 46-47 came out, but before the LF story broke. This individual is certainly a major player in left-STS. While he certainly thought the Sokal piece bizarre, he had no idea that it might be a joke until he was heavily prodded--by, e.g., getting some of Alan's straight physics papers sent to him. In any event, it's my opinion that it would certainly be possible to spoof an STS journal, though the strategy and the diction would have to be quite different. I'm not going to do it--I have too many other things going right now--so you may dismiss this as idle speculation, if you wish. But don't be too sure. By the way, this seems to be spoof season in academia. There was the wonderful "Manfred Mickleson" affair (which was surprisingly little publicized). Also, I suspect that recent issues of the lit-crit crowd's "PMLA" have unwittingly hosted a bitterly sarcastic put-on. I'll leave you to investigate for yourselves. (5) Keller and conspiracies: EF Keller certainly seems to think that some reactionary conspiracy was involved in the begetting of "Higher Superstition"; she's wrong. Nobody encouraged that project other than the authors, and damned few other people even knw about it--mostly, our long-suffering families. Regards, Norm Levitt From cbrown@siu.edu Sun Jun 23 20:50:10 1996 Received: from saluki-mail.fiber2.siu.edu (SALUKI-MAIL.FIBER2.SIU.EDU [131.230.252.2]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id UAA15960 for ; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 20:50:08 -0600 (MDT) Received: from port200.aixdialin.siu.edu by saluki-mail.fiber2.siu.edu (AIX 3.2/UCB 5.64/4.03) id AA19329; Sun, 23 Jun 1996 21:43:23 -0500 Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1996 21:43:23 -0500 Message-Id: <9606240243.AA19329@saluki-mail.fiber2.siu.edu> X-Sender: cbrown@Saluki-mail.siu.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Version 1.4.4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu From: cbrown@siu.edu (Charles M. Brown) Subject: Re: > >I have been informed that I will be teaching a Social Problems course >this fall. Given that it has been some time since I last taught this course, >I was wondering what might be available, or useful, especially in terms of >readers for this course -- I am especially interested in Social constructionist > and "post-constructionist" -- Marxist cultural studies approaches. > >Thanks for any help. Alan: For Social Constructionist approaches, you might want to check out the following Aldine De Gruyter titles: 1. Images of Issues: Typifying Contemporary Social Problems (Joel Best, Ed.) 2. Troubling Children: Studies of Children and Social Problems (Joel Best, Ed.) ( I believe there is a new edition currently out) 3. Constructionist Controversies: Issues in Social Problems Theory (Gale Miller and James A. Holstein, Eds.) Qapla' Chuck- ??????????????????????????????????????????????? ?? Charles M. Brown ?? "In this last of meeting places ?? Department of Sociology ?? We grope together ?? Southern Illinois University ?? And avoid speech ?? Carbondale, IL 62901 ?? Gathered on this beach ?? (618) 453-2494 ?? of the tumid river" ?? e-mail (cbrown@siu.edu) ?? T.S. Eliot/The Hollow Men ?? WWW: http://www.siu.edu/~socio/chaz.htm ?? ??????????????????????????????????????????????? From dave.l.brunsma.1@nd.edu Mon Jun 24 06:53:57 1996 Received: from nd.edu (nd.edu [129.74.250.101]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id GAA01966 for ; Mon, 24 Jun 1996 06:53:55 -0600 (MDT) Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 06:53:55 -0600 (MDT) Message-Id: <199606241253.GAA01966@csf.Colorado.EDU> Received: from dbrunsma.nd.edu (actually tty4-12.tc.nd.edu) by nd.edu with ND-SMTP (PP); Mon, 24 Jun 1996 07:52:40 -0500 X-Sender: dave.l.brunsma.1@nd.edu X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Pro Version 2.1.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu From: dave brunsma Subject: Re: At 12:15 PM 6/23/96 EDT, you wrote: > >I have been informed that I will be teaching a Social Problems course >this fall. Given that it has been some time since I last taught this course, >I was wondering what might be available, or useful, especially in terms of >readers for this course -- I am especially interested in Social constructionist > and "post-constructionist" -- Marxist cultural studies approaches. > >Thanks for any help. > Alan, I'd be interested in the info you get and the approach you are interested in taking. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------- David L. Brunsma Department of Sociology University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556 (219) 258-4345 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------- From 34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU Mon Jun 24 06:59:17 1996 Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu [141.209.1.16]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id GAA02416 for ; Mon, 24 Jun 1996 06:59:15 -0600 (MDT) Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU by CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 0071; Mon, 24 Jun 96 08:57:48 EDT Received: from CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (NJE origin 34LPF6T@CMUVM) by CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU (LMail V1.2a/1.8a) with BSMTP id 8222; Mon, 24 Jun 1996 08:57:48 -0400 Date: Mon, 24 Jun 96 08:30:12 EDT From: "T R. Young" <34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Organization: Central Michigan University Subject: Graduate Student Page To: GRADUATE STUDENTS IN SOCIOLOGY Message-Id: <960624.085747.EDT.34LPF6T@CMUVM.CSV.CMICH.EDU> Graduate Students might like to take a look at the grad student page published in FROM THE LEFT. The newsletter comes to all members of the Marxist Section of the ASA in your department and removes easily for duplication...or any one can get a copy upon request and a snail mail address. ************ TYPICAL ITEMS: **ASA Committe on Graduate Education will have a series of sessions on graduate education at the NY meetings in August. Workshops include: Socializing Grad Students; Preparing and Using GTA's; Effective MA Programs in Sociology. FROM THE LEFT would be pleased to report on these and other seminars if there is a Grad Student who would like to sit in, take notes and send them along. **The AFL-CIO is, according to Dan Clawson and Rick Fantasia, an new source of employment for grad students. Information and the full article is in the May/June 1996 issue of Footnotes. **Afro-American Grad Students are invited to attend a series of sessions organized by the ABS in the ASA/NY meetings. This series was organized by three grad students at NCarolina St.U. Contact or Sessions include issues on the interaction of race, class and gender as well as on crime and inequality. **The Red Feather Institute has honored 11 grad students for progressive scholarship. They include: James Yarbrough, Texas Woman's University Vincent Roscigno, NCarolina State Bruce Marino, NCarolina State Jacqueline Johnson, NCarolina State Sven Johnson, Florida State Timothy Chester, Texas A&M Brian Ault, UMinn Melissa Herman, Stanford Daniel Harrison, Florida State Heidi Hendrikson, Texas Woman's University SEan Noonan, Kansas State **A new round of Awards begin in August. Send your best work to: TR Young, Director The Red Feather Institute 8085 Essex, Weidman, Mi., 48893 **The Woodrow Wilson International Center has 35 residential fellow- ships to award. Max stipend is $61,000. Write: Fellowship Programs WWCenter, 1000 Jefferson Dr. SW, SI MRC 022 Wash., DC, 20560 Email: ,wcfellow@sivm.si.edu> **Nominations for the Al Syzmanski Award for Grad Students can be sent to Martin Murray at: Department of Sociology SUNY Binghamton, NY, 13901 **Send news of general interest of happenings in your department to TR Young for inclusion in the Grad Student Page. TRYoung From cassell@frosty.irss.unc.edu Mon Jun 24 07:02:25 1996 Received: from frosty.irss.unc.edu (frosty.irss.unc.edu [152.2.32.82]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id HAA02650 for ; Mon, 24 Jun 1996 07:02:23 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from cassell@localhost) by frosty.irss.unc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.10) id JAA04077; Mon, 24 Jun 1996 09:02:01 -0400 Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 09:02:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Cassell To: Sociology Graduate Student Discussion Subject: Job announcement (fwd) Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII FYI; note that you must read and speak Chinese. - Jim ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Cassell jwcassell@UNC.EDU Institute for Research in Social Science Phone: 919-962-0782 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Fax: 919-962-4777 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3355 USA ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 11:53:23 CST From: CMLIN To: ipe@csf.colorado.edu, econ-soc-dev@mailbase.ac.uk, economy@tecmtyvm.mty.itesm.mx, econet@igc.apc.org, trade-strategy@igc.apc.org, cti-econ@mailbase.ac.uk, cansee@yorku.ca, resecon@lsv.uky.edu, casid-l@vml.mcgill.ca, law-europe@mailbase.ac.uk, urbanet <@ripken.oit.unc.edu:urbanet@msu.edusos-data>, econlaw@gmu.edu, labor-l@vm1.yorku.ca, law-economics@mailbase.ac.uk, civilrts@chicagokent.kentlaw.edu, hrnet@cornell.edu, ethno%rpitsvm.BITNET@vtvm1.cc.vt.edu, familysci@ukcc.uky.edu, socbb@soc.surrey.ac.uk, socforum@jhuvm.hcf.jhu.edu, pol-econ@shsu.edu, socpol-l@vmd.cso.uiuc.edu, trade@csf.colorado.edu, rip-pol-econ@mailbase.ac.uk, cope@shsu.edu, labor@shsu.edu, industrial-relations@mailbase.ac.uk Subject: Job announcement Please excuse any cross-posting -- this message is sent to a number of lists. Feel free to cross-post as you think appropriate. INSTITUTE OF EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN STUDIES, ACADEMIA SINICA, TAIPEI JOB POSTING -- JUNIOR RESEARCH FELLOWS With financial support from the government of Taiwan, the Institute is dedicated to interdisciplinary research on various aspects of the United States and Europe. The Institute is seeking researchers for its Social and Economic Unit. Further information about the Institute as well as Academia Sinica is available at http://www.sinica.edu.tw. DESIRED QUALIFICATIONS: Ph.D. degree in a social science discipline relevant to the study of international political economy, international trade theory and policy, industrial organizations, human resources, social structure and transitions, and related socio-economic fields. Demonstrated knowledge of social science data and research methodology, ability and interest in pursuing projects that contribute to the mandates of the Institute or the Social-Economic Unit, and ability to communicate clearly in both spoken and written professional Chinese and at least one of the three western languages: English, German or French. CONTACT: Present Applications for these positions to the following office: Office of Social and Economic Unit Room 301 Institute of European and American Studies Academia Sinica Nankang, Taipei 115 Taiwan Phone: (886-2) 789-9390 ext 234 Fax: (886-2) 785-1787 e-mail: cmlin@eanovell.ea.sinica.edu.tw From jball@ucsd.edu Mon Jun 24 22:03:42 1996 Received: from mail.ucsd.edu (ucsd.edu [132.239.254.201]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id WAA02629 for ; Mon, 24 Jun 1996 22:03:41 -0600 (MDT) Received: from [137.110.202.97] by mail.ucsd.edu; id VAA07925 sendmail 8.6.12/UCSD-2.2-sun via SMTP Mon, 24 Jun 1996 21:03:36 -0700 for X-Sender: jball@weber.ucsd.edu Message-Id: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Mon, 24 Jun 1996 21:07:17 +0000 To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu From: jball@ucsd.edu (Joann D. Ball) Subject: Digest Option for List? Greetings everyone. I thought I'd post this question to the list in case any one else might be interested... Is there a *digest* option for socgrad? If so, please send instructions/directions. Thanks, Joann ============================================================================== Joann D. Ball: Founder, Hyndesight Productions (Pretenders Info. Service) Graduate Student, UCSD Dept. of Sociology Home Phone/Fax#: 619/453-1852 ** Join the Pretenders listserv!!** Send a message to: majordomo@hers.com with "subscribe pretend-l-digest" in the message body. [Pretenders Web site, run by Warner Bros. at: http://www.wbr.com/Pretenders] From cassell@frosty.irss.unc.edu Tue Jun 25 07:05:25 1996 Received: from frosty.irss.unc.edu (frosty.irss.unc.edu [152.2.32.82]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.5/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with SMTP id HAA27127 for ; Tue, 25 Jun 1996 07:05:24 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from cassell@localhost) by frosty.irss.unc.edu (8.6.12/8.6.10) id JAA13513; Tue, 25 Jun 1996 09:05:01 -0400 Date: Tue, 25 Jun 1996 09:05:01 -0400 (EDT) From: Jim Cassell To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Re: Digest Option for List? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII On Mon, 24 Jun 1996, Joann D. Ball wrote: > > Greetings everyone. I thought I'd post this question to the list in case > any one else might be interested... > > Is there a *digest* option for socgrad? > > If so, please send instructions/directions. > > Thanks, > Joann > Yes; send the command set socgrad mail digest in the body of an email message addressed to listproc@csf.colorado.edu There are a number of other useful commands given in the attached help document. (I got this by sending the word "help" (without quotes) to listproc@csf.colorado.edu.) Best, Jim ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Jim Cassell jwcassell@UNC.EDU Institute for Research in Social Science Phone: 919-962-0782 University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Fax: 919-962-4777 Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3355 USA CSF (Communications for a Sustainable Future) is the integration of discussion lists and archives http://csf.colorado.edu Some of the larger discussion lists supported by CSF are IPE FEMISA PKT ECOFEM SERVICE-LEARNING PSN PEACE PPN ELAN ENVTECSOC WSN ISAFP PEW ECOL-ECON HOMELESS REVS CNIE EGT TRADE FUTUREWORK CLIM-ECON BIOREGIONAL BCWatershed LONGWAVES SOCGRAD DEBT The discussion lists at CSF are served by the ListProc software copyrighted by CREN (see the bottom of this file). 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