Engaged Sociology in Neoliberal Times

prof. Giampaolo Baiocchi, Gallatin School, New York University

This short course explores scholarly debates about engaged sociology, with a focus on recent, self-consciously political works in the English-language traditions. While we will spend some time in the course on mini-lectures on long standing themes in sociology, such as value-neutrality and objective, stand-point theory, the scientific standing of the discipline, and reflexivity, the focus of the course will be squarely on the political project of engaged sociology. Particular attention will be thus paid to 1) how the political is constituted in sociological work, and where it manifests, from the definition of the research object, to the nature of the sociological outputs - or anywhere in between 2) the complex question of engagement itself - and how a variety of relationships structure intellectual production 3) the conditions of production of sociological work today, and whether we are living in a particular moment of anti-politics in the academy, and 4) on propositional alternatives, such as “public sociology,” “problem-solving sociology,” “real utopian sociology,” among others. Students will acquire critical literacy in these questions and debates, including when they touch adjacent disciplines and discussions.