Has Sociology Progressed

Looking back over the last 60 years of sociology in the UK, this book addresses the question of progress in the discipline. Campbell's critical and autobiographical reflections offer fresh insights into the history of sociology, and engages with the notion of academic reputation, how it is measured, and what it can tell us about scholarly progress. Has Sociology Progressed? will be of special interest to all sociologists and would-be sociologists interested in the past, present and future of their discipline, as well as scholars contemplating academic progress and motivation in general.

First published in 2002. Dr. Leslie Sklair is a Reader in Sociology at LSE. He took his BA (hons) in Sociology and Philosophy from Leeds University and his MA in Sociology from McMaster University in Canada. He received his PhD from LSE, and his thesis, Sociology of Progress, was published by Routledge in 1970.

Is there a future for sociology? To many, sociology seems to have lost its way. Born of the ideas of Auguste Comte in the nineteenth century, sociology established itself as 'the science of modernity', linked to a progressive view of history. Yet today the idea of progress has more or less collapsed; with its demise, some say, sociological thought has moved to the margins of contemporary intellectual culture. In this book the author challenges such an interpretation, showing that sociology continues to hold a central position within the social sciences. Looking both to the past of sociology and the diversity of intellectual trends found in the present-day, Giddens explores many aspects of the sociological heritage. Comte, Durkheim, Parsons, Marshall, and Habermas are among the figures covered. Giddens also connects sociological work directly to current political issues and places the discipline of sociology in the context of broad questions of social and political theory. This book will be of interest to undergraduates and professionals in the fields of sociology, anthropology and political science.

This book shows the potential of posthuman thinking for rethinking health care, experiences, subjects and interventions. It explores a range of posthuman dilemmas across diverse health issues as contributors grapple with the ethical, ontological and epistemological relations of knowing and doing health. The volume problematizes the rational, agentic individual as the key driver of health-related action and experience. Contributors move beyond long-held humanist assumptions about health, illness, and well-being and attune – theoretically and methodologically - to the entangled relations or ecologies that instantiate realities. They reimagine how care practices and healthcare experiences materialise through human-non-human relationality as biosocial environments. Chapters explore and articulate the agency of more-than-human entities in health-related processes to shed new light on health interventions, evaluations, and health policy. Taken together, the book highlights that although posthumanism enables health sociologists to progress particular agendas, it is essential to further problematise the posthuman decentring of the human by bringing sustained attention to bear on the ethical and political implications of this approach to knowledge-making in health. This field-defining collection consolidates and builds momentum in the burgeoning area of posthuman thinking in health. It will appeal to scholars and researchers seeking to understand health as a relational achievement better. This book was originally published as a special issue of Health Sociology Review.

First published in 2002. Dr. Leslie Sklair is a Reader in Sociology at LSE. He took his BA (hons) in Sociology and Philosophy from Leeds University and his MA in Sociology from McMaster University in Canada. He received his PhD from LSE, and his thesis, Sociology of Progress, was published by Routledge in 1970.