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In Thoughts and Things, Bersani juxtaposes Jean Genet's novel, Our Lady of the Flowers with some of Pierre Bourdieu's thinking about how naming works. Bersani finds in Genet's novel a moment of unnamability that is, for him, a challenge to the legitimating naming power of the state and that justifies favoring a psychoanalytic framework over Bourdieu's, whatever the power of Bourdieu's thinking about naming and about structures of domination. This article challenges Bersani's reading of Genet's novel, which is more sociological that Bersani allows for. It also challenges Bersani's understanding of Bourdieu's thinking about naming and the state.

Offers a survey of contemporary sociological theory including: a characterization of theory in the discipline; the relation between history of theory & systematic theory; the levels of formalization of theory; the uses & value of sociological theory; & the issue of scientific accumulation of theory. The principal division between macro & microsociological theories & their major subtypes is sketched, & some of the major debates in contemporary theory are identified. Discussion includes several key questions that must be asked if a theory is to be properly understood & criticized. 1 Photograph, 57 References. Adapted from the source document.

Introduces a four-step procedure that attempts to make methodological assumptions in sociology more explicit: (1) using descriptive variables to characterize individuals in a given population; (2) choosing intelligently from among the individuals who constitute that population; (3) coding or recording the initial data by characterizing each individual in terms of the descriptive variables; & (4) explaining the methods of analysis used to treat & transform the data. Multimethodological analysis that uses this procedure should yield more stable results & should open the lines of communication between various sociological subdisciplines. 2 Photographs, 29 References. Adapted from the source document.

Sociological imagination is a quality of mind that cannot be adopted by simply teaching students its discursive assumptions. Rather, it is a disposition, in competition with other forms of sensibility, which can be acquired only when it is practiced. Adhering to this important pedagogical assumption, students were assigned to write their sociological autobiography. While in the process of establishing a connection between their biography and social history, students were encouraged to narrate their life stories using sociological language. After completing the project, they were asked to comment on their work. Student responses show the positive dimensions involved (including unintended therapeutic consequences) and the major hurdles that they experienced in executing the assignment. In the latter case, the major problem was writing a sociological autobiography qualitatively distinct from what might be referred to as "plain autobiography." Results reinforce the idea that sociological instruction is better handled when sociological imagination is viewed as a linguistic habitus which serves both as a medium of communication and an intellectual instrument of looking at the social world.