My dissertation investigates midcentury "crisis" narratives in the social sciences, particularly in sociology. I trace various contemporary methodological faultlines back to the late-1950s. I intend to develop a panoramic view of the field 1950-1980, and hopefully, conduct a bibliometric analysis to support my historical research. This project aims to make sense of American sociology's interaction with Marxism, the proliferation of esoteric subfields in the 1970s, the disappearance of general theory from sociology, and more broadly, how American sociology became broad, but also divided from within. I believe that many of the terms with which we analyze the current state of sociology, and the other social sciences, will be contextualized throughout my process of investigation. At the very least, it is certain that sociology entered the year 1950 with no worries about its future, and exited the decade with a perpetual sense of threat to its legitimacy as a science. That, has not been resolved half a century later.
(N.B. Please do contact me, if your research overlaps with mine in anyway. I am also interested in evaluating social theory or methodology outside of historical research. I'd very much appreciate your educated opinion. Ideas come with or through a material reality, but that is not the only reason people who find them interesting, do so. Or at least, that is what I'm hoping.)
M.Sc., Philosophy and Public Policy, The London School of Economics and Political Science
BA., Sociology and Philosophy (double major), Bogazici University
Graduate Certificate in Global Human Rights, University of Pennsylvania