“Difficult,Messy, Nasty,and Sensational”

Feminist publishing played an important role in the feminist art movement of the 1970s and into the 1980s, and Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics was a key journal in this landscape. This paper argues that Heresies is important not only because it was a forum for some of the most influential feminist art women of the period, but because it experimented with an editorial structure that required participants to reckon with the discomforts of difference. Editors of the periodical took seriously the feminist critique of hierarchically structured organizational cultures and both promoted and practiced collective publishing. Moreover, through an emphasis on editorial statements, I consider how Heresies gives expression to the affective entanglements of the women involved in Heresies' specific form of collaboration and collective feminist politics. An examination of the editorials as sites of affective intensity helps to come to an understanding not of what women were thinking, writing, and making, but how they may have felt about their work and their relationships with women with whom they worked.     

The Family and Medical Leave Law

Abstract

This essay asks whether the Family and Medical Leave Law (1993) is feminist social policy, as it was touted to be by its political supporters. The study takes three approaches to feminism outlined by Lorber in her 2001 text, Gender Inequality: Feminist Theories and Politics, which considers women in their roles as mothers and workers. Data taken from a Department of Labor FMLA utilization study are then analyzed in the context of these three approaches to feminism. I conclude that the FMLA is not feminist in a substantive way despite its symbolic value.     

政治社会学的研究对象及基本内容评述

政治社会学的研究对象 ,是政治的社会基础 ,以及政治与社会的互动关系。而政治社会学的基本内容 ,则是政治社会学研究对象的具体化 ,是政治与社会之间的基本关系在各个具体领域的表现及其本质规律的揭示     

关于建立"中国转型社会学"学科的设想——兼评90年代中国社会转型研究

本文从我国社会转型期的社会实践和社会学理论发展出发,认为现在已具备了建立一门作为"转型学"分支学科的"中国转型社会学"或社会转型学的条件,指出建立这一学科具有重要的现实意义和学科意义.文章继而对"中国转型社会学"的理论与应用研究进行了学术梳理和定位,还对"中国转型社会学"的研究与发展的技术、经济社会和文化背景作了学理分析和前景展望.最后,提出了中国社会学家应抓住转型期社会创新所提供的学术创新的机会,发挥社会学家的想像力与社会观察力,以实现社会学者的社会责任和历史使命.     

The Chicago School,So-Called

Many sociologists believe in the myth of a Chicago School, a unified and coherent body of thought and research practice carried on at the University of Chicago from the 1920s through the 1960s. Chicago never constituted such a coherent system and is better understood as a school of activity, a group of people who cooperated in the day-to-day running of a major department.     

A feminist revisiting of the insider/outsider debate: The “outsider phenomenon” in rural Iowa

This article draws upon findings from an ethnographic study of two towns in rural Iowa to examine the adequacy of the insider/outsider distinction as a guideline for evaluating and conducting ethnographic research. Utilizing feminist standpoint and materialist feminist theories, I start with the assumption that, rather than one “insider” or “outsider” position, we all begin our work with different relationships to shifting aspects of social life and to particular knowers in the community and this contributes to numerous dimensions through which we can relate to residents in various communities. “Outsiderness” and “insiderness” are not fixed or static positions, rather they are ever-shifting and permeable social locations illustrated in this case study by the “outsider phenomenon.” Community processes that reorganize and resituate race-ethnicity, gender and class relations form some of the most salient aspects of the “outsider phenomenon.” These dynamic processes shaped our relationships with residents as ethnographic identities were repositioned by shifts in constructions of “community” that accompanied ongoing social, demographic, and political changes.     

都市风景的两种色调——方方与池莉小说的诗学审视

以"新写实"著称的方方与池莉,是两位擅长以中篇体裁进行都市写作的女作家.虽说她们都对批评家总是将她们俩相提并论不以为然,但事实上,都立足于中南重镇武汉进行写作的这两位作家,她们的小说里都表现出一种对都市民众的生存关怀,在各自的文本里勾勒出一幅城市风景.尽管如此,两位作者各自的审美取向却大相径庭,而且在艺术成就上的确也不能相提并论.     

Visions in monochrome: families, marriage and the individualization thesis

This paper takes issue with the way in which the individualization thesis--in which it is assumed that close relationships have become tenuous and fragile--has become so dominant in 'new' sociological theorizing about family life. Although others have criticized this thesis, in this paper the main criticism derives from empirical research findings carried out with members of transnational families living in Britain whose values and practices do not fit easily with ideas of individualization. It is argued that we need a much more complex and less linear notion of how families change across generations and in time.     

Paul Willis and the Scientific Imperative: An Evaluation of Learning to Labour

This article evaluates the methodological philosophy and strategy of Paul Willis's classic, Learning to Labour. We use King, Keohane, and Verba's Designing Social Inquiry as a litmus test, showing how Willis's work meets, diverges from, and innovatively reconstructs good social science research. Drawing from Learning to Labour and Willis's writings on methodological issues, as well as key texts on the science of sociology, this article evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of a reflexive method and the potential this method holds for qualitative work in sociology.     

Search for Unity: Will the Real Practicing Sociologist Please Stand Up?

In this presidential address given at the Unity 2000 Meeting held in Bethesda, Maryland, I briefly identify and define various types of applied side sociologists. My objective was twofold. First, I wanted to express my appreciation for the necessity of organizational cooperation. Second, I wanted to demonstrate that diversity among practitioners and by association representative organizations is a strength not a weakness. I conclude by identifying six collaborative paths these representative organizations could take to promote unity.