The New Sociological Imagination: Facing the Challenges of a New Millennium Author(s): Hector Raul Solis-Gadea Source: International

Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 18, No. 3/4, The New Sociological Imagination (Spring - Summer, 2005), pp. 113-122 Published by: Springer Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20059678 Accessed: 27/08/2010 07:33
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=springer. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society.

http://www.jstor.org

Int J Polit Cult Soc DOI 10.1007/s

(2005) 18:113 10767-006-9008-7

122

The New Sociological of a New Millennium

Hector Raul Solis-Gadea

Imagination:

Facing

the Challenges

Published (?) Springer

online:

Science

30 November + Business

2006 Media, LLC 2006

Abstract This article introduces the reader to the problems and the topics treated by the contributors to this special issue of the International Journal of Politics, Culture and
Society. It offers a reflection on the concept of sociological imagination conceived as a key

element for the task of facing the intellectual challenges of the present times. What is sociological imagination? How has it been used by the main cultivators of sociology imagination being renewed throughout history? And particularly, how is sociological
nowadays by some questions theory, not history, the some of the most in facts, successful this exponents The of new sociological sociological analysis, research? These are uses local considered empirical introduction. formalization, imagination creativity,

logical

systematic

knowledge, moral judgment and inspiration. What distinctively

just search among worries and for correlations facts, ethical for moral values between abstract variables, relationships personal imagination rational, development structural problems, of contemporary ways and and of understanding way, while

constitutes
but the search

its elements
for pertinent concerns, sociological world to

is

conditions, societies. The

historical new

is a search communicable, of

satisfactory telling sphere

the contemporary also of contributing social issues.

in a the

coherent a collective

the public

understanding

new sociological words Key new ways of inquiry

imagination

epochal

problems

sociological

imagination

This special issue of the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society was conceived under the premise that the intellectual spirit embedded in the concept of the sociological imagination is a point of reference for the practice of social science in the new
millennium. Today more than ever?and particularly in our volcanic post September 11th

and the social scientific disciplines in general are being called upon to period?sociology a crucial role inmaking sense of the present and establishing norms for the future. The play
scope, speed and depth of the current transformations in modern institutions and practices

Universidad e-mail:

H. R. Solis-Gadea (ISI) de Guadalajara, raulso@gmail.com

Guadalajara,

Jalisco, M?xico

Springer

114

Int J Polit Cult Soc

(2005)

18:113-122

make

to be eroding because consider these changes basic certainties many of understanding the world. The threats of terrorism and nuclear conflicts of are just the extreme in the of a growing deterioration consequence unpredictable expression or practices a minimal sense of coherence, that in prior decades social mechanisms insured this necessary, and prior ways connection, and and solidarity. it also In has short, raised the present time about has the not new just brought resources available

moral tensions

contradictions;

questions

social

for dealing with the world inwhich we now live. Sociological imagination is an analytical tool used to lay bare the intricacies of complex
societies, while also offering a heuristic and normative infrastructure to the practitioners of

social science. As conceived by C. Wright Mills, sociological imagination is the mental ability to establish intelligible relations among history, social structure and personal
biography, time: helping its bearer to take responsible positions vis-?-vis the problems of the

The sociological
scene in terms of

imagination enables its possessor

its meaning for the inner life and

to understand the larger historical

the external career of a variety of

individuals. It enables him to take into account how individuals, in the welter of their daily experience, often become falsely conscious of their social positions. Within that
welter, the framework of of modern of men psychologies a variety is sought, society are and women and within formulated. that By framework such means the the

personal uneasiness of individuals is focused upon explicit troubles and the indifference of publics is transformed into involvement with public issues. The first fruit of this imagination?and
embodies it?is the idea that the individual

the first lesson of the social science

can understand his own experience

that
and

gauge his own fate only by locating himself within his period, that he can know his own chances in life only by becoming aware of those of all individuals in his
circumstances1 assumption and moral analytical important imagination, The that any attempt to link to make one's sense own of That fate the is why, of to should society that of others be based of upon the

capacity and accomplishments is a self-reflexive then,

is one

the most

aspirations tool.

sociological by its very

enterprise. nature,

Sociological the discipline

of

sociology looks to explain itself in relation to history and the structural conditionings and opportunities of a given period of time. Therefore, it also is able to illuminate ways in
which concrete human actors can participate in history and produce a better outcome.

The Sociological

Imagination

in History

The genealogy of the sociological imagination goes back to the advent and tortuous refinements have been evolution of modernity. Its theoretical changes and methodological
responses to the continuous emergence of new epochal problems. Again to use and again, renew after

each critical historical

formations and crises,

juncture faced by
there have been voices

societies
claiming

going
the

through accelerated
need and

trans
our

sociological
Tocqueville,

imagination.
Marx, Durkheim,

All

of
Weber,

the founding
and Simmel,

fathers
to the

of

sociology,
that were

for

example,
committed

extent

1 C. Wright Mills, 1959, p. 5.

The sociological

imagination.

London:

Oxford

and New

York, Oxford

University

Press,

Springer

Int J Polit Cult Soc

(2005)

18:113-122

115

to a deep cultivators

understanding of the sociological

of

the

troubles

of

their

times, this reason

can

be that

considered the period

brilliant from 1830

imagination.

It is for

to 1920 has been considered the classic formative time of sociology. During
we saw many dramatic as the transformations equalization of in the social forms of social of men; organization the erosion democratization conditions of

this period
purpose: traditional

and

bonds and development

labor within the which of the ideas structure rationality fragmentation person Classic and

of capitalist relationships; the growth of a functional division of

of societies; the of continuous of expansion the modern and sense of a formal-instrumental and bureaucracies; between the development the individual, states

supported the experience social milieu.

of disconnection

in sociology

were

developed

to make

sense

of

these

dramatic

changes, were

and

to gain clarity and understanding.

aware need of that the old categories Paraphrasing a new complex and revision.

Implicitly
concepts

if not explicitly,
inherited

the founding fathers were

tradition social in was science

Tocqueville,

it could

intellectual by our be said that a new

required in order to understand

sociology explain developed the emerging to

the new world.

and a new brought

That
conceptual

is why
corpus,

the founding
to refer,

fathers of
and

language, realities

describe

about

by modernity. a

But at what point do the concepts and categories produced to study the past lose their
power explain the In many is not But is be it a present, ways, to is or this even to account for reality that that is in a permanent us be here. useful may To as need transformation? pose heuristic renovation. edifices; tools for this query tools. is the overarching that the risk as for old concepts that question and concerns cannot

suggest to face

There they can

serious

possibility in treating

categories or concepts

conceptual representation

categories as paradigms of

indestructible of as mere social it, turns

the understanding enhancing as a to speak instead of serving about theory, language sense of the out to be an obstacle between the common people ordinary contexts. In this way, social to reflect loses its ability theory not only and worries trapped when of the individuals, but social prestige" it also world. contributes This to their alienation in an unexplainable it acquires "scientific

interpreted our capacity

the correct

instead reality it happens of it. Thus and to intervene reality and and and their explain feeling

that on

immediate the lives

of being theory of

or when

is what with paradox happens as an infallible it is considered

social

instrument

knowledge.

The Sociological
Real history, or drive

Imagination
the continual

from the Early

emergence of and new

to the Late Twentieth

realities even and revise, surprising long

Century
phenomena, standing will

repeatedly

the need

to re-examine,

perhaps

theoretical

paradigms. The first decades of the twentieth century brought about the end of a (more or less) peaceful 100 years, and hosted the crisis of the old liberal imaginary. The founding fathers, in fact, examined some critical aspects of the old liberal order that produced these
crises strategies and social turmoil. in need That accomplishment several decades were of revision notwithstanding, after they were even initially these proposed, analytical as the

twentieth century unfolded with different challenges

taken of up by Talcott Parsons in his seminal sociology to revise treatise, was The a very its expansive focus, Parsonian

than the nineteenth. This task was

Structure successful Action. of Social one until new Because historical

events of the 1960s began to test its limits and expose its shortcomings. Yet Parsons was
not the only scholar attempting the classical sociological foundations in the mid twentieth century. 4y Springer

116

Int J Polit Cult Soc

(2005)

18:113-122

At the same time, but in an entirely different continent, The Frankfurt School of also
social theory tried to account for the crisis of the liberal order and the serious consequences

brought about by socialism and fascism. Undoubtedly,

authors like Horkheimer, Adorno, Fromm, Marcuse and

the scope of the works

others was a respectable

of such
response

to the challenges posed by the core decades of the early and mid-twentieth
New exercise exponent School's of of own Hannah and Arendt, the with her emphasis on the need can thinking, a "new" importance of moral for judgment, also be

century. The
the as an case

for understanding, considered in this

sociological

imagination

the mid-twentieth

century,

informed by social philosophical

novelty represented by totalitarianism.

assumptions

and mainly

devoted

to make

sense of the

Following both these schools of thought in chronological time, but not necessarily in theoretical content, C. Wright Mills picked up themantle in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He too sought to refurbish the sociological imagination, but through a critical analysis of
the changes in post-war America, while also making a strong critique of prestigious

American
Parsons.

schools
Mills

of social
to rescue

thought and methodology,

social science from

including

the work

of Talcott
of extreme

sought a world

the negative were

consequences

scientism, and of the fetishism of method

problems of in which new

and theory as well. He wanted

social movements emerging

to cope with
everywhere,

the

authoritarianism and tradition were being

and left conflict were becoming the a sense unaddressed, and a generalized of a existence of orderly

irreversibly challenged,

and political

instability

orientation

were to Mills, if these problems trend. According a public social science of giving capable society or social at risk. would have been progress change

For all these reasons, Mills

at the center that would role of the social both that was sustain

argued for the importance of putting sociological

enterprise. creativity through a He conceived of criticism, critical this and moral period of giving both

imagination
task a prominent

scientific intellectual passing

as a transformative

in a society

activism.

The Sociological
The present time, and

Challenges
undoubtedly, growing social

of the New Millenium

is also On the one hand, unfettered juncture. the emergence of new social practices by generated as the as well and all sorts of institutional disorder, genuine values are in danger. On the other hand, a critical

globalization have produced feeling among

complexities

fragmentation that society's

many

most

with

the arrival of the new millennium

premises of contemporary

the social
societies

scientific
also have

establishment
faced new

and many
and severe

longstanding

challenges. The threefold understanding of modernity

project, of human as a clearly experience,2 demarcated has been historical under phase direct attack

as a universalizing
and several perspectives

and enlightening
structure politico and

of development, from

as a coherent

cultural movements. This is well expressed through the proliferation of a plurality of theoretical and epistemological approaches that define themselves as efforts to supersede
one or several aspects of the mainstream poststructuralism, so on. discourses of modernity postpositivism, or modem postcolonial reason: studies, postmodernism, feminism, postmarxism, neo-funetionalism, and

is a qualitative, not a chronological in "Modernity A very similar distinction was made by Peter Osborne in in "English subjets of modernity," category," New Left Review, no. 192. 1992. Quoted by Alan O'Shea Modern times, reflections on a century of English modernity. London and New York: Routledge, 1996, p. 8.

fi

Springer

Int J Polit Cult Soc

(2005)

18:113-122

These
consciousness

new

approaches
concepts, are sterile

build
and

on

the assumption
Our ideas aim here

that many
of

of

the

inherited

presuppositions,

methodological can give

instruments

modern whether

of these critiques presentation for the twenty-first century?one the same time, compelling contemporary social life.

or misleading. and new that enough

is to consider life to a new

and theory a collective imagination history and, at of

sense is capable of making a shared to construct normative

sociological of current

understanding

The fact that during the last decades of the twentieth century, new social scientific, cultural and expressive efforts aimed at dealing with the contemporary problems of the
epoch have emerged era, have suggests that we, a new articulated indeed, may be posed a on the precipice But program the of a new of sociological new voices for which not been sociological systematically imagination within is required. particular chorus

of research,

or in the form of a single school of thought. Its elements are dispersed

several scholars Neither conceptual in a permanent decline aspiration. definite This new of contemporary are trying are they practitioners or justify to correct to establish attempting And this, as of social any of science the and currently of reality public reflection. competing or an about

in the work of
Few of these in toto.

paradigms entirely the new

a new model says

self-sufficient sociological

system.

well,

something

imagination embodied
process

in these multiple
of construction, modern as a creative

voices:
one that reason, form of

it is a disposition
tries but to assimilate without more

of the intellectual spirit

the lessons taught by the renouncing as a secure rational source of

enlightenment-based It assumes itself

fully than

inquiry

answers. sociological imagination recognizes that there are several ways in which a case

or a problem can be analyzed.3 It situates itself beyond the current dilemmas and It is not empiricist or dichotomies dividing the social sciences and their methods.
theoretically informed, it is not historical or formal, structure or actor centered. It is not just

a deductive or an inductive intellectual enterprise; it does not necessarily depend on abstract generalization or isolated description of particular findings about social things. And,
perhaps, sociological thinking provisional sociological in more importantly, imagination service the but consistently does of it is not not value aspire In short, free or morally the new sensitive.4 to be a corpus of knowledge but, rather, grounded It creates that are always reality. conjectures It would a system of be against with the very a perfect nature cluster of the new of closed

questioning scrutinized.

imagination

to try to create

thought

3 Louis Menand has written this idea while exposing William James's thinking in his The metaphysical club, a story of ideas in America, New York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2001. p. 143. It is not casual to mention this here because one of the sources of our contemporary is the growing interest in sociological imagination pragmatism. 4 Regarding the sterility of the polemic about universal, abstract reasoning versus particular, historicist Randall Collins has written: "Polemic turns a question of all-or-nothing. Either the world conceptualization, is completely subsumable into universal principles, or else everything is radically particular and unique. This could become a kind of epistemological nuclear war, inwhich the goal of one side is to blow the other off the face of the earth. If we can deescalate the argument, it should be apparent that the question is not a stark

either/or. We cannot analyze particular without abstract categories, and even what we think of as a particular name (e.g., "Canada in the nineteenth amount of generalizing. century") already contains a considerable in Conversely, we never enter into a chain of argument about bare abstractions without indicating repeatedly, the series of semiotic moves, a continuum of abstraction examples on a lower level of abstraction of what we to formulate and particularity, and it is difficult are talking about. There is in either pure endpoints century World Sociology," by Janet L. Abu-Lughod,

direction." Randal Collins "The European Sociological Tradition and twenty-first in Sociology for the twenty-first century, continuities and cutting edges. Edited of Chicago Press, 1999, p.27. Chicago: The University

4? Springer

118

Int J Polit Cult

Soc

(2005)

18:113-122

for

When concepts. the deploying If anything, logical

that of the

is done,

thought

is locked

in a rigid uses

iron cage

where

there

is not

space

imagination. new sociological systematic element that

imagination analysis, can be creativity, useful

theory, local

history, sense

empirical moral of

facts,

formalization, inspiration. Any

knowledge, and make

judgment a historical

and

to explain

situation is part of its tools kit. What

search ships worries a search for among and for correlations facts, ethical between moral values abstract problems, of ways

distinctively
variables, structural

constitutes
but the

its elements
for

is not just the

relation personal

search historical

pertinent concerns,

conditions, The the also

contemporary of

societies.

new

sociological world to issues. the

satisfactory

understanding way, while

contemporary contributing of social

is imagination in a rational, development It is not just of a

communicable, the public

and telling a and sphere in a creative

coherent collective

understanding

theoretical exercise but a work

be combined way.

in which both our moral and analytical capabilities must

To be sure, the very act of defining the problems of the epoch is in itself an exercise of
sociological might Even establish so, imagination, agency as or participation social is the a priori identification in the treatment scientists must be of ways of social that concrete problems to face human beings or their the solutions. of

contemporary

prepared

challenge

constructing the basic elements of a new sociological imagination; and to begin, they must be prepared to ponder the following: What are the new problems and challenges brought about by the end of the twentieth century, and the arrival of the new millennium? What are
the relevant traits in need of the new social world and the to cope new with processes of new explanations? In order and/or practices our contemporary institutional tensions,

how much
intellectual Should the

of the classic
sources new and sociological

sociological
imagination

imagination
we work of feed have

should still be utilized? On what

the a and conceived new common sociological core of processes? as a field imagination? concepts Or, to and the

approaches

should

a unique presuppositions depicting image the new contrary, imagination sociological

society should be

its basic more

constructed

by several ways of inquiry?

Meeting

the Challenge

This issue of the International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society takes up these questions. It does so through the writings of distinguished social scientists, drawn from a
variety of sub-disciplinary use specializations, whose are now confronting the heuristic and

normative challenges brought about by the new millennium.

authors examining time that and should in this or the be volume different all starting share an ways points the need epochal of interpreting that we accounted the world, are for

In spite of the fact that the

ways the present of

and provide alternative a to make of diagnosis change of enormous these

idea

experiencing new through

consequences diagnoses or are

inquiry.

Moreover,

all related to the basic

phenomenon. consistent with Indeed, what

fact of globalization
all the authors Castells calls

and the changes brought

here emergence identify of trends the the

about by this
changes society.

showcased

Manuel

network

though their entry or ending points may differ, they all try to understand the global logic of the current social world and its destiny. Particularly, they try to offer a way not only to understand it but also to give it shape. Finally, all share the idea that Likewise,
social science needs a shift in approach. Explicitly or implicitly, these authors suggest

4y Springer

Int J Polit Cult Soc

(2005)

18:113-122

119

the

need

to

rethink

of society. concept so and ever more There as points also of

from the very of modern starting sociology, an elusive is an elusive it, society concept, reality, in the "liquid" world of the present. of analysis take different are differences, to be sure. Different authors units transnational matters and include their and power entry, political subject most of the concepts As Bauman puts and the new economy, the new and more and flexible technology, work processes, etc. Internet

politics, the

information the self,

subject,

religion,

culture,

knowledge,

ethnicity,

Still, the collective

contemporary questions integration about while world how

aim of these authors is to help us to understand

as to seen live in the context For of example, and their together. how significance to create How for a sense to

changes
of inclusion

in the
and

classic

sociological

also

respecting

difference

diversity?

balance

interests,

solidarity and the common good? How

living in a society that continuously erases

to give the self a sense of vital meaning while

order and stability? How to create a sense of

civic engagement
science agenda? Zygmunt Bauman relevant

in a deterritorialized
in the public sphere?

and despatialisated
How to intervene

society? How
efficaciously in our

to make
in the

social
public

explains to

the main

changes new

taking

place

everyday

social

experience as producing a society which

follows that we are going a complete

is fragile and volatile. From his perspective

societal epoch. He uses his well-known

it

distinction between
modernity stable no traits longer virtually of can

solid and liquid modernity

all aspects are being of human social subverted.

to explain this transformation. In liquid

experience The idea of have a All limits and changed. as an organic reality society for of the human and world

the world be

experience information.

generated However,

new There are, however, supported. a world constituted by networks, by irrespective of the opportunities offered

possibilities circuits by

knowledge

the contemporary

to the self, sociology has still the burden to reconnect itself and to contribute to the public
sphere.

Ulrich Beck's essay addresses the need to develop amethodological

that helps considers methodological it to deal that with the emerging traditional nationalism. sociology This is a way contemporary as its main uses of inquiry globalized analytical centered upon world.

change in sociology
Interestingly, he what state and he calls the

strategy

the nation

image of society as being part of the former. Globalization

reality. The phenomena, focusing pluralization are creating on what happens is needed. of a borders situation within This the means and de-territorialization the local in which national a way

has modified
of power, be is why

this now old

among other just by

cannot That social

understood

borders. of analyzing

cosmopolitanism

a methodological and institutions practices

in their global connections and mutual

transnational in the national. Vehemently,

influence, a way of identifying the presence of the

Beck argues for the possibility of creating a

cosmopolitan state capable of enabling the conditions for better coexistence of diversity that
has made globalization possible. Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello have written an analysis of the recent transformations

in the ways that capitalism is normatively justified and legitimized. Drawing inspiration from Max Weber, they use the concept of spirit of capitalism to understand the ethos and moral justification of the late capitalism that has enabled it to overcome some years of protests and conflict stemming from the working class and the left. They interpret the texts
and discourses sectors the new as way very of intellectual of capitalists and entrepreneurial agents of the capitalistic Their of aspect symbolic mentality. diagnosis Bauman's much resembles of contemporary In a way, the study modernity. is a social bond structure of economic and aspects capitalism connecting created by contemporary to grasp the 4y Springer

times spirit

120
and on dispositions understood

Int J Polit Cult Soc

(2005)

18:113-122

personal sociological

moral

the as

imagination

part of the actors; a kind of cement

a of

sort the

of application social order

of or as

the an

ontological condition for the existence of it. Levy's concept of collective intelligence is also related to the concept of sociological
sense. Moreover, in the above mentioned for Levy, is not basically imagination imagination a to the world to constitute of entry but a way it. The and the Internet, point cyberspace, new are more the possibilities for a new collective and even economy creative, creating

poetic, imagination and intelligence. Clearly, Levy is offering a diagnosis of the times but with strong moral implications that for a moment fall into a very optimistic view of the possibilities opened up by globalization and the impact of the Internet.
Alain practices. theory serve Touraine He argues reflects that upon the the revival was he of on neglected suggests the subject within social contemporary subject classic and modern social by most to it is returning because of its potential alienation and the recovering of the

and imagination. Now, however, as vehicle for the superseding

situations

of

particularities and liberating potentialities of the person. This theme falls very much within in the line of thought of C. Wright Mills: the interconnection between the subject and the
economic which and the cultural men the self worlds. and contemporary of class, Beyond women Mills, are trying however, to Touraine recover out a way in points a more rich and plural a member or of a social be a social order

understanding economic that

or even the

recognizes

or the person: as and not as subject In order to do this there must category. political as different at the same and equal time. subjects

David Harvey's essay is in many ways a manifesto highlighting the need to bring geography and territoriality into the sociological imagination. Harvey calls for building bridges between the disciplines of sociology and geography, and argues that through
this and is an the way of synthesis the issues inextricable in which pressing one at can stake element Harvey revise in the of the history, the concepts, His What concerns including the main categories, the is problems, that space is contemporary epoch. the social experience. geographical our time, proposition is striking about to deal global with

this a wide

piece range

considers of

the most

problems

governance,

cosmopol

itanism,

geographical

knowledges,
essay explains a

and

the

fate

of

critical
aspect

theory
of

and

critical
and

geography. Casanova's Jos?

frequently

neglected

modernity

globalization: He suggests
successful anti-modern phenomenon social life. way.

religion and the ways that prevailing views

His strategy pretty In making claim against much these is that the

in which it is being affected by these processes. of globalization fail to deal with religion in a
religious globalization the revival but a is not very a defensive complex of and cultural of with Casanova

contemporary forces

compatible claims,

trans-nationalization studies two religions

contemporary that have been

particularly well suited to be global and transnational: Catholicism and Pentecostalism. His principal argument is that by de-territorializing social practices and institutions, globalization has contributed to recent transformations of and new trends within both
these religions.

Craig Calhoun's
virtue political Several of its focus community, of the main public

contribution echoes some of the themes offered in the Beck article, by

on cosmopolitanism, and the need of he for but social his main concern is the idea of an integrated this. of of as a precondition for solidarity on the conceptual are premised the notion of the public sphere achieving importance to a variety

contributions sphere. But

the essay also ties

a democratic

normative concerns about democracy, highlighting the roles of political liberty and civic virtue in creating a truly democratic public sphere. Although globalization is less of concern
? Springer

Int J Polit Cult Soc

(2005)

18:113-122

121

in

this

essay

than many to insure

of

the

others, and

Calhoun social

is equally integration a

concerned in a world

with when

the old

age-old forms of

question

of how

solidarity

identity and prior networks of connection are broken or being called into question. For this
reason, sources same suggests public he of time argues social enables that sphere that we must cohesion, societies like be able to envision polity that is not for based upon but of traditional that at the he ethnicity-centered to overcome their political patriotism solidarity and accompanied enhance nationalism differences. by a vigorous example, In search integrated

this goal, transnational

constitutional can create

democracy.

Jeffrey Goldfarb, like Calhoun, brings us back to basics in his essay by focusing on longstanding philosophical ideals that have withstood the test of time. But he also frames
them on He in the context of of contemporary and culture challenges. in enhancing In particular, Goldfarb and mutual offers a reflection the role suggests and intellectuals that dialogue, for sustaining democracy are crucial as understanding. of shared and

critique,

talk and

conversation

for attaining understanding a well

values

important

principles?such

mutual

recognition?that
excesses of

can lead the way

societies. The

in compensating
existence of

against

(if not overturning)

and developed

the

authoritarian

an open

culture

public sphere are pre-conditions for a shaping this type of social world, and both can be achieved through the exercise of deliberation and dialogue. Interestingly, like Calhoun, Goldfarb also echoes themes in Beck's essay when he reminds us that "a critical sociology
of culture, as activity the arts and sciences, broadly needed understood, points to the practical sphere of creative where the much cosmopolitanism is grounded."

The Sociological
We have organized

Imagination:

Old and New

texts according to their analytical affinities. In "The

the above-described

Sociological
need of to renew a possible

Imagination inHistory," Bauman and Beck share an explicit recognition of the

sociological new social imagination, theory. and Looking both at to develop elements attempt successfully the contemporary world their through

perspective,
inherited inspired from with

the practitioner of sociology

the past the sense are not of able

has the feeling

that many
but, new

of the old concepts

same time, strategies she is and

to explain entirely reality, to start creating intellectual freedom

at the analytical

categories. "The Sociological

considers emergence (Boltanski new of social a whole practices. new

Imagination from the Early to the Late Twentieth Century"

Boltanski set of and behaviors Chiapello, and modes common and for forms Levy all point out the capitalism legitimizing of representations of the

and Chiapello),

as well

as for expanding

contemporary world
transformation of

(Levy). Both
and the

sets of social practices would

internet economy had not

not exist if the current

place.

capitalism

taken

"The Sociological
Harvey practices human and Casanova. meet social new

Challenges
We social have theory" From the

of the New Millenium"

identified because struggle a common all to three give theme authors life

presents the texts of Touraine,

in these cope and with of papers as "old social of the invariant coherence aspects to

activity.

sense

experience of the subject (Touraine), to the continuity and surprising strength of religion (Casanova), through the effort to grasp the experience of the social within a situated geography, or space (Harvey), these themes have been taken up by many others, but not
necessarily with the new the present Challenge" social transformations is devoted practices," and by to in mind. showing so doing how provide longstanding, a theoretical or "old social of the "Meeting theories meet

synthesis

4? Springer

122 old and the new. Stated slightly differently,

consider the importance of culture and the

Int J Polit Cult Soc

(2005)

18:113-122

the essays by Calhoun

existence of a vigorous

and Goldfarb
public sphere

both
as

mechanisms
how these a better

for the creation of solidarity and democracy; and they both offer examples of
practices can be used cultural to make and the contemporary intellectual practices world?with are not of giving new, all but what its challenges? is new to play is in

place. Certainly, to articulate the need them with the construction in of of free the the and

a creative polities Davis?this the perspective

open

Finally, assessment

conclusion, texts from

theory capable in an ever globalizing world. volume's co-editor?attempts of contemporary

culture

a role

to make and conflicts

an and

tensions

with a view to the entire world, and not just the United States and Europe. Are the authors gathered here optimistic or pessimistic about the future;why orwhy not? Are they offering us
a sociological imagination that can address all parts of the globe, or are they neglecting some

geographical areas of theworld? In short, Davis is interested in the silences of these texts, and whether we might be able to correct them with amore expansive look at the global whole.
There is no way to know if, once more, sociology more will be able to cope successfully with

the problems of the times and to keep alive its vocation. However
cultivation of a new sociological imagination, creative, open,

one thing is clear: the

and accessible to the

public, is the only way

to keep alive hope.

Springer