The promise of public sociology

extraordinary event. There was a buzz of excitement, the culmination of a week of high energy discussions of ‘public sociology’, and the product also of a year in which Burawoy had criss-crossed the USA speaking to dozens of groups and urging those who often give the ASA a pass in favour of local or activist meetings to come to San Francisco. The excitement was fueled also by a sense of renewed engagement with the reasons many – especially of the baby boom and 1960s generations – had chosen to become sociologists in the first place. A ballroom with seating for several thousand was filled to overflowing (I arrived early yet had to stand in the back). The talk ran to nearly twice the allotted time but few left. And at the end, teams of Berkeley students wearing black T-shirts proclaiming Marx ‘the first public sociologist ’ roamed the aisles to collect questions. The excitement was not a fluke, but reflected a coincidence of good timing with shrewd recognition of the enduring commitments and desires of many sociologists. Sociologists found not only found their activism encouraged bu

LSE and South Asia: a history and future of engagement

LSE President and Director Craig Calhoun reflects on the long tradition of close mutual relations between South Asia and the LSE, and looks forward to building new bridges through the LSE South Asia Centre which launches today

Communication as social science (and more)

As often happens, I submitted my title before I knew what I wanted to talk about. I do want to speak about communication research as a field, but not only as a field of social science. To try to contain communication in actually existing social science would be to reduce it in unfortunate ways. But at the same time, as someone much invested in social science, I harbor hopes that communication research will be deeply and widely integrated into social science more generally. I believe that the intellectually serious study of communication should be transformative for the social sciences

How does religion matter in Britain’s secular public sphere?

In Britain today there is no particular religion that can define our public concerns or shared identity. But ignoring the ways religion informs public life would be a mistake. The goal, writes Craig Calhoun, should be a way for the public sphere to benefit from the articulation of diverse views. After all, public life is important precisely because it allows for strangers of different perspectives and opinions to inform each other

“No country is more important than India” – LSE Director Professor Craig Calhoun

While visiting India, LSE Director Professor Craig Calhoun announces a new research programme on gender equality and 50 postgraduate scholarships for Indian students