Freud and American Sociology

by Philip Manning

Overview

Although Freud’s impact on social science – and indeed 20th century social thought – has been extraordinary, his impact on American sociology has been left relatively unexplored. This ground-breaking book aims to fill this knowledge gap. By examining the work of pioneers such as G.H.Mead, Cooley, Parsons and Goffman, as well as a range of key contemporary thinkers, it provides an accurate history of the role Freud and psychoanalysis played in the development of American social theory. Despite the often reluctant, and frequently resistant, nature of this encounter, the book also draws attention to the abiding potential of fusing psychoanalytic and sociological thinking.

Freud and American Sociology represents an original and compelling contribution to scholarly debate. At the same time, the clarity with which Manning develops his comprehensive account means that the book is also highly suitable for adoption on a range of upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses, including sociology, social theory, social psychology, and related disciiplines.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780745669359
Publisher:	Polity Press
Publication date:	04/23/2013
Sold by:	JOHN WILEY & SONS
Format:	eBook
Pages:	184
File size:	359 KB

About the Author

Philip Manning is Professor of Sociology at Cleveland State University

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	vii
	Preface	ix
1	An Uncertain Place: Freud in American Sociology	1
	Introduction	1
	The Intellectual Background	6
	The Freudian Mirror	9
	Freud's 1909 Visit to the United States	11
	Freud among American Sociologists	19
	Freud's Initial Reception in the American Journal of Sociology and the American Sociological Review	21
	Assessment	32
2	From Sumnerology to Cooley's Social Self: Proto-Symbolic Interactionism	35
	Introduction	35
	From Sumnerology to the Second Summer	36
	Sumner's Background	38
	The First Sumner	41
	The Second Sumner	44
	The Manifest and Latent Second Sumner	48
	Anti-Sumnerology and the Institutionalization of American Sociology	50
	Three Strands of Cooley's Sociology	51
	Cooley's Cultural Theory	53
	Cooley as Proto-Symbolic Interactionist	58
	Cooley's Methodology	61
	Proto-Symbolic Interactionism and Freud	62
3	Symbolic Interactionism and Psychoanalysis: Blumer's and Goffman's Extension of Mead	64
	Introduction	64
	Mead's Social Behaviorism and Assessment of Psychoanalysis	66
	Blumer's Opposition to Freud and Parsons	69
	Goffman's Understanding of Mental Illness	72
	The Implications for Goffman's Sociology	82
	The Interaction Order: Taxonomic Zoology	85
	Tensions in Goffman's Account of the Self	91
4	Parsons' Freud: The Convergence with Symbolic Interactionism	96
	Overview	96
	Introduction	98
	Parsons' Action Theory	102
	The Survival Test: AGIL	108
	Integrating Freud into Sociological Theory	110
	The Empirical Demonstration: The American University	112
5	Philip Rieff and the Moral Ambiguity of Freud	117
	Introduction	117
	Rieff's Textual Laboratory	120
	Rieff's Sociology of Culture: A Culture Lost	123
	Rieff's Sociology of Culture: A Culture Gained	124
	Rieff's Sociology of Culture: A Culture Imagined	126
6	Sociologists as Analysts and Auto-Ethnographers: Hochschild, Chodorow, Prager, and After	130
	Introduction	130
	The Current Context	131
	Hochschild, Chodorow, and Prager	135
	The Analysis of Transference and Ms A.	141
	Rethinking Transference	144
	From Ethnographies of Concepts to Reflexive Ethnography	147
	Concluding Thoughts	154
	References	157
	Index	167