Stalking the Sociological Imagination: J. Edgar Hoover's FBI Surveillance of American Sociology

by Mike Keen, Dan A. Chekki (Editor)

Overview

It is now common knowledge that the FBI and its long-time director, J. Edgar Hoover, were responsible for the creation of a massive internal security apparatus that undermined the very principles of freedom and democracy they were sworn to protect. While no one was above suspicion, Hoover appears to have held a special disdain for sociologists and placed many of sociology's most prominent American figures under surveillance. Using documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, this volume portrays the FBI's stalking of the sociological imagination, offering a detailed account of its investigations within the context of an overview of the history of American sociology. This groundbreaking analysis of a previously hidden chapter of American intellectual history suggests that the activities of Hoover and the FBI marginalized critical sociologists such as W.E.B. Du Bois and C. Wright Mills, suppressed the development of a Marxist tradition in American sociology, and likely pushed the mainstream of the discipline away from a critique of American society and towards a more quantitative and scientific direction. The author also turbans sociology back upon the FBI, using the writings and ideas of the very sociologists Hoover had under surveillance to examine and explain the excesses of the Bureau and its boss.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780313298134
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	05/30/1999
Series:	Controversies in Science , #126
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.62(d)

About the Author

MIKE FORREST KEEN is Associate Professor and Chairperson of the Department of Sociology at Indiana University South Bend. He teaches classical and contemporary social theory, sociology of science, and environment and society. His previous work includes numerous scholarly articles and Eastern Europe in Transformation: The Impact on Sociology (Greenwood, 1994) edited with Janusz L. Mucha.

Table of Contents

Stalking the Sociological Imagination
W.E.B. Du Bois: Sociologist beyond the Veil
Ernest W. Burgess: Security Matter-C
William Fielding Ogburban: Scientist, Statistician, Schizophrene
Robert and Helen Lynd: From Middletown to Moronia
E. Franklin Frazier: Enfant Terrible
Pitirim A. Sorokin: Sociological Prophet in a Priestly Land
No One above Suspicion: Talcott Parsons under Surveillance
Testing a Concept: Herbert Blumer's Loyalty
Samuel Stouffer: Patriot and Practitioner
Our Man in Havana: C. Wright Mills Talks, Yankee Listens
The Crimefighter and the Criminologist: The Case of Edwin H. Sutherland and J. Edgar Hoover
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index