Call for Papers: Chicago Sociology and its Others: The University, The City, and the World

This special issue of The American Sociologist will apply the sociological premise that even the most insular intellectual traditions are sustained by extra-local influences, appropriations, adaptations, and critiques. The editors seek papers considering how the Chicago School was influenced by and influenced intellectual contexts outside the School’s traditional associations with the department, city, and nation.

We are interested in work that places existing "internalist" accounts in the wider institutional contexts in which the department was embedded. The literature comprising the Chicago tradition, in particular, pays less attention to corners of a university in which other disciplines shaped the work of sociologists, even when, as in the case of the anthropologists, they shared a department. How did inter-organizational politics within and outside the University of Chicago influence Chicago School formation and reformations?

We invite novel reconstructions of the development of Chicago Sociology outside of the city of Chicago. For instance, do some Chicago school scholars fit better into what has been referred to as “Atlanta School” or the “LA School?” Are there “shops” outside of the city in which Chicago school work was developed, extended, challenged, or sustained? What elements of Chicago sociology have been selected by scholars outside the city for criticism, extension, or repurposing? How are these appropriations and evaluations distributed? How did the historical experiences and contexts of these scholars reshape the Chicago School as symbol or in practice? Who has led such efforts and what motivated them? And if the reshaping, appropriations, and evaluations are ongoing, can we still see Chicago’s influence?

Finally, we seek work that tracks the international inflows and outflows that constitute the Chicago School. Local ambitions in Chicago were fed by ideas developed outside the United States, and these ideas have become key grounds for the reconsideration of the Chicago School’s legacy. What non-U.S. precedents for or influences on Chicago School sociology remain to be uncovered? How has Chicago School sociology been adapted, challenged, or otherwise appropriated outside Chicago? In general, we believe that writing a global history of the Chicago School will require fresh thinking on how we conceptualize knowledge production, the coherence of intellectual traditions, and the search for new methods. Depending on the answers to these and other questions, some disaggregation and reaggreation of the object of the Chicago School may be in order.

The co-editors of this issue seek diverse, novel, and empirical contributions on these aspects. While we value the role in the discipline played by critical reflection, our primary aim is that of strengthening the empirical basis for conversations about the heritage of sociology. Accordingly, we are especially interested in work using archival documents, Natural Language Processing techniques, participant observation, and/or interviews.

We are looking for final papers from about 20 to about 40 manuscript pages (about 6K to 12K words). Consulting the website of The American Sociologist, where Springer provides guidance to prospective authors regarding formats, etc., gives a good idea of the requirements for articles published in The American Sociologist.

Titles and Abstracts of proposed articles should be sent to chicagoschoolredux@gmail.com by July 15 2024 for consideration; selected authors will be asked to send complete papers by November 30, 2024 via the online peer review and submission system here. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with any of us for further information.