Sun, 23 Oct 1994 17:09:08 -0700 for Date: Sun, 23 Oct 94 19:48:49 EDT From: Alan Subject: Jews in sociology To: socgrad@UCSD.EDU, lichter@nicco.sscnet.ucla.edu As another "don't look at me" person in terms of the perception of Jews in the discipline of Sociology, I find it interesting that (1) Michael Lichter brings up the issue of the role of Jews in the discipline (beyond Jewish influences on Durkheim and Marx which has been beaten to death), as well as (2) the fact that very little research, especially in a sociology of knowledge vein has been done on the role of Jews in the discipline. First, Michael Lichter is correct in focusing on the Jewishness of the culture of sociology, at least in terms of the usage of "Jewish" terms by non-Jewish faculty and graduate students who grew up in areas where there might have been 5 Jews in the whole town. Writing from Connecticut probably overestimates this influence, but to hear non-Jews use terms such as Chutzpah and goy to refer to themselves jokingly does say something about our presence in the discipline. Second, there is an elective affinity between the shifting concerns from social integration to pluralism to identity politics in the discipline which is mirrored in the main denominational movements within American Judaism, as well as survey information (I'm allergic to the term DATA). If one looks at Journals, both left-wing and right-wing which possesses relatively large Jewish readership and writership (such as Commentary, Moment, the early Partisan review, the Journal Tikkun), one sees a similar shift. Likewise, if ASA does collect information on the religious affiliation of social scientists, they would probably flesh out the fact that a disproportionate number of people who became Sociologists between 1950 and 1965 (the founding fathers and mothers of many a grad. program) were Jewish. Never mind that elective affinity does not equal causation (witness the Murray debates). Likewise, the most you can probably refer to is a "dominant" or hegemonic Jewish discourse in particular time periods, the period of essentialism is over. Alan G. Davidson