GoingToMeet

One cost of sociology’s growth and its institutional success are fragmentation and specialization. However, the continual splicing off into new themes and subfields, and frequent cutting off from traditional links with the classical founders, discipline-wide issues, and subfield-transcending questions are often criticized at ESA and ISA meetings. It ultimately contradicts sociology’s self-understanding in two important ways: first, its widespread post-Kuhnian philosophical foundation and, second, its public role in society.
Consequently, it is increasingly important to remind ourselves what the identity of sociology is and look for unifying links that inspire the breadth of sociological studies, namely, for social theory: How does social theory keep sociology and social sciences together? And, in particular, how does it do that in practice?

The heterogeneity of the national streams of sociology stems not only from differences in the studied social structures but also from the infusion of varying theoretical traditions. Moreover, even the diversity among thematic fields and sub-disciplines within national communities of sociologists can be considered from a similar perspective. Social theory’s unity and diversification among these sociological or social scientific (sub)disciplines, its state-of-the-art, and new developments are thematic interests of the conference.