From “New Theoretical Movement” to “Cultural Sociology”: Jeffrey Alexander and the Recent Changes in Sociological Discourse

这项研究试图通过对社会学思想的杰出参与者之一、北美社会学家杰弗里·亚历山大所走的道路的调查，来揭示社会学思想的近代史。这里的假设是，亚历山大从20世纪80年代的“新理论运动”到21世纪头10年之后的“文化社会学”所走的道路，确实代表了社会学话语的显著更广泛的转变。通过跟踪他自20世纪70年代中期以来在学术领域的动向-从他的智力网络和机构背景到他的主题选择和智力阐述-本研究不仅试图为他的作品提供第一个系统的方法。在这样做的同时，它也试图阐明社会学思想的近代历史，特别是在美国，以及过去几十年社会理论领域的适当动态的重要方面。为了进行这样的调查，本研究使用了不同的方法：一方面，网络分析和其他技术，通常由知识历史学家和科学社会学家使用，以绘制该领域的制度联系、知识联盟和争端；另一方面，解释学重建分析，试图把握概念形成的错综复杂和(社会)理论话语的转变，这是思想历史学家、社会理论家和哲学家通常采用的一种方法。

The present research seeks to shed light on the recent history of sociological ideas through the investigation of the path followed by one of its prominent actors, the North American sociologist Jeffrey Alexander. The assumption here is that the path taken by Alexander from the "new theoretical movement", in the 1980s, to the "cultural sociology", after the 2000s, is indeed representative of a significantly broader shift in sociological discourse. By following his moves in the academic field - from his intellectual networks and institutional affiliations to his thematic choices and intellectual elaborations - since the mid-1970s, the present research seeks to provide not only a first systematic approach to his works. In so doing, it also seeks to illuminate significant aspects of both the recent history of sociological ideas, especially in the United States, and the proper dynamics of the social theoretical field in the last decades. To conduct such an investigation, the present research makes use of distinct methodologies: on the one hand, network analysis and other techniques that are usually employed by intellectual historians and sociologists of science in order to map institutional connections, intellectual alliances, and disputes in the field; on the other, a hermeneutic reconstructive analysis which seeks to grasp the intricacies of the ideational formations and the shifts in (socio)theoretical discourse, a methodology usually employed by historians of ideas, social theorists, and philosophers.