DISEÑO Y CÁLCULO DEL ANILLO 8

Over the course of her long career, Jessie Bernard (1903–96) published

“a staggering scholarly output with enormous influence on the generations of scholars following her” (Cantor 1988, 264). Her writings and influence on the field cover a number of areas. However, Bernard is perhaps best known for her feminist scholarship and contributions to the feminist movement that she joined in her 60s, after she had retired from an academic career spanning decades. One biographer says that Bernard had an “unpretentious style,” yet her life and so-ciological contributions “emanate reasonable, but unyielding, defiance—defi-ance of family tradition, life styles, occupational trajectories, sociological paradigms, and popular myths, as well as age-related patterns” (Lipman-Blumen 1979, 49).

Bernard spent much of her academic career at Pennsylvania State Uni-versity. She also taught at Princeton University in 1959–60, when she was billed as Princeton’s “first woman professor” (Bannister 1991, 144). After retiring, Bernard served as a Visiting Fellow at the National Institute of Education and a Scholar in Residence at the United States Commission on Civil Rights, and as visiting professor at Mills College in Oakland, the University of California–Los Angeles, and the University of Delaware.

She attended her first feminist meeting in the spring of 1968. Her well-known works that followed include The Future of Marriage (1972), which laid out Bernard’s famous concept of “his” and “hers” marriages. According to Bernard, every marriage is really two marriages, experienced differently by men and women. The partners accrue different effects from the union, with benefits falling primarily to the male. Among her points in The Female World in Global Perspective (1986), Bernard argued that concepts developed by a male-biased sociology were not adequate to explain women’s worlds. Women and the Public Interest (1971), The Sociology of Community (1972), and The Future of Moth-erhood (1974) were also penned during this period.

Jessie Bernard was active in forming, or holding a major office in, the American Sociological Association (ASA), Eastern Sociology Society, Society for the Study of Social Problems, and Sociologists for Women in Society. She received honorary degrees from Washington University, Northwestern, Hood

College, and Radcliffe. She also received awards from the American Association of University Women, the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, the Association of Women in Science, and the Association for Women in Psy-chology (Cantor 1988; Bannister 1991, 189). A 1988 edition of the journal Gen-der and Society honored Bernard. Awards have also been established in her name, including awards established by the District of Columbia Sociologists for Women in Society and the ASA’s annual Jessie Bernard Award, which recognizes scholarship on the role of women in society (Lipman-Blumen 1979).

Patricia Hill Collins

Patricia Hill Collins (1948–) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

She is Charles Phelps Taft Professor of Sociology in the African American Stud-ies Department at the University of Cincinnati. Collins holds a doctorate from Brandeis University. Her work on the intersections of race, social class, and gen-der has expanded sociological and feminist analysis to show how these systems have complex and interlocking effects. To Collins, oppression is experienced and resisted at three levels: personal biography, group or community (within the cul-tural context created by race, class, and gender), and social institutions (2000).

Her work demonstrates how acknowledging the experiences of all people gives a fuller picture of society and ways all groups can work together for mutual ben-efit (Andersen and Collins 2003).

In addition to her numerous journal publications, Collins has published several books. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Pol-itics of Empowerment (1990; rev. ed., 2000) won both the American Sociologi-cal Association’s Jessie Bernard Award and the Society for the Study of Social Problems C. Wright Mills Award. That work also brought her national attention.

Collins has also published Fighting Words: Black Women and the Search for Jus-tice (1998), Black Sexual Politics (2003), and a coedited anthology of works on various aspects of race, class, and gender. (See “Collins, Patricia Hill” 1997.)

Niklas Luhmann

Before becoming a sociologist, Niklas Luhmann (1927–98) had been drafted into the German army during World War II. He was captured and held for a period as a prisoner of war. Luhmann went to law school after the war and worked as a lawyer in public administration. He also studied on scholarship for a year at Harvard University with Talcott Parsons (Bechmann and Stehr 2002, 67), who is also profiled in this chapter.

Luhmann was appointed to the faculty at the University of Bielefeld, Germany, in 1968. At that time, his university colleagues reportedly questioned him regarding what research agenda he intended to pursue. Luhmann’s response was that he intended to develop a “ ‘theory of society’ . . . that would take him thirty years and not cost anything” (Lee 2000, 320). Well known in European so-ciology circles before becoming known in the United States, Luhmann did

pro-duce an ambitious grand theory of society over the next three decades. His the-ory develops the concept of social systems made up of extensive and intertwined networks of communication processes. In hundreds of publications, Luhmann developed his theory by searching for fundamental features shared by all sys-tems, including science, art, the economy, law, sociology, love, and politics. “Not only do all social systems share similar structures, but they also operate through communication. Hence, Luhmann asserts, society is communication.”

At his death from cancer at age 70, Luhmann was a professor emeritus at Bielefeld. His two-volume work Die Gesellschaft der Gesellschaft (The Soci-ety of SociSoci-ety; 1997) had just been published the year before. Among his acco-lades, he has been called “one of the most distinguished sociologists and scholars of our time” having achieved in his life’s work “arguably the most rad-ical departure for the sociolograd-ical classics available today” (Fuchs 1999, 118).

Karl Marx

Karl Marx (1818–83) was born in Prussia, now part of Germany. At uni-versity, Marx briefly studied law and then turned his interests toward philoso-phy. He completed his doctoral dissertation in 1841, when he was only 23 years old. Marx had hoped for an academic appointment. However, because he held radical political views, he could not obtain such a position. Marx then turned to journalism. He penned articles on censorship, social issues, and commentary on governmental laws and policies for the Rheinische Zeitung, a journal that was soon banned by the Prussian government.

Marx married and moved to Paris, where he became deeply involved in socialism. He also became close friends with Friedrich Engels (1820–95), the son of a wealthy German industrialist, who is profiled in chapter 7. They began a lifelong friendship and intellectual collaboration with the publication of The Holy Family (1956, orig. 1846), a book that focused on the importance of the masses in driving social change (Appelbaum 1988, 25). Engels would even pro-vide financial support for Marx’s work throughout his life.

Marx’s writings attracted repeated government attention. Government officials asked him to leave Paris in 1845. He moved to Belgium, where he be-came the president of the Brussels chapter of the International Communist League. The Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) was written as this orga-nization’s principal statement. After being expelled from Brussels for his revo-lutionary activities, Marx returned to Paris for a short time at the invitation of a provisional government that had struggled against the monarchy, then shortly moved to Cologne in Prussia and took over editorship of his revived former jour-nal. He was accused of inciting rebellion, the journal was shut down, and Marx was expelled from Prussia. In quick succession, he traveled in Germany and then back to Paris, finally settling in London in 1849, where he would spend the rest of his life.

Marx supported his family through publications of some of his writing that covered, among other social topics, economic theory, industrial society,

re-ligion, property, communism, and philosophy. For a decade, he was also a for-eign correspondent for the New York Daily Tribune, published by Horace Gree-ley. He also became involved with the London chapter of the International Communist League, advocated for German workers in London, and spent long hours in the British Museum reading British trade statistics and economic the-ory (Appelbaum 1988, 27).

The Marx family was very poor, often relying on Engels for funds or from pawning their possessions. They frequently lacked money for basic neces-sities and experienced illnesses and evictions. Three of Marx’s children died be-fore reaching adulthood. Eventually, both Marx and his wife inherited some funds that somewhat relieved their financial distress. When Engels became a partner in his father’s textile mill, he paid off the Marx’s debts and, in 1869, set up a small pension for his friend.

Marx’s health grew progressively worse over time. Among his ailments, he suffered from painful boils, headaches, eye problems, a liver complaint, di-gestive and respiratory problems, and perhaps depression that made him unable to work at times. Marx died in 1883, probably of tuberculosis or pleurisy, two years after losing his wife and a daughter to cancer. Several of Marx’s works, in-cluding two volumes of Capital (1977a, orig. 1867), were completed or pub-lished posthumously by Engels (Appelbaum 1988; Feinberg 1985; Siegel 1978).

Robert K. Merton

Robert King Merton (1910–2003) was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylva-nia. His birth name was Meyer R. Schkolnick. His name change came about when, as a teen, he became an amateur magician. He first adopted the name Merlin, then changed it to Merton when told that Merlin was “hackneyed.”

“Robert” was adopted from French magician Robert Houdin, the magician from whom Harry Houdini borrowed his stage name. Upon winning a scholarship to Temple University, “he was content to let the new name become permanent”

(Calhoun 2003, 1, 8).

Merton pursued his graduate studies at Harvard University, where he earned his doctorate in 1936. He taught at Harvard for the following three years.

He then moved to Tulane, and later to Columbia. He became a full professor in 1947. He was later named Giddings Professor of Sociology, Special Service Pro-fessor, and University Professor Emeritus (Martin, Mutchnick, and Austin 1990).

Over the course of his long career, Merton’s work spanned a broad range of additional areas to include research methods, deviance, medicine, anomie, bu-reaucracy, and organizations. He received over 20 honorary degrees and inter-national awards and was the first person to receive the Who’s Who in America Achievement Award in the Social Sciences and Social Policy (Martin, Mutch-nick, and Austin 1990, 211). His numerous contributions in the area of theory in-clude middle-range theories and the concepts of latent and manifest functions and dysfunctions. He coined a number of phrases that are now part of the

socio-logical jargon, including self-fulfilling prophesy, unanticipated consequences, and anticipatory socialization. He also developed an interview technique that has now become the focus group, used throughout political and market research (Calhoun 2003, 8).

By many reports, Robert Merton was both an inspiring and demanding teacher (Coleman 1990). He spent much time and effort reading and comment-ing on other people’s manuscripts. Merton himself estimated that he had read over 200 book-length manuscripts and over 2,000 article-length manuscripts be-tween 1930 and 1985 (Sztompka 1986, 265). He continued to be engaged in learning and writing until his death in 2003 at age 92.

Talcott Parsons

Talcott Parsons (1902–79) was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He was the son of a congregational minister who was also an English teacher and, later, president of Marietta College in Ohio. His mother was a suffragist.

Parsons received his undergraduate degree from Amherst College, where he majored in biology. He had originally intended to study medicine, and his training in the biological sciences would impact his sociology throughout his career. After graduation, an uncle financed a year of study at the London School of Economics, where Parsons first encountered the social sciences. He was then off to Heidelberg, Germany, for an exchange fellowship and, later, a doctorate.

At Heidelberg, Parsons was introduced to Max Weber’s works, and was even taught by Alfred Weber (a scholar who was also Max’s younger brother). He also became interested in the relationship between sociology and economics, an in-terest that, like medicine, would also occupy much of his career (Martel 1979).

Parsons took a faculty position in the economics department at Harvard University in 1927. He became increasingly drawn to sociology and translated Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1930) into English.

This was an important contribution to disseminating Weber’s work in American sociology. He also later looked at Weber in The Structure of Social Action (1937). Parsons moved to the Department of Sociology in 1930 and remained there until retiring in 1973.

Over the course of his career, Parsons and Harvard became the center of American sociology (Trevino 2001, xix). He held visiting appointments at a number of institutions and served as President of the American Sociological As-sociation and the Eastern Sociological Society. In person and personal relation-ships, Parsons has been described as being “extremely modest, unassuming, uncritical of others, reluctant to mention himself in conversation, much less to talk about his accomplishments . . . [yet becoming] the opposite in his writings, claiming for himself many ‘major breakthroughs’ in the development not only of his own theory but also of sociological theory more generally . . . [even equat-ing] his own theory with sociological theory itself ” (xviii–xix).

Several of Parsons’s students, including Robert K. Merton, Kingsley Davis, Harold Garfinkel, and Neil Smelser are profiled in this book. Many of

those students originally went to Harvard to study with Pitirim A. Sorokin, pro-filed in chapter 9, but gravitated toward Parsons instead (Hamilton 1983, 133–34; Martel 1979). Over 150 of Parsons’s former students came to his re-tirement, some even traveling internationally to do so.

After his retirement, Parsons continued to lecture as a visiting professor as well as publish and present his work to colleagues at professional meetings.

He died in Germany, where he was attending celebrations and delivering lectures on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of his doctorate.

Herbert Spencer

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) was born in Derby, England. He was the only one of his parent’s nine children to survive into adulthood. Spencer himself was an unhealthy child, so he was educated at home by his father and, as a teen, by a clergyman uncle. This education was heavily oriented toward the sciences.

In addition to sociology, Spencer influenced the development of disciplines in-cluding biology, psychology, and anthropology (Carneiro 1968, 121).

In 1837, Spencer became a railroad engineer and draftsman. He was also an inventor, but did not profit significantly from his work in that area. After his work with the railroad was completed, Spencer began to publish articles on the social and political issues of the day. Unable to make a living as a writer, he eventually returned to the railroad, continuing to invent, write, and travel. In 1848, he finally landed stable employment in an editorial position with the Economist. Spencer wrote his first book, Social Statistics (1851), while in that position. He also published a theory of evolution that predated Charles Darwin’s famous On the Origin of Species (1996, orig. 1859) by several years (Coser 1977, 102–5).

Shortly after these publications, Spencer’s uncle died and left him a siz-able inheritance. His newfound wealth allowed him to quit his job and live as a private scholar. He also had a nervous breakdown and developed a nervous con-dition at age 35 that left him unable to work long hours for the rest of his life. It also severely impaired his social interactions (Peel 1971). However, Spencer was able to continue to write prolifically on topics including biology, philosophy, and sociology. He became a renowned scientist. His writings were published in En-gland and the United States, used as textbooks, and translated into French, Ger-man, Spanish, Italian, and Russian by the turn of the century. Yet Herbert Spencer never held a university degree or university position (Coser 1977, 102–7; Peel 1971).

Max Weber

German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) was the oldest of seven children. He grew up with many intellectual influences. Politicians and aca-demics were frequent houseguests (Coser 1977, 235). He was an avid reader.

Even as a youngster, he studied a variety of areas on his own, especially the

clas-sics, history, religion, economics, and philosophy. The teenage Weber was al-ready writing essays on such topics as the family tree of Constantine and the his-tory of civilized nations and “the laws covering their development” (Weber 1975, 45–46).

Weber studied law. He published articles on many current events and was active in politics. He taught briefly at the universities of Freiburg and then Heidelberg. However, because of his health, he never held a permanent academic position (Bendix 1968, 494). Weber wore himself down with chronic overwork.

In 1898, after the death of his father, Weber suffered a mental breakdown and was unable to work for several years. He and his wife traveled widely during this time, eventually touring America at the behest of a former colleague who invited him to present a paper on the social structure of Germany. The Webers’ travels included a visit to Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute (now Tuskegee University). Weber eventually returned to Heidelberg to write, but he did not teach again until much later in his life (Coser 1977, 240–41).

Weber also served in the German military as a young man. He volun-tarily returned to the military as a reservist during World War I, where he was commissioned to establish and run several military hospitals. Several articles he wrote during that period that were critical of Germany’s execution of the war led the government to consider criminal prosecution (Coser 1977, 240–41). After the war, Weber returned to politics and published prolifically on current events.

The topics of Weber’s sociological works were wide-ranging. They in-cluded political development in Russia, the social psychology of industrial work and factory workers, and economics. He cofounded the German Sociological Society with Ferdinand Toennies (profiled in chapter 8) and Georg Simmel (pro-filed in chapter 5). He was also keenly interested in religion, studying and writ-ing about Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism. Arguably his most famous work was The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1904–5), which, among other emphases, tied capitalism to the tenets of Calvinist religious doctrine. Even during his war service, he found time for his studies in the soci-ology of religion.

As a research methodologist, Weber was concerned with the potential influences and biases that could impact research findings. He advocated verste-hen, or value-free, objective research. As Marianne Weber says, he warned against “an unconscious interweaving of factual perception with value judge-ments” (1975, 317).

Weber’s wife, Marianne, would become a well-known sociologist in her own right and an active feminist in the women’s movement. Together, the Web-ers entertained young scholars at their home on Sunday afternoons. Their guests included Russian, Polish, and Jewish students shunned by other professors, as well as pacifists and political radicals. “Wherever he perceived an injustice, Weber entered the arena like a wrathful prophet castigating his fellows for their moral sloth, their lack of conviction, their sluggish sense of justice” (Coser 1977, 242). Max Weber died of pneumonia in 1920.

CAREERS IN SOCIOLOGY

Those with an interest and training in social theory have backgrounds that prepare them for careers including

Those with an interest and training in social theory have backgrounds that prepare them for careers including