Re-envisioning the History of Sociology: Reflections on a Symposium for Junior Historians of Sociology held at the New School for Social Research, August 10, 2013

Abstract

Six of the articles published in this issue of The American Sociologist – Alvaro SantanaAcuna’s Outside Structures, John Boy’s The Axial Age and the Problems of the Twentieth Century, Corey Colyer’s W.I. Thomas and the Forgotten Four Wishes, Marcus Hunter’s W.E.B. Du Bois and Black Heterogeneity, Ben Merriman’s Three Conceptions of Spatial Locality in Chicago School Sociology, and Gina Zurlo’s The Social Gospel, Ecumenical Movement, and Christian Sociology—are connected with a Symposium held at The New School for Social Research on August 10, 2013. The Symposium was generously hosted by The New School’s Sociology Department, and sponsored by the History of Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association (ASA). Ambitiously hoping to Bhighlight the relevance of sociology’s past to its present and future, and to bring the history of sociology out of itsmarginal position,^we issued a call to graduate students and early career sociologists, soliciting their help in Ban effort to re-envision the history of sociology^ (Bare and Ford 2012). The fruitfulness of that call is now on display for all to see and judge. In what follows, we offer our reflections on lessons learned and intellectual benefits gained from organizing this Symposium. In offering these reflections, we are (in a small way) contributing to the history of sociology. Looking to the future, we hope that these reflections might help garner support for similar initiatives by junior scholars.