Abstract
Classical sociology has long served as a locus for the discipline's self-understanding, and is a phenomenon increasingly studied in its own right. The growing literature is synthesised in Peter Baehr's renowned framework for scrutinising reception and formation processes. By theorising on the trajectories of multiple classics, Baehr has helped pave the way for sociology’s understanding of how classicality becomes established. This paper deploys this framework in order to appraise neglected work with classicality potential in early sociology, namely the bulky production of Sweden's main candidate for a classic, Gustaf F. Steffen (1864–1929), with special attention given to his magnum opus Sociology: A general theory of society (1910–1911). The analysis exposes some of the conceptual ambiguity in Baehr's framework, while proposing that both the notion of a ‘classic’ and the sole focus on reception and formation need to be expanded. This article also argues that our understanding of classicality could be advanced if we were to distinguish between author, text, and theory, since each of these plays different roles in reception, formation, and neglection processes.
Highlights
Sociologists have been debating who to define as the pioneers of sociology and just how applicable they are to contemporary times
We find ourselves with two main attitudes on the centrality of classics in sociology, namely protectors and attackers of the current order
The insights generated in the field have been synthesised to fit, as in the case of sociology in sociologist Baehr’s (2002: 111, 120, 135) attempt to answer ‘Why is “X” a classic?’ and ‘Why did some texts achieve that status while others did not?’ by generating ‘four factors [...] to describe the process of classic reception/formation – cultural resonance, textual suppleness, reader appropriation and, social transmission and diffusion – [that] are best envisioned both diachronically and synchronically’
Summary
Sociologists have been debating who to define as the pioneers of sociology and just how applicable they are to contemporary times. The insights generated in the field have been synthesised to fit, as in the case of sociology in sociologist Baehr’s (2002: 111, 120, 135) attempt to answer ‘Why is “X” a classic?’ and ‘Why did some texts achieve that status while others did not?’ by generating ‘four factors [...] to describe the process of classic reception/formation – cultural resonance, textual suppleness, reader appropriation and, social transmission and diffusion – [that] are best envisioned both diachronically and synchronically’.
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