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This issue contains two articles. The first is a reappraisal of the sociology of William Graham Sumner, the pioneering American sociologist who is usually dismissed as a Social Darwinian when he was in fact a Pragmatist. It argues that his method of analysis, which is to judge a social institution by its consequences, and to discard dated institutions on the scrapheap of history, remains a valid way to approach policy questions. Sumner's approach is applied to his own treatment of slavery and to still current debates about affirmative action.
The second article is a prospectus for what can be called "philosophical sociology", which is the idea that philosophical questions having to do with justice and mind and epistomology can be reduced to sociological questions which compare real live situations to one another. There is always evidence out there, always an alternative situation to be explored, so that questions that are thought intractable can be solved by giving content to what is otherwise thought as metaphysical and so without content--but in that case what would the question be about?
The purpose of this e-journal is to use in tandem the techniques of literary criticism and social structural analysis to illuminate American politics and the various institutions in American society and sometimes matters more global, like religion or war, by turning an eye on the events and objects and performances that are considered art and entertainment, those defined broadly enough to include whatever is covered in newspapers and other media. Another concern is to pick up the texture of social life, both in the United States and in general, through the analysis of those events, objects and performances that are to be found in everyday life. |
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List Articles by Topic
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The Political Ticker
The Hillary Coalition
- November 19, 2014
Obama's Win in the Ukraine
- April 5, 2014
"House of Cards" Politics
- February 14, 2014
Birenbaum: The Day the President Struck Out
- January 29, 2014
The Debate Over Inequality
- January 27, 2014
Temporary Issues: "Stop and Frisk", Climate Change, Inequality
- January 21, 2014
Previous Political Tickers
The Administrative President
-January 12, 2014
Three Chronic Problems
-December 19, 2013
Obama the Transformational President
-December 13, 2013
"Homeland", "Alpha House" and the Tea Party
-November 27, 2013
Off Year Election Post-mortem
-November 7, 2013
Kathleen Sibelius and the Iliad
-October 31, 2013
Political Impasses: 2013 and 1936
-October 7, 2013
Birenbaum on The Tea Party
-October 6, 2013
Fifty Years Later: The Anniversary of the March on Washington
-September 18, 2013
The Principled Obama
-September 10, 2013
Obama Thinks About Syria Freshly
-September 5, 2013
Syria and the Falklands
-August 30, 2013
Public Opinion on Syria
-August 24, 2013
Upward Mobility Through Educational Innovation
-August 12, 2013
The Anthony Wiener Bubble
-July 30, 2013
Racial Issues in 2013
-June 29, 2013
The David Brinkley Era of Journalism
-June 5, 2013
Republican Scandal Mongering
-May 23, 2013
Benghazi and Two Other "Scandals"
-May 14, 2013
Lackluster Politics
-May 7, 2013
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The Cultural Ticker
A Dour Cultural Week
- February 4, 2014
Colonial Virginia
- January 15, 2014
Birenbaum: The Joy of Middle European Posters
- January 6, 2014
A Jewish Nipple
- November 28, 2013
Birenbaum: My Oral Comprehensive Examination and the JFK Assassination
- November 27, 2013
"12 Years a Slave"
- November 12, 2013
Previous Cultural Tickers
Pinter and Shakespeare
-November 8, 2013
Birenbaum on "I Am Divine"
-November 3, 2013
The Hearing Impaired Student
-August 17, 2013
Ideas and People
-August 10, 2013
The Weekly Roundup of Morning Joe and Chris Matthews
-August 8, 2013
The Zen of Dishwashers
-August 5, 2013
The Profundity of the Second World War
-August 2, 2013
The Trayvon Martin Bubble
-July 20, 2013
Eliot Spitzer
-July 9, 2013
The Study of Everyday Life
-July 5, 2013
The Zimmerman Trial
-July 3, 2013
Le Carre's "A Delicate Truth"
-July 1, 2013
Zucker: A Madeleine (A Memoir)
-June 23, 2013
Von Trotta's "Hannah Arendt"
-June 7, 2013
The Armchair View of War and Disability
-May 30, 2013
Birenbaum's Summers
-May 24, 2013
Old Neighborhoods
-May 21, 2013
Jackie Robinson
-May 20, 2013
Barbara Spun's Catskill Vacations
-May 16, 2013
An Old Friend in Her Eighties
-May 11, 2013
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| A new issue of “w. end ave.: an e-journal of culture and politics” is
published once every three weeks or so. It is edited, owned, and where not indicated as otherwise,
written by Martin Wenglinsky. The rights to all materials published
here are copyright © 2008 by Martin Wenglinsky
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