La sociología como forma de arte

by Robert A. Nisbet

La Sociología como forma de arte es un breve libro de sorprendente originalidad - ya presente en su título -: muestra cómo la sociología, independientemente de su carácter "científico", es una forma de arte, constituida en el siglo XIX, en estrecha relación con la literatura, la pintura, la historia, la filosofía; cómo utiliza temas, estilos, impulsos creadores, formas de representación, recursos todos propios de las artes. Esto culmina en el hecho de que los grandes sociólogos han construido retratos - el burgués, el obrero, el intelectual- y paisajes - las masas, los pobres, la fábrica -. Nombres como Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel son prueba de este parentesco entre la sociología y la literatura y el arte, que trazan por los mismos años análogos retratos y paisajes. Esta nueva perspectiva teórica proyecta una luz eficacísima sobre ambos dominios y sobre sus raíces en la misma vida histórica.

206 pages, Unknown Binding

First published September 30, 1976

About the author

American sociologist, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Vice-Chancellor at the University of California, Riverside and as the Albert Schweitzer Professor at Columbia University.
After serving in the US Army during World War II, when he was stationed on Saipan in the Pacific theatre, Nisbet founded the Department of Sociology at Berkeley, and was briefly Chairman. Nisbet left an embroiled Berkeley in 1953 to become a dean at the University of California, Riverside, and later a Vice-Chancellor. Nisbet remained in the University of California system until 1972, when he left for the University of Arizona at Tucson. Soon thereafter, he was appointed to the prestigious Albert Schweitzer Chair at Columbia.
On retiring from Columbia in 1978, Nisbet continued his scholarly work for eight years at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C. In 1988, President Reagan asked him to deliver the Jefferson Lecture in Humanities, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Nisbet's first important work, The Quest for Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969) contended that modern social science's individualism denied an important human drive toward community as it left people without the aid of their fellows in combating the centralizing power of the national state.
Nisbet is seen as follower of Emile Durkheim in the understanding of modern sociocultural systems and their drift. Often identified with the political right, Nisbet began his career as a political liberal but later confessed a conversion to a kind of philosophical Conservatism

Reviews

[Devin Kasparian · Rating 2 out of 5]

Remind me not to read non-fiction from 1976. Listen. This book is 141 pages and took me 2 months to read. I thought my love for Sociology, Art, and the shade of green that’s on the cover of my physical copy of this book would be enough to get through it. I was very wrong. This book is an extended essay that was once published in a sociological journal in 1976 — that was the first red flag I should have listened to. This was such a boring read ... so glad I am done. I NEED a narrative book after this dry experience.

[Miguel Soto · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tal como Freud señaló en su momento que de la vida psíquica saben más los artistas que los psicólogos, Nisbet señala lo mismo sobre la vida social humana: los mismos temas que ocupan a los sociologos, ocuparon primero a los artistas, en especial a los románticos.

Partiendo de esto, plantea dos grandes formas de escritura sociológica: el paisaje y el retrato, y con multitud de ejemplos, explica sus cualidades.

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nisbet doesn't like systems and abstractions. Instead he likes literary flair. He suggests the latter is essential to all good sociology and provides plenty of examples to boot. Definitely a part of the story, but I think there is still a role for systems somewhere. This is an old book and possibly Nisbet is bending the stick a tad too far against Parsonian structural-functionalism, which is both boring and now obsolete.

[Sandra Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's a fundamental unity in social sciences and arts- moments of synthesis, similar overarching themes. it'd be fallacious to try and distill the art from science or vice versa. Nisbet presents an array of intellectual and artistic minds from 19th century to prove his point and show linkages b/w the disciplines, women are curiously absent in his discussion throughout