Social Research: An International Quarterly
@socres
Founded in 1934 by immigrant refugees in New York City. Carrying the torch of academic freedom and mapping the landscape of intellectual thought at @thenewschool.bsky.social. | socres.org
The World Cup ends, but the conversation on national identity continues across continents. How do migration, citizenship, and FIFA eligibility rules redefine international football? Explore the complex legal and cultural forces shaping the game with Gijsbert Oonk. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
Is economics a science? Susan Haack explores this complex question, diving into Robert Heilbroner’s critiques and comparing empirical methods across the natural and social sciences. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
Is AI a disruption to writing as we know it today? Matthew Kirschenbaum argues no. In his latest essay, he explores LLMs as the logical completion of a "scriptural economy," where writing is merely a tokenized asset for value extraction. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
What turns a group into a collective force? For #TBT, we’re looking at “The Crowd.” From the aesthetics of protest in Kyiv to the politics of pelting, this collection explores how crowds shape identities, networks, and political change. muse.jhu.edu/issue/5...
Derrida delved into this instability, questioning the very mechanisms by which we represent reality, ultimately pushing us to reconsider the boundaries of language and the nature of presence itself. www.jstor.org/stable... 3/3
Philosopher Jacques Derrida, #BOTD in 1930, revolutionized how we understand language, meaning, and truth. As the father of deconstruction, he challenged Western metaphysics, revealing how texts inherently hold shifting, multiple meanings. 1/3
Baseball, Arendt, and the flâneur? In a compulsively traditionless America, the diamond offers more than just a game—it provides a vital balance to modern solitude. 1/2
Liberté, égalité, fraternité! This #BastilleDayexplore our 1989 issue “The French Revolution and the Birth of Modernity” featuring Eric Hobsbawm, Theda Skocpol, and others as they parse the event’s enduring impact on global politics and society. jstor.org/stable/10....
What does it mean to rule and be ruled? This #SundayRead looks at one of Hannah Arendt’s posthumously published essays and traces the history of political power—from Montesquieu’s classical frameworks to the devastating impact of 20th-century totalitarianism. 1/2
#TodayInHistory: In 1906, French Army officer Alfred Dreyfus, who had been wrongfully accused and convicted of spying for Germany, was officially exonerated, ending a landmark battle against institutional antisemitism in France. 1/2
Explore his sharp insights in "Death and Native Strain in American Poetry," where he brilliantly contrasted British and American poetic visions of mortality. www.jstor.org/stable... 2/2
#BOTD in 1930: A towering titan of literary criticism, Harold Bloom redefined how we read the Western canon. As a legendary Yale professor and author of over 40 books—including “The Anxiety of Influence”—he spent decades passionately defending the aesthetic power of the written word. 1/2
In "The Diffusion of Cultural Traits" (originally published in 1937), he argued that while modern global trade and education spread new ideas at an unprecedented speed, massive populations also create a heavy structural inertia that resists systemic change. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a... 2/2
#BOTD in 1858: Franz Boas, the foundational "Father of American Anthropology," permanently revolutionized the social sciences by introducing cultural relativism and rigorously dismantling scientific racism. 1/2
How has climate change reshaped the way we write, read, and trust? Charles Bazerman explores how climate change disrupts our 5,000-year history of a textually mediated society. As material crises fracture knowledge systems, we rethink how we identify authority and communicate. 1/2
Our 5 most read articles in the month of June were: 1/6
In "What We Have Learned About Limiting Knowledge in a Democracy," he famously defended the right to remain silent about personal political affiliations and argued that protecting the free flow of information remains essential to our democracy. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a... 2/2
#BOTD in 1932 in New York was American journalist and editor Victor S. Navasky. A master of intellectual discourse and longtime editor of The Nation magazine, Navasky explored the complex intersection of satire, censorship, and social responsibility. 1/2
Happy 4th! This #IndependenceDay, we’re revisiting our archives to reflect on the foundations of liberty. In "Republican Liberalism," Philip Pettit explores whether American liberalism is a unified philosophy rooted in the republican tradition of the Founders. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
Can we truly achieve a society that captures everything morally good? This #TBT goes back to our 1999 issue “Liberty and Pluralism,” exploring the complex tensions among negative liberty, cultural belonging, and the pursuit of the ideal. www.jstor.org/stable...
#TodayinHistory: In 1997, Hong Kong returned to China. As Christine Loh explored, the "One Country, Two Systems" framework acted as a catalyst for transformation, forcing debate and shaping China’s modernization in unique ways. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
How do digital innovations shape literature in this relentlessly digital era? Nancy K. Miller explores the intersection of age, aesthetics, and technology by comparing Erica Jong’s 1973 classic "Fear of Flying" with Molly Jong-Fast’s 2025 memoir. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
"Well, you can always file a FOIA request." This #SundayRead joins Pulitzer Winner David T. Barstow as he shares his long frustration with the Freedom of Information Act and why it favors obstruction over transparency. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
#TBT to Summer 2001’s “Numbers,” where, from the dark side of population data in human rights abuses to the sociology of accounting and the mechanization of emotion, this issue explores how we model, measure, and govern the world. www.jstor.org/stable...
Socrates never wrote a word, fearing writing would ruin our minds. Sound like today's AI debates? Regina Rini argues his real lesson isn't about memory loss—it's how new tech destabilizes epistemic norms. “And in the end, it will all be fine. Or so they will one day write.” 1/2
Happy #FathersDay! For today's #SundayRead, we’re diving into Eleanor Leacock’s classic critique: "The Changing Family and Lévi-Strauss, or Whatever Happened to Fathers?" Explore how history and Indigenous cultures reshape our views on fatherhood. www.jstor.org/stable...
This Juneteenth we reflect on freedom, collective action & history. In "Anatomy of a Radical Social Movement," Manisha Sinha explores slave resistance as a radical movement that reshaped American democracy & global human rights. muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/a...
In "Why More Philosophy?" he reflects on Theodor Adorno’s view that post-WWII philosophy must navigate the contradiction of seeking truth without claiming absolute power, questioning whether philosophy's core spirit has shifted once again today. www.jstor.org/stable... 3/3
#BOTD in 1929 was German philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas, who is renowned for his theories on communicative rationality, the public sphere, and discourse ethics. A key figure of the Frankfurt School, he has dedicated his life to defending democracy and reason. 1/3
#TodayinHistory: In 1963, Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. Her flight shattered the myth of the "woman’s place." As Lorraine B. Code notes in her 1983 essay on epistemic community, women faced deep bias regarding elite capability. www.jstor.org/stable...