Social Research: An International Quarterly

31/07/2025

Yesterday, we looked at the journal’s Summer 1985 issue. But what were we releasing just 10 years ago, in the summer of 2015?

“From Burma to Myanmar: Critical Transitions,” published as a part of Social Research’s “Transitions” series, tracks the democratic and decolonial transition in Myanmar. Some contributing authors include Nick Cheesman, David I. Steinberg, and Nehginpao Kipgen, among others.

🔗: https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/32225

30/07/2025

What was Social Research publishing 40 years ago?

In Summer 1985, we published “Myth in Contemporary Life,” with contributions from Umberto Eco, Hide Ishiguro, Bruno Zevi, and several other accomplished scholars. Authors discussed the theory of “the myth,” the relationship between recorded “reality” and the “mythical,” and the relevance of the modern myth.

What better time to return to the mythical?

Check it out here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/i40043631

29/07/2025

“The illiberal turn in higher education is part of the ubiquitous autocratic turn in liberal democracies.... The autocratic use of power on university campuses inscribes itself well within the broader illiberal turn in Western democracies, as the rule of law is being relentlessly replaced with rule of law-enforcement.”—Albena Azmanova

Azmanova’s “Free Speech or Safe Speech: Neoliberal University’s False Dilemma” is open access in our most recent issue, “The Embattled University.”

🔗: https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/961484

28/07/2025

Baruch S. Blumberg, winner of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Medicine, was born 100 years ago today in Brooklyn, New York.

Blumberg accidentally discovered the Hepatitis B virus while conducting research on blood samples; later, he developed a blood test and a vaccine for the virus. Blumberg didn’t monetize the vaccine but freely distributed the patent to its creation—saving thousands of lives.

Blumberg wrote “Hepatitis B Virus and the Carrier Problem” for fall 1988 (“In the Time of Plague”), and you can read it here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40970511

27/07/2025

For this edition of , we’re celebrating Jean Baudrillard being born on this day in 1929.

Baudrillard—French postmodernist, social critic, and philosopher—is known for coining terms “hyperreality” and “simulacrum,” denoting ideas central to postmodern society. He wrote “The System of Objects,” “The Consumer Society,” “Simulacra and Simulation,” and several other influential works.

He contributed “Fatality or Reversible Imminence: Beyond the Uncertainty Principle” to our Summer 1982 issue, “Current French Philosophy.”

Read it here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40970864

26/07/2025

The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed 35 years ago today, ensuring equal access to jobs, transportation, social services, and more for disabled Americans.

To mark this day, we recommend Susan Schweik’s “Disability and the Normal Body of the (Native) Citizen”:

“What if, following one of the etymologies of ‘deformed’—from the medieval Latin ‘dis-forma,’ ‘of diverse forms’—we aimed, from Carlos Montezuma’s standpoint of actual circumstance, to recognize honestly and to value systematically and creatively the dif-formed nation and the dis-formed people that we are?”

🔗: https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sor.2011.0034

24/07/2025

What does it mean that conspiracy theories have infiltrated and steer our governing bodies? Are conspiracies a side effect of democracy, or are they virulent and unpredictable?

With contributions from Nancy L. Rosenblum, Nadia Urbinati, Jan-Werner Müller, and others, our Fall 2022 issue “Conspiracy Thinking” deals with QAnon, internet-fueled conspiracy theorizing, COVID-19 conspiracies, international manifestations of conspiracy thinking, and more.

Check it out here: https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/48924

23/07/2025

How do we measure the “social world”? Surely, the measurement isn’t solely empirical, economic, or even qualitative, and it’s certainly not universally applicable or accepted.

Sociologist Martin Bulmer prescribes that “what is needed is more systematic attention to the processes involved in social classification in order to tackle some of the inconsistencies and inadequacies that result from the plethora of social measures in use, and to reduce the gap between the theoretical and empirical planes in empirical social inquiry.”

Read Bulmer’s contribution to our Summer 2001 issue (“Numbers”) here: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40971466

22/07/2025

Sociologist Neil J. Smelser was born on this day in Kahoka, Missouri, in 1930.

He’s perhaps best known for his work applying sociological theory to social movements, economics, and collective behavior. He conceptualized the value-added theory, which explained that social movements were born from six converging factors, including social strain and participant mobilization. He’s the author of “The Theory of Social Behavior,” “The Social Edges of Psychoanalysis,” and many other books and publications.

Read Smelser’s “The Questionable Logic of ‘Mistakes’ in the Dynamics of Logic Growth in the Social Sciences” in spring 2005: https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/sor.2005.0045

21/07/2025

Listen to this excellent podcast with our author David Hollinger, then read his article (in open access through Aug. 1), to understand why the right in the US, and the Republican Party specifically, fears and attacks higher education.
https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/1/article/961490

We kick off Season 4 of the Hopkins Press Podcast with a new logo and a fascinating interview with David Hollinger about what it means for academia that the U.S. Republican party has fallen under evangelical influence over the past few decades

Listen: https://tinyurl.com/4yfsy97h

David Hollinger's essay “The Evangelical Capture of the Republican Party and Its Implications for Academia” is part of a new special issue of Social Research exploring "The Embattled University"

This article is free to read on thru 1 Aug
https://tinyurl.com/bdfye3k4

20/07/2025

For this , we’re looking inward.

How do we characterize ourselves against an impossibly large backdrop of individual selves? How does the self factor into one’s art? How does the self drive a narrative?

Check out “Reflections on the Self,” our Spring 1987 issue, with contributions from David Polonoff (on self-deception), Michael Walzer (on self-criticism), and Jerome Bruner (on life as narrative).

https://www.jstor.org/stable/i40043638

18/07/2025

Nelson Mandela was born today in 1918. He was a radical anti-apartheid activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, and he served as South Africa’s first Black and first democratically elected president.

Although himself not a contributor to Social Research, Mandela’s tireless efforts have been celebrated, invoked, and analyzed by our authors. Today, we’re returning to “South Africa: The Second Decade” (Fall 2005) to honor his activism and democratic resonance.

🔗: https://muse.jhu.edu/issue/28844