Erin McDonnell
​University of Notre Dame

Damon Mayrl
Universidad Carlos III

It is hard to believe that our term as Perspectives editors is drawing to a close. Over the past three years, we have strived to uphold the historically high caliber of the newsletter, to provide content that is interesting to senior scholars yet written in accessible and engaging language, while showcasing the theoretical diversity of the discipline. It has been a privilege and pleasure to work with the fantastic contributors who have shared their ideas in these pages over the past three years. 

We recognize that the academic world has be-come increasingly crowded with venues for publication, including new journals and online opportunities like blogging. All of these compete for the short-form contributions that newsletters like this one have traditionally carried.
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The vibrancy and relevancy of the theory newsletter only persist insofar as section members are willing to share their time to contribute their ideas. We know how easy it can be to fall prey to the bystander effect and wait for someone else to contribute. But whether you are an established senior scholar or a new up-and-coming theorist, Perspectives needs you to keep our great tradition of theoretical dialogue going.

Neil Gross,
​Colby College

​One of the best things about being chair of an ASA section (besides the incredible swag, like the super cool “Critical Realism Is Awesome” t-shirt I got in the mail—thanks Phil!) is that you get to hand out awards without actually having to do the hard work of serving on award committees. Don’t get me wrong: being on an award committee can be fun, especially in a dynamic section like ours, where deciding on prizes means you get to read all sorts of innovative and interesting papers and books you might not otherwise come across. It can be a little time-consuming, though, which is why section chairs who give prizes feel like they’re getting away with something.

Omar Lizardo
University of Notre Dame

​Excluding the annual ASA Presidential addresses, it is no secret that traditionally peer-reviewed theory papers are kind of a rare sight at American Sociological Review. “Theory” papers are kept track of as a category just like any other “method” (e.g. ethnography, historical, experimental, and so on) and usually show up in the annual mea culpa (a.k.a. report) written by the editors at the end of the year as one of the perennially “under-represented” categories. In the past, editors have engaged in strategies to boost the number of theory papers in the journal, such as sending special reminders to the theory section listserv that theory submissions are welcome and considered. In their initial proposal, the current editorship noted that even when theory authors are brave enough to actually send them on, theory pieces may have a tougher time than traditional empirical work making it through the review process. This is mainly because they pose unique evaluative challenges for reviewers. To try to address this issue, they developed a set of specialized reviewers guidelines to help readers deal with theory papers on their own merits.

Seth Abrutyn,
​University of British Columbia

​With the centennial anniversary of Durkheim’s death upon us, it is perhaps as good a time as any to reflect on his significance in sociology. On the one hand, the conventional use of Durkheim illustrates widespread weaknesses in the use of theory in sociological research. On the other hand, Durkheim’s ideas are so deeply infused throughout contemporary sociology that his work continues to demonstrate impressive staying-power and offers promise for future generations of sociologists.

​What’s Wrong with Theory?

It is perhaps clichéd to begin an essay on one of sociology’s great theorists by pointing to the problems in contemporary sociological theory. However, I find it intriguing to contemplate what Durkheim would think about theory today. 

Jennifer Lena: Sometimes I joke that the research question for my dissertation was, “What makes a hit song?” (Lena 2003). When I started the dissertation project, in 1998 or so, we didn’t have the data corpus or the computing power to analyze song metadata and musicological components like we do now. So it was truly a question: what is the relationship between the aesthetic elements of a successful song and our perceptions of one? Was your interest in “community sense” motivated by a similar kind of question about what makes “good” or “bad” taste?​

Book by: Julian Go

Review by:
​Timothy M. Gill,
​Tulane University

In his excellent new treatise, Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory, Julian Go places sociology in dialogue with postcolonial theory and pursues an explicit aim of reconciling the two. This no easy feat; as Go points out, “social theory was born from and for empire, post-colonial thought was born against it” (p. 1). Yet, despite sociology’s imperial origins, Go argues that the solution is not to sideline the discipline—or social science more broadly, as some postcolonial scholars have suggested. Instead, he believes individuals can repurpose the sociological enterprise by taking inspiration from postcolonial thinkers and overcoming the epistemological, methodological, and onto-logical deficits that continue to distort the field. What is more, he argues that postcolonial thought remains premised upon a sociological minimalism and can, likewise, renew itself by more directly engaging with social theory.​
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Although sociology has largely become the progressive poster-child of academia, the discipline indeed possesses imperial origins. Not only was sociology birthed during an aggressively imperial moment within Europe and the United States (the mid-to-late 1800s), but many of the discipline’s progenitors championed imperial endeavors. Franklin Giddings, for instance, received the first full sociology professorship in the United States and served as president of the American Sociological Society. Giddings believed that sociology should, in part, concern itself with “rule over alien peoples.” Other prominent sociologists of the day maintained similarly imperial visions, including Charles Horton Cooley and Lester Ward.

“Postcolonial thought,” as Go (2016:9) tells us, “critiques the culture of empire in order to cultivate new knowledges, ways of represent-ting the world, and histories that circumvent or transcend rather than authorize or sustain imperialistic ways of knowing.” It thus goes beyond describing the historical realities after colonialism, instead seeking to challenge how knowledge is currently produced and the theoretical categories within which we think. It troubles ideas and questions that originate with the