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Okay, thanks for coming for coming.

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I'm powered by a salary from the University of Genoa. Before studying, I will read the acknowledgment of country.

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The place known as Australia comprises the traditional states of our 250 first nations, language groups

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from the early 50 s. Now our stallions have increasingly formally recognized the importance of country and first nations, people, relationships, and protocols for conducting business in the country.

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acknowledging country shows respect for the country in the first nation's continuing connection to country the 2,023 for Congress to wish the cultural particles to be known to all, and observed

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the country we meet on this for this war Congress is called Nam. It is in the home of the Kulin Nation. We're dirty voyeur people.

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We acknowledged their sovereignity and pay for our experts to the elders and ancestors.

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Ok. Thanks for coming to our session

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on social research funding sources and social prognostication, the history of sociology.

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The first

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was in.

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Sorry the the the the gun is to nuttagas Kanya scouse. I'm sorry. I hope I okay.

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who won a million analysing competition of Sh to aid for Grant in Lituania.

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Thanks a lot.

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The I' to switch the

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disc

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escaping. Okay? Okay? And then all right, leaking. Okay, okay, it will start.

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And for, yeah. okay, okay, right?

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So thanks a lot for coming here. It's really very nice just to have several people. So we are not so rush in time framework.

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and the I will share my ideas, and we're glad that it's a good possibility to share my ideas about sociology, about not only money, but the mainly about ideological components of so any sociological discourse, and how you can investigate it.

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And I will start my, maybe a presentation from the one contradiction that sociologists are mainly concerned about an equal distribution of financial or other

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the forms of capital in society. But they are. I would say they are really talk about their own money. So they are talking how money is flow and calm, but they are sometimes keeping the secrets, how they earn money and what they are doing. 150

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so. And the it's it's quite natural, because, see? So some of just a discipline has never been about the idea how to earn money, how to generate capital. But it's always was the idea about teaching communicating K images of good and just society. I don't know. Is it true or not? But Someone of my colleagues said that in the United States there is the same

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mit Ctl, and if your idea to teach others so show your 1 million how you earned it. If you don't have 1 million, how can you teach others how to live, and it is a really very interesting contradiction. But I'm not sure. Is it true for American society, or it is just like ideological representation with flows on in our common knowledge. How society in America? 2.

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But it is, and if you don't have a million, it means that it is something wrong with your teaching.

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When we are talking about trunk in our teaching, I would say in sociology there is a really very long tradition to say something. What is wrong. This is a discipline about its failure.

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about it strains tensions about neurosis and different traditions and arguments are coming from absolutely different points of view, and they are always trying to find the main fundamental reasons why discipline is failing, and only during, I would say, during the last, maybe 2 decades, money

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are introduced into the argument, otherwise it was just like competition with this natural sciences. Maybe the ideological competition between leftist and writers, and maybe epistemological uncertainties or high degree of polymorphism in social sciences, etc. But money were always somewhere left how to say from the discourse. But currently it is quite the interesting present

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in different discussions about disciplines that you cannot avoid this discussion about

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money. I don't know why it's happening, but the I'm just say, having some assumptions, that is possibly do the domination of neoliberal discourse, or in the neoliberal attitudes in the universities on university policies meant people administrators are talking about money, how you can generate as a researcher more money for the university, possibly how to see. We are taking this this course for ourselves, and we are. We are trying to think also about us in the same using the same way concepts

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the my theoretical background, I would say, lay in the in golden nerves, Tradition of reflexive me a sociology, because I understand sociology as one kind of particular kind of discourse.

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And Golden Ray was talking about reflexive sociology that if you are producing

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any kind of discuss, you have to always be a V about ideological components of this course, and you have to control it, and sometimes you sociologists, especially from the critical theory, from the leftist.

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They are usually making criticism of any kind of discourses which are floating in the public sphere, but they are forgetting to make reflection, how the situation in which you produce particular kind of sorts, interpretations, etc.

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The okay.

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So we, when we are talking with our colleagues, you can say that there are a lot of tensions this in so solid as a field research. Yeah. we have a traditional arrivals, we in academia, natural sciences, maybe sometimes humanities. We have rivals, the outside academia. It is mass media, journalists, politicians, business, public relations, lifestyle experts, etc., who always know what is

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what means to be a good, a society. Of course there are inattentions like different epistemological styles. You have to.

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You are how to say, floating between different discourses of emancipation, or you are serving for for power institutions. But sometimes you have

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to keep in mind that you are

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a you are just.

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You are just a one.

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an agent, one agent in this huge field of knowledge knowledge production.

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But currently, of course, maybe 2 decades you can see that there are a lot of discussions how administrative discourses or administrative power are making neoliberal demands for different disciplines, and usually they shape the normative understanding. What is the value of your research?

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And this value usually is how to see rededicated to maybe 2 features. Of of course, there are much more features, but the 2 features are very important. It means how you can generate money. It means to bring money from the outside into university or in the Research Institute.

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and how you can be competitive, because money is a resource which is not accessible for everyone, and you have to be very competitive in a very competitive environment, and to show how brave, how smart you

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you are and different disciplines. Also, they are working in a particular kind of administrative environment, and they are adjusting themselves. How is it playing really rational games, how they can survive sometimes in academia?

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But the E. I. I was really surprised that to somebody I'm not sure it was all, or who suggested this strange topic, follow the money. So just I decided to take this, obviously a challenge and to to look at it. Administrative data about a different

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mit C.

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I. Other instruments. But I am a mainly concerned with the external follow funding and to according to the administrative data. And you, you, you, you can how to say, distinguish 3 main sources, mainstream sources of external funding. First of all, it is like participation in international research programs. One.

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So there are huge money, a horizon, a European research area programmes, smaller programs. So it is a huge source that a lot of scholars are pushed to participate and to bring money because some part of money it will be not devoted for research, but also for university.

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A

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another source is called so-called Researching development Money.

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It's mainly comes from the contract, say this business, Institutions and governmental institutions sometimes say Ngos, but you usually in in a different assessment there systems. It is called A and G. E. And the money, and usually they asking how much you are bringing from the different contracts. And you, if you are working in your Liberal Academy, you always push to go how to see

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in more practical research, and also another source. It is just like.

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research projects which are funded by the Research Council of Lesina. It is mainly like a competition for for national Grants, where you can also to have really good money. You can see just to sustain your research.

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E. I also showed here a size of communities in different to such fields, because sometimes size of community really matters, because when you're thinking about size of community, you can always have to keep in mind that legal community, bigger capabilities, more people are participating. They can mobilize, they can harness it, move more quickly. But if you are a small community, so how to say, not so many knowledge, not so many relationship. And you usually be 150,

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hey? Not so well, promote. Okay, let's go to money

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here just like a figure for 2 years 2,020, and to 21, which shows a breakdown, a cow money

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as the equality external funding which I call incomes in incomes, for many scholars are distributed between these different disciplines.

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and when I look at social sciences and of humanities, I would say that they are not in crisis.

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they are not in crisis. They are living quite, really well, quite really well. So it is strange that humanities can attract contracts from government institutions and business. But you can say that be very careful, because this huge red line or segment in humanities hides really huge development and developmental projects which need

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theological excavations. Yeah, so it means you.

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E, C,

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for me, I actually okay, from this slide you can see that the for example, a natural sciences and technologies are doing quite well in international research programs. So others are doing well with national projects. we found that by Research Council of ofly seen, etc. But it is just like a picture a picture just oversee for arguments. What is lying behind? It's really hard to really hard

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to say, because there are always some limitation of data which I am using because it is aggregated data, aggregated data. And it's coming from different reports in the next slide. I will focus just on this.

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the yellow part yellow party for humanities and social sciences, because I can break down different disciplines to show what is a place of sociology, of history, of educational sciences, of law, just to compare how they are competing between them? Who are the winners? Who are the losers who want this 1 million.

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because I, of course, wanted to make a breakdown for

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and And the contracts. But it was not possible, because data was segregated, and it was not possible how to say to distinguish, but I think I will manage one day one

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here is Bubbles.

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I will explain. What does it mean? It is like planets. It is like galaxy. Yeah, just a a size of bubble. It is a size of community.

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How big is it?

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So I would say theology or those who are involved in religious studies. It is quite small community, and the biggest communities are scholars who are working with linguist linguistics, with language and with literature studies. So it's

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this bubble, a okay size communities. As I said, it's it's clear a axis X,

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it is just like Budget. How much you got from. There is a research Council of Licena during the last

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11. Yes.

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So, for example, if you see history on this side. You can say that the historians are really generating a lot of money, and I'm not talking about archeology. Archaeologists are good with contracts from business and from a government. But here I mean, obviously more traditional traditional historians who are working with archives, some interpretation who are providing narrative interpretation, new narratives for different kind of

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stories. Okay? And theology, which is very small. So they are getting very small amount of mine. Okay, and X axis Y,

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it means a success rate success rate. It means how much you submitted and how much of them got. And, for example, those who are higher. It means that

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they are very successive in this competition, and those who are very low. It means they are unsuccessful, so they are producing a lot of applications, but they are not funded they are how to say rejected.

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When I see it and i' this picture, I'm just trying to imagine that if would be how to say, a normal distribution.

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I don't like this expression like a normal curve of such kind of data. You would see, I imagine, that we could start from the theology like a small one, being very low, and the biggest one who can generate a lot of money

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that are a huge.

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a huge amount of scholars, so I think that linguistics might be, could be very high. And hopefully this from the biggest bubble you can go down, down, down, down to the smallest one. But then I see it it. It is just like a data.

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You can say, Okay, so solid, you are doing very good. Yeah, quite well. they are quite competitive. In nearly a cities 3 of their applications are approved. It means each set sociologist is very lucky because he's getting money from the Research Council of Lucina. So it looks like quite good. But when I look at this figure

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and always thinking about interpretation, what they see, how I am connecting those bubbles or data in this interpretative frameworks

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mit Ctl, and and of course you can go with as a managerial discourse of success. Yes, you can say, sociologists are very successful. They are how? It's very important to invest in them, because they are bringing a lot of money back to the university. They are small, they are good, they are competitive. It's very good. It is a story of success. 250,

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but otherwise you can say you can suggest a little bit different story. Yeah,

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Like conspiracy theory that, for example, this data is showing more vulnerable tribes. a neoliberal university, which means that those who are Venus.

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They are pushed by

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Academy by administrative powers to look more for funding for their own research.

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And if you ask me, as sociologist, rich in Los Angeles. you can say, possibly I would say no.

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no, they are not rich, because. despite the fact that they are getting a lot of money from the Research Council of Lusena. Usually they spend a lot of data for

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a lot of money for data generation.

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If you are sociologists, you know that you have to generate data. And this generation collection of data takes a lot of amount of money to do.

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And if we from a

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when I am talking about those vulnerable tribes, academic tribes, and the neoliberal university. I am really shocked that, for example, economists!

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Why, usually a thinking and building their discipline on Iid. Of the utility and benefits. They are not successful.

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And usually you're asking, why

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do we do? You don't need money. You are quite a huge crowd like 3 times bigger than solid. And you are not how to say hunting for money, and you are very unsuccessful. Okay, law. Another discipline which is getting very small amount of money from the this compet competition for funding what is happening with them. And in this case you always trying to bring

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interpretation that they have absolutely different channels, or maybe not channels, but

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resources, or maybe symbolical resources. How they construct understanding what is valuable in those disciplines, so they are escaping. Okay.

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he also, you can say I can switch to another kind of interpretation that, for example.

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here I see how different disciplines are adjusting to administrative, to dominant administrative discourse.

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It means that if you are good you can adjust, but otherwise you can ask, or maybe sociologists, and even historians who are the Venus in this competition are those who are shaping the dominant discourse.

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I would it not

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just you. You have to look for more data just to analyze it, and just to expand your sociological and imagination, which might became, in the sense of golden, or like a nightmare of sociological imagination, that you are facing such kind of

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Just a few facts about publishing partners, how they are changing, how they are changing!

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Maybe for me. It's much more important to look at the articles which were written in the English and the Usena language, and the neoliberal reforms in my countries.

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and a academia started approximately 2,009. Yeah. And you can see that from 2,011, when you are getting a lot of money publications in your national language is getting down

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publications in a English language is not rising up, and it is a strange effect how sick! How money! And this. Scheme for competition they are having, and I would say, unintended effect or unattended consequences for my publication parties.

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If you look at the publications of books and book chapters, and there is a new trend that of course, you have to publish it internationally, and you see how publications in national languages getting down. But you see also the pattern that the

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what people are doing. They are switching their audiences.

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and they are going more to English, Going more for English audiences, or those who can read audiences, and they have to manage their style. It means I have also just the experience, but the impression that

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and this affects style of writing. So how you can produce your theoretical arguments. And sometimes, when you're going to see your Felix for international books, for chapters in edited columns. It means that you are bringing a piece of knowledge for one

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audience which you don't know. Actually.

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usually it is. And so solid is getting courtesy, not sociological anymore.

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Also before

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nearly the last slide. It is just like dissecting collective mine. I say, it was data. I would like to bring some ideology stuff back. In my presentation

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in I I took applications of different projects submitted by sociologists in a 2,01819. It was before Covid, because after they call it a lot of topics change. So it was. It was quite natural. I just say, just done. A small content analyzes just to get the image.

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What are the main keywords? Keywords which describe the research who is trying to apply for

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apply for research, money for grants and the Research Council of Lucille.

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And when I see it, if I would say that okay, in this picture I see a reproduction of mythologists of sociology, which is usually is attached a which is called sociology for the underdogs, or unprivileged

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for vulnerable people. But when you're asking if you are searching vulnerable people, what are you doing?

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From my point of view you are not doing. You are not empowering them. But what are you doing? You are rationalizing.

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but the system which usually takes a stance of patronized.

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So it means that there's so much is a taking them.

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A sociologist involved in competition for national grants. Usually they work for the State.

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they understand it. They are working for the state, the rationalising state system, administrative system of controls. And usually what is happening is that the problems of vulnerable groups are not solved. But you are expanding the machine of the government intrusions in those vulnerable groups

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ere

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taking a stance to be a paternalistical stance toward your object. It means that you can't secure your symbolical power missing academia, otherwise you might lose

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it. Is it subordination of academic freedom for this neoliberal welfare. Hybrid state.

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Hmm!

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I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

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I think that you still have some freedom. You there you can move, you can how to say, find different topics, but it is a trend, it is a trend, and you cannot avoid.

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And then we are talking about future. True future is always open, and it's always open with new promises, and we take care and should be a V about ideological implications of those social conditions. They are working, and money, especially funding sources, are really structuring our minds. How we are working with it, how we are working with different.

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I mean, it is different. funds thanks you a lot. So you are brave.

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So so, just because you're working housing in this strange situation because you have to self

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the Solfare. your

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commitment to vulnerable groups sometimes, but you are always working for a state which needs those well-negative groups for control. Thanks.

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thanks, Nutawias.

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Now we have a Michel Van Dam from the University of Antwerp, Belgium.

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with early experiments and the creation of sociological beliefs, and with the and the Christian sociological culture of prediction. Who is online?

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Michiel Van Dam: Yeah. could I share my screen?

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Yeah.

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Michiel Van Dam: yeah.

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Michiel Van Dam: yeah, I get the dimension that while you are sharing, I can't.

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I can

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just a moment, because I am looking for.

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Put on your

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Michiel Van Dam: yeah, I think you need to stop sharing screen. And then I can.

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yeah, it was already done? yeah.

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no.

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And this way.

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we are not shaving. So

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Michiel Van Dam: yeah, I think, maybe

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that's yeah.

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Michiel Van Dam: How it's supposed to be. Thanks.

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Michiel Van Dam: okay, can everybody see the screen.

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Michiel Van Dam: Yeah, okay, perfect.

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Michiel Van Dam: hello, everyone. my name is. I'm a postdoc at the University of.

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Michiel Van Dam: And I think it's a bit of a total switch from the previous presentation to this one.

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Michiel Van Dam: you know, because I'm going to talk about Louis the Bonal to was a a French reactionary at the end of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century, which is a completely different context and situation

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Michiel Van Dam: as well as

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Michiel Van Dam: I'm going to focus more on narrative and textual aspects of how sociological cultures could construct these types of pronostications or so prognostications as well as cultures of the belief in these prognostications.

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Michiel Van Dam: So these are the 3 sections of my presentation.

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Michiel Van Dam: First, I'm going to try to make an argument for why it's still relevant to read someone like Beloved, which is, I don't think, is very obvious in a sociological conference.

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Michiel Van Dam: but I'll make my argument with reference to our post secular presence

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Michiel Van Dam: in a second section. I'll dive into this. the different elements and aspects of this Catholic sociological culture focusing on narrative. It's techniques of construction, and it's composition

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Michiel Van Dam: of belief and knowledge.

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Michiel Van Dam: And finally, in the third section, I will look at it's historical failure, the reasons for its historical failure. But I'll try to bring a new sort of argument from its typical explanation by comparing it to the current post secular tradition, and seeing where it is able to succeed, where the Catholic sociological culture failed.

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So why, look at someone like Louis, the one out and we do them out was like, I said,

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Michiel Van Dam: the as it they were called, the sort of a nobleman at the end of the eighteenth century. and he was a reactionary. He was.

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Michiel Van Dam: he had very modern sensibilities. He was against the French Revolution, against it's negative aspects, like the revolutionary terror. It's it's violence against like, especially against the clerics. But he was also very much against what we would consider to be. It's more positive aspects. it's the vision of democracy.

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Michiel Van Dam: it's propagation of human rights. it's ideal of a more egalitarian society of men and women. This is also things where but not was extremely against. So this has led to the fact that

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Michiel Van Dam: when he's investigated.

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Michiel Van Dam: when he's researched people mostly focus on historical reasons. For example, his

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Michiel Van Dam: role as a source of inspiration for later theorists of the sociological cannon like August Compton, especially in

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Michiel Van Dam: or another, I think important reason is exactly this sort of status as a kind of exoticism, and where the origins of sociology were also in This very strange context, where these reaction of views were still quite dominant, and we're defined agency The use of God. Theological language was still quite prominent.

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Michiel Van Dam: But I think there's also more structural reason why we can still look at someone like Louis de Bonal to just not root rooted in simply this historical interest, and which I think is still important for contemporary sociologists, and that is The fact that while he's epistemology is obviously

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Michiel Van Dam: cannot serve as a kind of model or source for our own understanding and interpretation of society. His construction of what I've turned like sociological culture and his attempted mechanisms of make belief into these cultures into this

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Michiel Van Dam: Catholic prognostications, I think, is still quite relevant and haven't fundamentally changed in our own time.

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Michiel Van Dam: Further, more what makes an an interesting case is that the context of the early nineteenth century and our contemporary situation is actually quite comparable in the sense that the relation between sociology and religion had entered into this kind of point of crisis or uncertainty, where there was a real contested space looking for

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Michiel Van Dam: What this analysis of society should actually look like. So whereas when it was in this kind of pre secular situation we find ourselves today in a more post secular situation where we are reflexively thinking about, what does it mean to do with sociologists, especially a sociologist of religion?

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Michiel Van Dam: So where is there is this big historical distance between ourselves and we, the bon out and as well as an ideological distance.

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Michiel Van Dam: There is a kind of conceptual and contextual proximity.

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Michiel Van Dam: and this, I think, has a a number of of benefits. First of all, by bringing someone like we the out into our post. Secular, sociological, present it is, and

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Michiel Van Dam: interesting tool to distort and disrupt our illusion, that we are somehow beyond our sociological past, that the kind of sociology that someone like we do not would never work today.

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Michiel Van Dam: But rather it starts out from our approach that these sociological cultures of belief and prediction and prolification is something that is continually made and remade.

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Michiel Van Dam: and by focusing on some like, but not, I think we can.

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Michiel Van Dam: We are able to unearth certain aspects of what makes such a culture which are not very visible to us in an immediate and intuitive sense. We can also look at its failures as well as the lessons which later social theorists have taken from it.

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Michiel Van Dam: Now, before I look at himself, perhaps a brief

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Michiel Van Dam: form of background to my own research into someone like Bono. It's part of the larger research project as well as a book proposal. The research project concerns the topic of religion, solidarity and the post secular from an interdisciplinary perspective which I do alongside the several colleagues of mine at the University of Enter

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Michiel Van Dam: which looks at these things from a historical, sociological, sociological, and philosophical perspective.

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Michiel Van Dam: And I'm trying to bring together my own insight into a book which I've provisionally titled. The elementary forms of sociological life which focus on the languages, belief and really sociology

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Michiel Van Dam: in nineteenth century France. Now this kind of approach,

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Michiel Van Dam: looks at our current debates on the post secular in a different sense, which is not simply a conceptual and epistemological debate, but rather can also be conceived as another instance of a narrative tradition which is aimed to, hey? He can honestly govern the broader historical project of sociology as a mode of existence.

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Michiel Van Dam: and in this sense I would place it alongside several other narrative tradition

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Michiel Van Dam: with which the history of sources social sciences is littered. So just Catholic social theory, your kind and positivism, as well as nineteenth century Socialist scientific programs, such as Cincinnati and Marxism.

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Michiel Van Dam: And here I will just focus on one book end of this long trajectory, which is the work of for me to pronounce

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Michiel Van Dam: so. What was this?

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Michiel Van Dam: This is prognostication of the we, the bon out as a as a sort of Catholic, Radical, a Catholic fundamentalist. Of course it was rooted in certain theological premises.

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Michiel Van Dam: but at the same time he was trying to build this, construct his sociological narrative of why, ultimately Christianity would end up victorious in the modern society.

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Michiel Van Dam: and it was founded in his adjustment of one of the most famous books of the eighteenth century by Montesqui, where he argued that we shouldn't search for the motive for spirits

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Michiel Van Dam: or spirit of the things that are in the way that want to skate it, but rather for the principles of how things should be. It's what this was an opening passage in his famous work, the the

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Michiel Van Dam: where, he argued that any kind of perspective on society should focus on how it is constituted. What with what are the natural, social, and historical laws governing society.

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Michiel Van Dam: and any sort of prediction for the future would then be rooted In this ultimate victory of this perfect, most natural social system, which best approximated the natural and social laws of society.

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Michiel Van Dam: and for someone like Louis the

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Michiel Van Dam: this

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Michiel Van Dam: sort of social perfection, this, this this best, naturally, most naturally constituted form of society was best encapsulated by the system of thought and action which was articulated

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Michiel Van Dam: at the first council of Nica The the Catholic doctrine which was formulated in a C in documents

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and in the legislation of primitive. This is a quote from his book.

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Michiel Van Dam: where he argues that within the erection of this sacred standards, this this symbolic cross of Christianity, you can find an historical sign that the sign that it is necessarily must be victorious in society, and which will lead to a situation eventually, which all kings of the earth will when they bow their heads to.

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Michiel Van Dam: And then most of his work was then a a search for this historical unfolding of the system, as well as some of the reasons why, early nineteenth century did not find themselves in a Catholic society, where which meant that this historical perspective was a kind of

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Michiel Van Dam: proto-functionalist investigation, where he was searching for these cont contingent factors, which led to a disruption of the system for anything beneath or beyond the system was only a symbol of its social dysfunction.

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Michiel Van Dam: Now a lot of Bonal's work was

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Michiel Van Dam: revolved around These techniques of making this sort of reading of societal history plausible.

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Michiel Van Dam: And one of these techniques, could be found in his answer to the content question, which was the question of What is the main philosophical problem of today?

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Michiel Van Dam: And according to pronounce this, this, this, this problem was that society finds ourselves in a crisis of belief.

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Michiel Van Dam: Society, after the French Revolution, found itself both facing a failure of the Catholic Church in the past few centuries, as well as a failure of the enlightenment which had led to the French Revolution, the terror as well as eventually, as well the Continental war, Continental wars with Napoleon.

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Michiel Van Dam: So in his eyes there was a need of this new kind of

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Michiel Van Dam:  interpretive system which could bring together these different fragmented groups. There was a necessity of aligning these different social groups and traditions into a single community of believers

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Michiel Van Dam: and the conservatives, Catholics, philosophy of reforms and ideologues which could be found, according to him, in a Catholic sociological

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Michiel Van Dam: system.

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Michiel Van Dam: and one of the ways he tried to do this was by appealing to these different fragmented groups by combining a number of of strategies throughout the daily to perform. For example, he combines a light and into graphic readings of historical belief systems which much more conservative Catholic understandings, of what belief is, he embedded himself within

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Michiel Van Dam: the tradition of Catholic enlightenment in order to appear moderate and reasonable.

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Michiel Van Dam: and he condemned only the most extreme forms of philosophical interpretation of society, which were, according to him, the materialists, the atheists, and the revolutionaries.

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Michiel Van Dam: and a final aspect which I want to briefly discuss was how he tried to combine

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Michiel Van Dam: his own Catholic faith alongside enlightened reason.

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Michiel Van Dam: In order to again appeal to this group by arguing that they are from fundamentally compatible and complementary. And in order to do this, he impose the sort of Aristotelian scheme onto his interpretative language, where he argued that reason and faith are interlocked in a historical sequence, they work in unison to create, and the social fullness of human experience, of something like social custom.

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Michiel Van Dam: according to Bernard, was a results exactly of this sort of sequence. And again, this is this combination of an elitist understanding of religion, as well as the popular experience of the defined, combined into a single sort of proto sociological analysis. But at the same time, you can

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Michiel Van Dam: deduce

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Michiel Van Dam: Within this sort of reading already a sort of subtle hierarchization, where his distinction between, on the one hand, sentimental and propositional beliefs belies a kind of

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Michiel Van Dam: superiority, of a Christian experience of relief rather than a philosophical understanding. So, while the cognitive understanding of religion was sensible, according to him an experiential fate was much stronger and much more natural, and he gives the example in the

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Michiel Van Dam: of We asked the reader the question.

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Michiel Van Dam: Who does who believes more? So the the person who listens to someone explain religion, or, the the widow and the the orphan children who are pleading to God to somehow someday be reunited with their deceased husband and father.

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Michiel Van Dam: Now I'll try to take a look at The decline of this this Catholic sociological culture

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Michiel Van Dam: and some of the reasons for it. So, as I said before, this, this first half of the nineteenth century was characterized by a very active sort of agonistic comp contestation for socioeconomic dominance.

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Michiel Van Dam: with an eventual victory for for rational positivism.

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Michiel Van Dam: But why exactly did this culture fail? And there are 2, I think, typical explanation. One is being that there were secularization processes within the natural and human scientists, sciences

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Michiel Van Dam: with the figure, the explanatory interpreted to figure of God increasingly being replaced by something as society, where God is very considered as a kind of symbol. with, really it's the mechanism of society functioning behind it.

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Michiel Van Dam: and, secondly, that sociology simply became more scientific, more data driven more rationalists which made this sort of Catholics to so sociology useless.

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Michiel Van Dam: and a good example, I think, is to be finding to be found in Robert Nisbits, the sociological tradition, where he, in one of the first sections of the book. He discusses what he calls the literally great school which includes Louisa, but also other reactions, like Joseph Semester and Felicity to Free State along the net

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Michiel Van Dam: which he first discusses, but at the end of the section he makes this very clear distinction between what would eventually become the sociological canon and this retro gauge school, when he says, all of this is not to suggest that sociologists were medieval in temper.

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Michiel Van Dam: we should have to look far to find the mind more modern in social and political affiliation than Turk.

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Michiel Van Dam: even within the body of a social theory, through the time's overriding spirit, is a rationalist positivist, derived in large part from the cat, who, above any other philosopher of the seventeenth century, had good scholasticism to route. The same essentially is true of Tony's Weber and Simone.

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Michiel Van Dam: So whereas Durkheim was much more close, much closer in time to his

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Michiel Van Dam: fellow. Conservative. Well, he's his predecessors is this, this retrograde school like I mentioned, and this but instead focuses on the spirits which connects to time rather instead with the much earlier first, for, like the cut, where whereas the retrograde school is connected to medieval scholastics.

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Michiel Van Dam: and while I think that these these processes undoubtedly played an important role in the eventual failure of Catholic sociology, not only in its ability to make people believe in it, but also in its ability to correctly predict the future. I do think an important nuance or counter argument can also be made in the form of the current success of the post. Secular narrative.

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Michiel Van Dam: where you see certain aspects which Bernoulli was also a constitutive of his own sociology, which is the granting of sacred objects and beings. A kind of agency is reproduced in certain facets of the post. Secular tradition.

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Michiel Van Dam: and I only give one example here of of, and this object oriented anthology, where he gives a quote in his article of 2,019 beyond the leaf

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Michiel Van Dam: where it says, Imagine the Virgin Mary asking Gabriel what information he's carrying, he should obviously reply, I'm not carrying information. I'm transforming you. Information content. 0 transformation, content maximum. That is the birth of the sum of God. Now, it's interesting that I think in this quote, not to is doing 2 things. One is saying that the agency

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Michiel Van Dam: of of angelic beings is not so much an informational sense, but much more and transformative sense. And, secondly, it is, it has a critique of this positivist understanding of religion, which considers all sort of religious speeds speech as a kind of information.

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Michiel Van Dam: Now, where do these 2 traditions then exactly defer?

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Michiel Van Dam: And what does it tell us about the makings of what I think, is done a successful sociological culture.

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Michiel Van Dam: and I would say that the answer here is not only substantial, but also what can be called the rational, whereas in the post seculars possess the time of positive, is, take a money which has laid there certain areas of weakness which could subsequently be exploited and attacked by critiques.

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Michiel Van Dam: and this was something that Rudy Bernard simply did not possess. He was unable to imagine. To fathom the range of positivism to function as its own autonomous mode of existence, and instead he simply appropriated the language languages of enlightened reason and positive rationalism in order to include and embrace this group.

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Michiel Van Dam: But this is in start contrast with this other

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Michiel Van Dam: members of this, this contested space of the early nineteenth century like this, and Simon and the Positivist, who, instead, fully exploited the long history of Christian governmental hegemony, showing and articulating its many failures in ways to discredit any sort of Catholic prognostication.

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Michiel Van Dam: So finally, what is to say? I think that

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Michiel Van Dam: Bonal's model of a Catholic sociological culture of belief and prediction for investigation shows

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Michiel Van Dam: that a sort of successful sociological culture is this, not only on its own epistemological robustness.

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Michiel Van Dam: but also on simply. It's historical, situated. It's not. I don't think this is deterministic.

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Michiel Van Dam: for example, one of the ways. To avoid this sort of conundrum is exactly the ability of to overcome the situatedness through an anticipation of future developments, both in theory and practice

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Michiel Van Dam: which makes a sociological imagination of alternative futures, a very important tool

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Michiel Van Dam: to further guarantee the success of such cultures. And finally, it shows that the form and status of the Socio project is never completely set in stone, but rather functions as a contested space, where different actors are continuously learning from the past

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Michiel Van Dam: and adapting their institutional and narrative strategies also. Thank you very much.

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Thank you.

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Mish Mikhail Mikhail. you have me here, Nikki. It's fine. Yeah. It's I think it's difficult to pronounce for the Italian language

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after 2 names, that I were too much difficult for me. Liu Ta, we as a mihail. Now we have a Matteo. I got it Matteo Bertolini from the Us. City of Pradoa, Italy with part in Italy on the map, because Italiano, they all our experts in predicting the coming creases of the seventies. Another type of future, I imagine.

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Okay, so thanks, everybody.

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I think my my presentation is more similar to the first. In fact, it's the same themes, but in a completely different and in a completely different time.

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I will tell you about a story from the late sixties and the early seventies

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of a transatlantic project between the Us. And in Italy.

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I will tell you a story. But from a more theoretical point of view this story is interesting for at least 3 3 points of view. The first one is the understanding of

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what social science is and the uses of social science as a kind of expert knowledge.

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 the second point is to understand the entanglements and the networks that were formed in the fifties between the Us. And Europe. In this case Italy. But the discuss is more, much more general than that.

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And third, which I only will speak very, very little today is to promote a more I would say. Materialistic outlook on in the

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history of sociology, and in a sense of Marxism, and in the sense of focusing on cultural objects and material objects. In this case, a book?

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 so let's start from a a very simple point of view.

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the justification of

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the justification of social scientific knowledge as a kind of expert knowledge.

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one thing that I want to underline is that so? the so-called the rebirth of of social science in Italy? That is what happened after World War Ii

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was a a kind of remaking of of the social sciences, and especially sociology and political science in Italy, on the ground that it was an expert knowledge that was to be used from a practical point of view, to help the modernization of the country.

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So here you find the 3 quotes from publications between the fifties and the seventies. But I I could like cite a million of different papers trying to justify the social sciences on the grounds of their practical utility.

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So, and and this has to be understood as a form of legitimation of the social sciences, in finding money, in connecting with the political with policy making, in connecting with also different kinds of funders both from the private and the public sector. So let's

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Yeah.

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let's meet the 2 very important people that the main characters of the story. The first one is Italian, fabulous. Cavaza was a mainly not a a scholar, but he was an organizer.

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invented And funded, and found the money for one of the most successful publishing houses in Italy in Mullino, which was a a publisher that was founded in 1,954, and was responsible for translating most of the

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main authors of the social sciences from the Us. And the rest of Europe into Italian. Let's say Talcot, Parsons Robertson. Robert Dal! And whatever comes to your mind has been translated by Mullino in the attempted to create a modern social scientific consciousness, and not only

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Among scholars, but also among the well-educated citizens. The idea fabulous. Cavata's idea was that a strong

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 a public sphere, and a strong political sphere in terms of participation, needed an education of the general citizenship in the social sciences as an instrument to understand what was going on as an instrument to evaluate politicians and their decisions. So.

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together with the Stephen, Robert was an historian, teaching first at Harvard and then a brown university.

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and Steven. Robert was for 30 years the editor of Dedalus, which is the Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, which is a honorized society. very important journal in a cross disciplinary way

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that. Also had this the same spin toward a well educated citizenship the typical Dedalus issue was taken from a conference where, scholars from different discipline would discuss between them on a topic.

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and

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the the papers were not that academic. They were meant to be read by a general public. not the average, maybe citizen, but a well-educated general public.

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So why are these 2 men fabulous Kakabatsa and Steve Grove are important. They met at the end. They were very good friends, and they met at the end of the sixties and

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thought that, as you see from the map. Italy was not on the map of the social sciences. So they they thought that nobody around the world among sociologists, historians, political scientists economists

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outside Italy, we're focusing on Italy. We're studying Italy. And I thought there was a big problem because they wanted to create a kind of a network and a kind of a sub discipline of Italian studies around the world to create a scholarly community that could help Italians call us in growing up in

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become truly professionalized and scientific in their analysis of their own country. So the idea was, Why don't we organize a book with the foreign authors and Italian authors about Italy.

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And We try to create with this single move, with the single book. A new field of Italian studies. So what could go wrong with the project like this? Okay, so

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the problem is that these 2 guys found themselves in a very paradoxical situation. So on the one side, their starting point was that nobody around the world was focusing on it on Italy. So Italy was not considered as a worth a topic of investigation. Right?

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01:00:08.770 --> 01:00:10.250
But then

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01:00:11.450 --> 01:00:16.079
that meant that the book that they wanted to create

305
01:00:16.420 --> 01:00:31.000
had to raise attention by including big names by including very famous social scientists and scholars and historians who could act as a guarantee for the book.

306
01:00:31.040 --> 01:00:48.619
But if you put together the 2 points. That means that no big name, a social scientist was working on Italy at the time. So how could they put together a book about the topic that nobody was studying at the time, and also having big names

307
01:00:50.980 --> 01:01:12.520
they had. They? They were in a rather paradoxical situation. They they resolved the in inventing a new figure, the known expert expert, or the expert on expert. Whatever you you, you tell me what which way is, is better to to call it. So what what did they do?

308
01:01:12.550 --> 01:01:14.600
They? They thought

309
01:01:15.370 --> 01:01:23.030
out of necessity that the right way to create this book, to put together this book was to invite.

310
01:01:23.200 --> 01:01:40.559
Very famous social scientists were not specialists of Italy, so they were on the one side, great experts. but on other topics, right? So they were experts as social scientists, but not experts on Italy.

311
01:01:40.880 --> 01:01:49.499
And so out of necessity, they decided to do that. And then they thought that they.

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01:01:49.640 --> 01:02:03.319
the outcome, would be very interesting, because Without the stereotypes and the biases of the expert, these expert and not known experts would have a fresh look on the country right.

313
01:02:03.630 --> 01:02:04.880
So

314
01:02:05.130 --> 01:02:10.259
at some point they discussed for say, a couple of years.

315
01:02:10.510 --> 01:02:28.340
and they were looking for a very special person. So somebody was, on the one hand, very famous. On the other hand, nobody was standing in Italy, and somebody was at the same time famous, and would commit himself. And I use the the masculine, because obviously it was

316
01:02:28.450 --> 01:02:38.480
only a male scientist who had committed himself for at least one year to study a completely new topic

317
01:02:39.280 --> 01:02:51.129
and be ready to go to Italy at least a couple of times for some meeting with Italian scores and and things like that, so it was very difficult to find the people.

318
01:02:51.180 --> 01:02:53.959
or it was very difficult to

319
01:02:54.260 --> 01:03:00.080
think about the people they wanted. So here comes the money.

320
01:03:00.320 --> 01:03:29.990
This is the point. Here comes the money. So the an Alli foundation was a a foundation created by the Annali family, the owners of the car manufacturer fiat, which was the biggest manufacturer in Italy, okay? And in 1,966 they had created a a foundation modeled after the for foundation, and they were financing a lot of different social science projects in Italy, and so

321
01:03:30.120 --> 01:03:38.830
in finding the very strange, a famous guy who wanted to commit some time to study a topic that he was not an expert

322
01:03:39.480 --> 01:03:40.420
off.

323
01:03:40.670 --> 01:03:48.139
They used the Anali Foundation money to attract famous people to write on Italy.

324
01:03:48.400 --> 01:03:49.989
But you see.

325
01:03:50.370 --> 01:04:04.399
obviously the the the Annelli Foundation would pay for all expenses. Give $1,000 to these people with to write an essay on Italy. And it's around the €8,000 of today.

326
01:04:05.120 --> 01:04:06.190
money

327
01:04:06.370 --> 01:04:18.529
and the the foundation would pay for all the meetings and the travels and everything. But then they added, 2 very lushes, I would say, offers the first one.

328
01:04:18.570 --> 01:04:29.950
they would commit some members of the staff of the foundation to find data and books and all publications for these people. They did not have to do research.

329
01:04:30.010 --> 01:04:40.520
they would just ask for data to the people at the foundation, and that they would give the the authors the perspective of all the data. So they didn't have to work, in fact.

330
01:04:40.860 --> 01:04:42.200
And second.

331
01:04:42.490 --> 01:05:00.049
they said, if you want to come to Italy and meet with Italian, intellectuals or politicians, or entrepreneurs, and have a little holiday in the in the meantime we will pay for you for a 2 or 3 week long trip to Italy.

332
01:05:00.100 --> 01:05:02.420
Give you a lot of money to do that.

333
01:05:02.950 --> 01:05:13.210
Yeah, it was a very good offer, and in fact. this is the first list just to give you an idea of of the people that they had in mind. Okay.

334
01:05:13.220 --> 01:05:20.340
this is a list of the first people that they thought of contacting and

335
01:05:20.450 --> 01:05:29.789
the people they they contacted. Okay? So in in bold, you have the people who finally made the book.

336
01:05:30.000 --> 01:05:37.260
But you see, the names are the most important and famous names. in the at the time.

337
01:05:37.310 --> 01:05:43.420
and if you see in the columns on the right of the table.

338
01:05:43.620 --> 01:05:44.969
so there were.

339
01:05:45.140 --> 01:06:14.250
if you see, it's like, mostly big names. mostly from very famous universities. most of these people at connections with Dedalus. That means that they use their immediate to networks and the people that they knew very well. people were part of the American Academy, and people who had written at least one article on Il Mullino, which was the journal of the publishers that Cavatsa founded.

340
01:06:14.290 --> 01:06:19.820
This is a first list. This is another list, you see, very famous people.

341
01:06:20.370 --> 01:06:23.100
and in the end they

342
01:06:23.130 --> 01:06:35.230
successful recruited 10 top scientists, social scientists to write about Italy, which they didn't know at the time. Nothing about. Okay?

343
01:06:35.380 --> 01:06:52.900
So and this is a short summary of the scholars that were first contacted and then made the book in parentheses. You see, the number of the people who were were really in the book and the end

344
01:06:52.970 --> 01:07:16.770
and as you see, for example, I I think that the the the last 3 lines are the most interesting So in a first phase, they had an idea of including a lot of people. But in the end. for example, 7 out of 10 authors that made the book came from the Cambridge Massachusetts area. So Harvard mit

345
01:07:16.780 --> 01:07:28.050
7 out of the 10 were in the Dedalus network, so in the end it was a very close and very tight network of people. Right? So

346
01:07:28.780 --> 01:07:39.170
And this is, for example, a Robert Bella, about whom I wrote a book, was one of the of the 10 who finally made the book.

347
01:07:39.170 --> 01:07:59.960
And this is an example of the trip that Robert Bella took in some in a sorry in the spring of 1972 to Italy he had never been to Italy. It took like a a 2 week trip Starting from the south of Italy, from Palermond and Naples, Rome, Boronia, Milano, and Torino.

348
01:07:59.960 --> 01:08:13.180
and he met all these people whose names may be, don't don't tell anything to you, but they are church men major philosophers, major political scientists and sociologists.

349
01:08:13.180 --> 01:08:42.009
and he had a very tight schedule like 2, 3, 4 appointments per day. And he was talking about these people, and this is very interesting, because he, he knew nothing about Italy. So what he finally wrote was heavily influenced by the people that he that he met right, and the people that he met. All came from Kavaza's networks. So it was a kind of a I would say, vicious or virtual circle

350
01:08:42.350 --> 01:08:54.159
how we want to call it. And so in the end. most of the all the farming authors add a trip like this. Yeah, at some point. Right?

351
01:08:54.160 --> 01:09:12.470
So. And this is the schedule of of the project. So the trips to Italy, and then they organize the seminar in Turin, when where the foreigners met with Italian scholars, economies, sociologists, to political science, this and everything.

352
01:09:12.470 --> 01:09:42.290
and they had, like a a 2 days of a very informal meeting, where they exchanged views on Italy. The foreigners presented their draft of their papers, and then After the meeting, which was very successful from their point of view. both the foreigners and Italian authors went back home and wrote their papers, and the papers were included in a book that had in a in the end the 25 chapters. Okay?

353
01:09:42.420 --> 01:10:12.339
And But the project was very difficult, because obviously, this famous people, they didn't receive the data. The stuff was not working very, very well, and that they didn't know what to write. And then at some point, the deadline had to move 6 months, and then another 6 months, and then in the end the book came out in 1974, which was 7 years after they first started the discussion on the book.

354
01:10:12.520 --> 01:10:13.750
and

355
01:10:14.660 --> 01:10:26.049
in. In the end, I think it was a complete failure. Okay, so yeah, yeah, it's a it. It was a complete failure. It was published with the

356
01:10:26.760 --> 01:10:32.060
What do you call the commercial press? Not an academic press. It was meant for the general public.

357
01:10:32.220 --> 01:10:43.229
and It got some reviews, but not many. And the reviews. I said, Well, yes, okay. Another book. And about Italy in the 70 s. Not a big deal.

358
01:10:43.260 --> 01:10:48.090
And especially the point, was that

359
01:10:48.110 --> 01:10:50.080
they could not find

360
01:10:50.200 --> 01:11:10.950
an American publisher for the book. So if the if the project was that of starting a new field of Italian studies abroad. They didn't really succeed in having the tool to do that, and the book remained only in an Italian version. It was never reprinted.

361
01:11:11.700 --> 01:11:19.170
and And it just failed. And this is interesting. I think that the the point of the whole story is

362
01:11:19.320 --> 01:11:21.849
first, in a sense.

363
01:11:23.890 --> 01:11:33.380
in an era of specialization and professionalization. They tried to do this kind of non-expert expert thing, and it failed completely.

364
01:11:33.430 --> 01:11:59.889
The papers are not interesting. Okay, the the papers are superficial, obviously, and they they had this huge organization and spent a lot of money to have, like a very generic and not interesting book. The Italian authors. O only repeated their typical ideas that they had published in everywhere for years.

365
01:11:59.910 --> 01:12:07.210
The foreigners wrote not very interesting papers, and they.

366
01:12:07.260 --> 01:12:27.329
American publishers said, this book is not very interesting, and and they said, Nobody is interested in Italy any way. So they say, yes, but we publish it. This book because we want to interest people in in Italy, and they said, No, nobody is interested, and this will not change anything, so they could never publish the book

367
01:12:27.380 --> 01:12:36.399
and And you see, the citation count is ridiculous after 50 years. Okay

368
01:12:36.420 --> 01:12:54.880
and And the interesting thing was that only 2 papers were cited more than the book. and one paper was by Alessando Pizzona, and that an Italian sociologist, who also was teaching at Harvard at the time, and

369
01:12:54.970 --> 01:13:00.729
one of his most famous papers, and that really became influential and famous.

370
01:13:00.770 --> 01:13:21.959
And the other one was Robert Bell. So on paper. that's called the 5 Religions, some point in Italy that became very famous, because all Italian sociologists of religion thought it was completely wrong and cited again and again to say, it was wrong. Okay? So yeah, not not a great accomplishment.

371
01:13:21.960 --> 01:13:34.269
But the The interesting thing was that So Zamberger was a very noted economic sociologist at the mit still today with whom I had an interview.

372
01:13:34.270 --> 01:13:56.090
she started. She was the only one who somehow continued to write on Italy, and that was the only success of the book and the project in pushing Suzanneberger was a very good social scientist and sociologist to focus on Italy. So interesting thing is that this this

373
01:13:56.130 --> 01:14:22.259
could have been a a great battleship, bringing Italy back to the map, and then ended up as a like a small toy, both in in a pond and I think so. To to. To conclude, I think, as I said, this is very interesting, because it shows you that in in as maybe

374
01:14:23.030 --> 01:14:27.250
money is not enough. Big names are not enough, and

375
01:14:27.640 --> 01:14:37.940
I didn't have the time to explain the whole project, but it was very, very strictly organized, and they had beautiful ideas about the project, but it completely failed.

376
01:14:37.970 --> 01:15:01.719
So Maybe the the story ends with the fact that in an era of expertise and experts trying to translate the expertise from one field to another, because that's the point. They thought that since you're a very good social scientist that you have very good frameworks. You can write on everything.

377
01:15:02.270 --> 01:15:11.930
This failure somehow demonstrates that it's not true, and that expertise on topics may be more interesting and

378
01:15:11.980 --> 01:15:17.190
successful. Then expert is on just frameworks and theories. That's it.

379
01:15:29.010 --> 01:15:30.960
Thank you. So we have

380
01:15:32.730 --> 01:15:35.930
20 min for discussion.

381
01:15:36.360 --> 01:15:38.390
some question.

382
01:15:39.720 --> 01:15:41.110
any question.

383
01:15:42.430 --> 01:15:45.570
But I started with 2 questions

384
01:15:45.730 --> 01:15:50.889
for the new towers.

385
01:15:51.060 --> 01:15:57.469
Well, you say that educational sciences are very. We're very successful, right

386
01:15:57.600 --> 01:16:23.820
I wonder why? so my sub question is the committee who evaluated all the projects where there were only one committee for all the disciplines. Or there were, for example, the educational scientist that evaluated this evaluation. The educational scientist. So the question is, is.

387
01:16:23.920 --> 01:16:29.010
is the educational community more severe, more greater than the others.

388
01:16:29.040 --> 01:16:45.790
Or maybe it's related to something that happened in those years. For example, the experimental turn inside the educational sciences. I don't know if you have gone so deep in this analysis.

389
01:16:45.840 --> 01:16:53.959
The second is is concerning a number of articles that decreases from 2,014.

390
01:16:54.110 --> 01:16:59.390
it's twice strange, because in those years, in the last

391
01:16:59.640 --> 01:17:27.689
1520 years, maybe we know the user that the phenomenon of the publish or parish. So the number of articles at the global dimension is, there's a lot more has increased a lot, we think, for example, the proper meals or the predatory journals, and so on. This is another field or such. So I don't know if you have.

392
01:17:28.430 --> 01:17:31.270
And now it's like that, the dimension.

393
01:17:32.360 --> 01:17:34.620
Oh, sorry. Yeah, thank you. Bye.

394
01:17:36.660 --> 01:17:39.770
how have I done before?

395
01:17:41.580 --> 01:17:43.440
For like to see? No.

396
01:17:46.380 --> 01:17:47.070
the

397
01:17:48.330 --> 01:17:49.140
whatever

398
01:17:49.450 --> 01:17:52.350
out of zoom.

399
01:17:53.000 --> 01:17:54.210
Ioga p dot.

400
01:17:55.290 --> 01:17:57.660
Look at the

401
01:18:01.290 --> 01:18:06.569
okay. I stand by and start to answer you

402
01:18:07.410 --> 01:18:09.479
is all one's

403
01:18:10.310 --> 01:18:18.310
and a huge question for the Research Council over to see how to organize the relation.

404
01:18:18.540 --> 01:18:23.180
And I think that during the last

405
01:18:23.350 --> 01:18:25.629
6 years. There is

406
01:18:26.590 --> 01:18:29.850
a decision to make streamings.

407
01:18:31.920 --> 01:18:34.610
and to your account of the whole street.

408
01:18:34.720 --> 01:18:48.890
for example, that

409
01:18:48.990 --> 01:18:51.960
but the

410
01:18:52.130 --> 01:18:54.640
organized it in there

411
01:18:54.800 --> 01:18:57.089
2 ways in social sciences

412
01:18:57.140 --> 01:19:01.580
that the educational sciences say, all of G,

413
01:19:01.620 --> 01:19:08.160
it's going. If there's a lot of skiing. So it means that the educational scientists usually look at this psychology.

414
01:19:08.270 --> 01:19:13.439
the. So she goes, this political sciences kind of law.

415
01:19:13.680 --> 01:19:15.540
So it is.

416
01:19:15.800 --> 01:19:26.779
and also a massive mass communication of education, studies, information studies, and the set stream is organized for business and management.

417
01:19:26.820 --> 01:19:32.219
for business and management, and those 3 streams are going to stay and competing

418
01:19:32.550 --> 01:19:48.439
erez Agmoni, a distance between themselves, and this decision is made just maybe to support different disciplines which are not, which don't have huge capacities. And when I talk with administrators and 150

419
01:19:48.750 --> 01:19:53.370
heads of the Research Council what we see now, they said, that

420
01:19:53.550 --> 01:19:57.620
you have to imagine future, that, for example.

421
01:19:58.300 --> 01:20:10.590
if we work, maybe in the next 5 years. If you want to solve different problems, for example, in law, we have to grow up those capacities, and we cannot do

422
01:20:10.600 --> 01:20:25.580
bring everybody policy in this competition. Otherwise, sociologists will always open this competition. And sometimes for me, it's happening. You happen to be an expert in those panels. Sometimes you are feeling that

423
01:20:26.250 --> 01:20:32.839
the head of expert that a lot of sociologists are working, and you are feeling that you are just like

424
01:20:33.510 --> 01:20:55.659
pushing your academical trial over the winning situations, and you always saying that you have to push other tribes also, because we have to. You cannot exercise your me about a concerning publisher parish. It's also very strange why the publishing is going down, but in many cases

425
01:20:56.190 --> 01:21:00.100
I think it is a change of generations

426
01:21:00.230 --> 01:21:24.759
and writing habits, because all the generations. Generation had the habits to write a lot of papers, and also a lot of local publishing houses at the Universities. Each university nearly had its own job, devoted for social sciences. So it was easy to publish. But during the last

427
01:21:25.340 --> 01:21:29.570
I would say 7 years from

428
01:21:29.730 --> 01:21:43.169
John O's, where a lot of sociologists could publish international language, which was, and about 8 separate journals where you can publish sociological studies, you just currently have 3.

429
01:21:43.350 --> 01:21:56.949
So it is also, it is like a structure that universities are closing. They are not willing to support the so-called in-house publishing practices, and they always say that you have to go. And I think it is the name anymore

430
01:21:56.950 --> 01:22:16.450
this remote explanation.

431
01:22:16.730 --> 01:22:25.449
There are a lot of policy, just reasons why it's happening, but it's a restraint that you're getting more money. That output is.

432
01:22:25.900 --> 01:22:26.640
that's one.

433
01:22:30.470 --> 01:22:31.580
the market.

434
01:22:33.760 --> 01:22:41.000
I actually, I have not only question to both of you, but probably I can can answer it myself.

435
01:22:43.480 --> 01:22:49.440
because what interests me is, we have to see that situation in our and this

436
01:22:49.690 --> 01:22:58.939
New Orleans. I'd say much more bureaucratic reform. And the question is for purpose of it

437
01:22:59.090 --> 01:23:06.830
behind it. It's like, I don't know explaining a rational type of

438
01:23:09.010 --> 01:23:15.250
Jesus. and it's you have to find, because something is behind it beyond it.

439
01:23:16.010 --> 01:23:20.209
and also the situation of this very strange book.

440
01:23:20.550 --> 01:23:30.120
Why, to publish why to do this to such things? And possibly the answer is maybe paradoxically kind of

441
01:23:30.480 --> 01:23:33.730
it's a semi peripheral nation. Night.

442
01:23:34.320 --> 01:23:40.989
Because affinity of this, let's reform. Why to do this before? Why? To publish in English?

443
01:23:41.310 --> 01:23:46.080
Because this is important because we must go higher in rankings.

444
01:23:47.500 --> 01:23:51.029
What's the reason of publishing? Yes.

445
01:23:51.520 --> 01:23:58.020
academic papers probably are different in case of self-language studies and on sociology.

446
01:23:58.070 --> 01:24:01.679
they action in the various environments.

447
01:24:02.080 --> 01:24:03.170
and those

448
01:24:03.470 --> 01:24:08.990
this, in which case all those administrators talk about

449
01:24:09.220 --> 01:24:11.040
competition within the

450
01:24:11.420 --> 01:24:19.860
in international institutions. But of course, the situation probably needs some more upward explanation. And this is what I'd like to

451
01:24:20.600 --> 01:24:21.890
what you think about.

452
01:24:23.460 --> 01:24:29.860
I will read very shortly. I absolutely agree, but it's very interesting that

453
01:24:29.960 --> 01:24:37.430
those ideas are imposed on academia coming from the generation of new management

454
01:24:38.200 --> 01:24:55.129
erez agmoni. Those who are working, not in academia, but they are working with management schemes, and they have in their mind just strictly orientation to, as you said, ranking because their mindset is using it. English language one.

455
01:24:55.240 --> 01:25:07.030
And then, for example, they are not talking, and they don't read Chinese language. If they would read Chinese language, I would think that how to say composition of the mindset might be absolutely different.

456
01:25:07.070 --> 01:25:33.689
And sometimes I am joking that they said that you have to uneducate each administrator working in high education institutions that they have to forget English language, because all the evil is coming from the Great Britain. It's it's a joke, it's it's it's a job. But in many cases in and a Socialist the academical. So space. You see that a lot of

457
01:25:33.690 --> 01:25:37.399
academic administrators are reproducing

458
01:25:37.400 --> 01:26:02.439
system, the assessment system. But they are trying to get something else, that they are trying to find the best solutions, but they always not happy, because the system is designed, not for local situations. They are not taking for those ecosystems, and they are trying to bring successful models which are usually unsuccessful in different situations. So I absolutely agree that it is just like

459
01:26:02.780 --> 01:26:14.810
and nationalistic. I would say also, just like a pride to be a little bit higher than you are, and just to step a little Copsic beyond.

460
01:26:15.330 --> 01:26:17.100
Let's go. Yeah.

461
01:26:17.670 --> 01:26:19.219
So

462
01:26:20.070 --> 01:26:22.330
yeah, obviously enough.

463
01:26:22.390 --> 01:26:35.510
If if we look at the present situation, I completely agree with the with this diagnosis. But if we go back to the to the seventies. and I, I would say the case that I

464
01:26:35.600 --> 01:26:46.680
that I'm studying really is the end of an era the era of the post-war trust and

465
01:26:46.760 --> 01:26:50.299
excitement for the possibilities of social science.

466
01:26:50.960 --> 01:26:55.079
 we all know that one of the

467
01:26:55.440 --> 01:27:03.409
main features of the interwar period between the 2 World wars, and especially during World War Ii

468
01:27:03.480 --> 01:27:06.529
was in many different places

469
01:27:06.560 --> 01:27:11.369
in the Us. Obviously, but also in Europe. They are

470
01:27:12.310 --> 01:27:26.629
the involvement of the social scientists in the war effort. So after the war there was a great excitement about the possibilities of what social science could do in lp-modernization and development in one

471
01:27:26.860 --> 01:27:28.670
democracy or whatever. Right?

472
01:27:28.690 --> 01:27:29.920
So

473
01:27:30.140 --> 01:27:39.350
these people that I'm talking about were around 50 at a time. And they had exactly this ideology of the

474
01:27:39.740 --> 01:27:47.429
fact that the social sciences could be, could have a practical utility to help in policy making.

475
01:27:47.730 --> 01:27:52.730
They could have a democratizing effect in educating the public

476
01:27:53.520 --> 01:28:03.549
and also and and this is the reason why they wanted to to create this book, to make this book, because they thought that

477
01:28:03.690 --> 01:28:10.899
a gaze from outside was unbiased, more objective.

478
01:28:11.150 --> 01:28:13.770
fresher, more interesting.

479
01:28:13.960 --> 01:28:27.920
that what Italian social scientists were entangled in political, ideological, kind of networks and struggles could say about their their own country.

480
01:28:28.020 --> 01:28:35.929
So the idea was, let's call people from outside that. And they would be more objective than we are.

481
01:28:36.120 --> 01:28:48.889
Okay. So it they thought it was important to create a global community of people studying Italy, because if you left the study of Italy only to Italian nationals

482
01:28:49.130 --> 01:29:00.910
There would have been the risk of of translating political struggles into the social, scientific confrontations. Okay, so it was.

483
01:29:00.940 --> 01:29:09.159
I mean, and it's so interesting. If you read the the the correspondence between these these people organized in the book.

484
01:29:09.410 --> 01:29:18.350
it's a continuous It's like a a roller coaster of optimism, of pessimism.

485
01:29:18.450 --> 01:29:29.309
because they say, Okay, we we can do. We have the money to do this. We will. Holy will be a great book. And then at some point the the Italian guy

486
01:29:29.390 --> 01:29:34.900
makes a list of Italian scholars and intellectuals to include in the book.

487
01:29:34.920 --> 01:29:55.490
and he said, You know, I spent the last 10 days looking at all social scientific journals. And I spent one week reading the old catalogue of books in print. Okay, they had no Internet. So they had, like a big catalogue of old boots. And and he said.

488
01:29:55.560 --> 01:30:03.090
I almost cried, because, you know, it's 1,971, and there are no good

489
01:30:03.130 --> 01:30:31.679
social scientists. Specifically, I don't know who I want to include in this book, because I cannot find anyone who really satisfies me. Okay, so and and so you have this roller coaster of optimism and pessimism. But that was justified by exactly this thing that you had to bring. So this is maybe the the one of the roots of this ideology that we have today the fact that

490
01:30:32.720 --> 01:30:40.790
the scientific community should be globalized because people from outside are more objective to people from inside.

491
01:30:41.040 --> 01:30:42.130
you know what?

492
01:30:42.250 --> 01:30:59.020
And so you have to have a continuous confrontations with others in order to to get some kind of objectivity and objectivity is important because social science is not only cognitive but should be normative. You know

493
01:30:59.340 --> 01:31:17.609
that that's the point, but it's very interesting, because there is a similarity with the case of the American dilemma from Mir del no, because they also thought that a look for a stranger would be better.

494
01:31:17.610 --> 01:31:37.510
To to be more objective and not to be involved in political discussions in America. So in the United States they have. They had Dubois, for example, but they they had to to go to, to middle to have a a danger look and a different view of the phenomena.

495
01:31:37.510 --> 01:31:55.800
Maybe in this case we could say that the expert non-expected was Kalazza, because if he didn't found need no, a sociologist, not one of sociology, because he didn't like anyone. Maybe it was Kabata that he didn't know how to judge the sociology. Italy. Okay?

496
01:31:57.220 --> 01:32:01.210
Oh, okay.

497
01:32:01.720 --> 01:32:04.200
just so. I'm interested. The

498
01:32:04.570 --> 01:32:06.649
how did you get those lists?

499
01:32:07.760 --> 01:32:12.319
So I'm working with archives, because it is really

500
01:32:12.360 --> 01:32:20.940
very personal stories, really how to say information which is not accessible. And I'm interested

501
01:32:21.190 --> 01:32:30.700
oh, very, very quickly. So I first read this book when I was writing my BA thesis exactly 30 years ago.

502
01:32:30.830 --> 01:32:51.390
and I was so puzzled by this book that I said, someday, if I if I get to become an academic, I have to write an article on this book. Okay? And so what I did was, I found the Kavaza's daughter, who owns the papers of his father in a house in the countryside.

503
01:32:51.540 --> 01:32:53.160
and I just

504
01:32:53.600 --> 01:33:00.659
brought her like a thousand emails, saying, Oh, please let me see this stuff pleasure. And then, yeah.

505
01:33:01.870 --> 01:33:06.790
and that was because I want, I really wanted to know the story of this book. So yeah.

506
01:33:11.600 --> 01:33:13.540
there is only one microphone.

507
01:33:15.560 --> 01:33:21.720
Okay, my name is Thomas, that it's different, more so I and I wanted to

508
01:33:22.270 --> 01:33:40.510
and to thank me for a fantastic presentation. This was really inspiring both on the level of the of the social conditions for development of this kind of a non-realized

509
01:33:40.510 --> 01:33:56.110
theoretical approach, but also on the on the level of its content. It's it's been quite aspiring to to look and and into those unrealized, also religiously inspired versions of social science.

510
01:33:56.140 --> 01:34:01.890
And this somehow.

511
01:34:02.050 --> 01:34:18.629
I brought to my mind the only other religious, really inspired school of social thought that I know more or less. That is the Russian, late nineteenth century religious thinkers, philosophers!

512
01:34:18.630 --> 01:34:42.059
And my like naive Interpretation of the sources of birth, of this, of this, of this of the school, was then the radicalization of political and social life in and and and pre-revolution in Russia, late nineteenth century Russia, when the liberal mainstream lost

513
01:34:42.060 --> 01:34:51.999
heter money and the left Radical left Marxes especially, we became one of the strongest players in the academic field. So interaction to that.

514
01:34:52.000 --> 01:35:18.709
There was this religiously inspired school of of of social thinkers. We're mostly critiquing the the the Marxist revolutions, but at the same time they produce this life body of of of religiously, spiritually inspired social theory which I I think country today inspires some of the socially conservative fingers. So the do you think that this this way of thinking

515
01:35:18.940 --> 01:35:20.910
it makes sense.

516
01:35:21.000 --> 01:35:35.039
and maybe regarding your fascinating story of the Italian book. This is a really great story, but I still don't understand the main motive of spending

517
01:35:35.050 --> 01:35:51.379
so much money, and I am not convinced that by this agreement that they were looking for objective knowledge, that we, as sociologists, I think we should like the constructors know what they could understand as objective, because

518
01:35:51.480 --> 01:36:20.839
still I maybe they're wrong. But that but I I I I'm not sure if they would. They would be happy with any kind of interpretation of of of Italian. Society! They! They, they, they, they, they! They assume some kind of maybe not fairly particularly defined, but but but they probably may be they will. For example, they will not be happy about some radical leftist critiques or something something else. So there was some ideological

519
01:36:20.860 --> 01:36:23.489
assumption between the and project.

520
01:36:25.440 --> 01:36:29.000
Michiel Van Dam: I'll answer first, I think.

521
01:36:29.240 --> 01:36:34.540
Michiel Van Dam: thanks for your question. Your remarks. Yeah, I I very much agree, I think.

522
01:36:35.840 --> 01:36:40.939
Michiel Van Dam: there is this always this fascinating

523
01:36:41.370 --> 01:36:43.580
Michiel Van Dam: interaction between

524
01:36:44.110 --> 01:36:58.349
Michiel Van Dam: on one hand, Secularists developments and their sort of political side effects. And then this often this, this religious reaction to it.

525
01:36:58.560 --> 01:37:14.330
Michiel Van Dam: so I think it's it's very interesting or important to when we look at something like, okay, why is something like a sociological culture of programs education effective

526
01:37:14.530 --> 01:37:24.749
Michiel Van Dam: that you are able to articulate sort of the the hidden, the more obscure mechanisms. which are

527
01:37:25.280 --> 01:37:37.490
Michiel Van Dam:  fueling in these these cultures. So I would agree. I think it's also another very interesting context in rel to the Marxist revolution. And

528
01:37:37.640 --> 01:37:45.220
Michiel Van Dam: yeah, I would. I would say that it would be interesting if there's there's more attention paid to it you.

529
01:37:50.710 --> 01:37:56.260
So obviously, it was ideological, obviously so.

530
01:37:57.550 --> 01:38:05.540
In fact, all these people were what we would call today Liberals or

531
01:38:06.410 --> 01:38:11.070
moderates, I would say, in the center of the political spectrum.

532
01:38:11.160 --> 01:38:26.119
but that is very typical of the of transatlantic sociology. Of the fiftys and the sixties, I mean. These were the same people, translated Parsons and Martin. this kind of a

533
01:38:26.580 --> 01:38:31.419
ideology, that social sciences could be

534
01:38:31.469 --> 01:38:38.740
piece of a technocratic managing of society, and that political

535
01:38:38.940 --> 01:38:46.690
extreme positions would not be objective, as this kind of liberal center.

536
01:38:46.719 --> 01:38:56.249
Okay, obviously. So, if you, if you remember the photograph of Kavanaugh that I showed it was with out of Schlesinger, Jr.

537
01:38:56.379 --> 01:39:13.519
Who was a Harvard historian, who was also in the White House staff of John F. Kennedy. So that was the ideology of the time, and, in fact, the interesting thing which I tried to explain in the conclusion of the of the paper, is that

538
01:39:13.600 --> 01:39:16.749
obviously the whole

539
01:39:17.370 --> 01:39:23.649
organization of this of this book, and this project was biased by that

540
01:39:23.850 --> 01:39:29.110
because they selected. And if you saw that the list that I showed

541
01:39:29.580 --> 01:39:37.920
all those were that kind of American intellectual Albert Isman and Lipset, and

542
01:39:37.930 --> 01:39:49.170
that they were all in the Liberal center. Okay? And then they came to Italy, and the people they met were from the same, exactly the same

543
01:39:49.559 --> 01:39:52.240
political and ideological background.

544
01:39:52.480 --> 01:40:08.420
There's a a funny anecdote that at some point the Americans themselves said, we want to meet with the Communist scholars, because you never Let us meet Communist scholars, and And as please

545
01:40:08.680 --> 01:40:26.980
let us meet more Communists, because but but it is exactly like that, but that the people these people, were very, very homogeneous, both theoretically, ideologically, politically. But the main point of the ideology was to claim for themselves subjectivity.

546
01:40:27.650 --> 01:40:50.279
Let me have something about Catholic sociology, because obviously, Miki said that this book is about France in the nineteenth century, and so, but in Italy we had a very strong stream of Catholic sociology and Catholic inspired sociology with the work of We just to it. So

547
01:40:50.280 --> 01:41:06.559
in the interwar and post-war period, and, in fact, one of the main currents of Italian sociological thought, if you can use that word, was inspired by the social doctrine of the Church. And

548
01:41:06.650 --> 01:41:19.609
and so after Stewart. So we have to set the and we have a. And even today there's a sociologist in Italy's name is Pipelo Don. It was my adviser, in fact. who wrote

549
01:41:19.709 --> 01:41:33.630
books trying to reconcile sociological theory and Catholic theology. So obviously, it's it's quite different from the master of the obviously.

550
01:41:34.100 --> 01:41:48.549
But in fact, you still have this kind of a Catholic inspired sociology somewhere, and I and I'm sure that there is something like that in other countries, too. So maybe you would take a look to register to work. And something like that.

551
01:41:49.170 --> 01:42:00.710
Michiel Van Dam: Yeah, I I I it's it's difficult, I think, to articulate more like what constitutes a failure. Obviously, intellectually

552
01:42:00.950 --> 01:42:10.830
Michiel Van Dam: like, I said, the was enormously influential for the figures like Compton and Durkheim, and so the the thinking persistent that the

553
01:42:10.840 --> 01:42:23.490
Michiel Van Dam: the I myself from from Belgium, where and Catholics played a huge role in the the formation of sociology. It was really the the origin point of sociology in Belgium at the Catholic University of London.

554
01:42:23.600 --> 01:42:27.739
Michiel Van Dam: but I think what I wanted to

555
01:42:28.480 --> 01:42:33.149
Michiel Van Dam: 10 points. What? This kind of

556
01:42:33.220 --> 01:42:49.190
Michiel Van Dam: blindness within someone like you? Double notes? and it's broader projects of thinking sociology as a kind of community as a kind of moment of existence, and in this ability to take seriously

557
01:42:49.190 --> 01:43:08.360
Michiel Van Dam: something like positivism and and rationalism. appropriating kind of blindly. this kind of language, not really realizing that he was subverting at the same time his own project. And I think what's interesting

558
01:43:08.550 --> 01:43:25.109
Michiel Van Dam: is the reverse is is what is going on right now. what is sociology right now? And are we aware of certain blind spots within the way we think about sociology, and what makes it a successful discipline?

559
01:43:25.180 --> 01:43:52.289
Michiel Van Dam: And I think the tension between or the situation especially, which the sociology of religion finds itself in relation to the the post secular. So I think a very interesting context to think about. Okay, what are we presuming? What are we explicitly articulating on what is still not really being actively articulated itself. So that's just But of course, yeah, like you said,

560
01:43:52.310 --> 01:43:56.439
Michiel Van Dam: it's it's hugely influential, and still is to this day, you know.

561
01:43:56.890 --> 01:44:00.260
Michiel Van Dam: and thanks for the suggestion about the Italian context as well.

562
01:44:01.730 --> 01:44:07.279
Thank you. There are some more questions, either from online. No?

563
01:44:08.110 --> 01:44:08.880
Well.

564
01:44:09.980 --> 01:44:18.250
of course, the last one, and maybe a provocative neoliberal question.

565
01:44:18.330 --> 01:44:30.519
If I would be how to say a person who is going to give you a million for your such. I would ask you to give a good argument. But it will be economical social impact of your research.

566
01:44:32.480 --> 01:44:36.849
Michiel Van Dam: Yeah, I'm I'm generally quite terrible at these kinds of

567
01:44:36.960 --> 01:45:01.650
questions. So nobody's gonna give me a million. So anyway, if obviously, if you're going to be an academic, so if you have to find those agreements, even for such kind of yeah. But that's that's interesting. Because if I'm very personal, I'm I'm gradually being pushed out. So I it. It's obvious that that I I don't have the answer to the question.

568
01:45:01.650 --> 01:45:11.429
Michiel Van Dam: and I but I I would say, and this is perhaps a strange I don't think that is a bad thing, you know. I don't think

569
01:45:11.460 --> 01:45:18.059
Michiel Van Dam: if you don't have an answer to the 1 million dollar question. And that is the way the university functions. That's just. You know.

570
01:45:18.220 --> 01:45:45.590
I can always become like an amateur researcher, you know, it's not But this, you know. Perhaps the university is not the place to to answer these types of questions, but it's it's in also, I would like to say, to command, because we need a lot of feature views with, say, academics asking this stupid question about 1 million a. How you're going to articulate why you should received, and the most

571
01:45:45.970 --> 01:45:57.970
funniest answered, we are not making harm for anybody as our research.

572
01:45:58.520 --> 01:46:00.550
Great.

573
01:46:01.550 --> 01:46:13.430
Okay, thank you all. We are very right on time. So thank you all for coming here late evening. So thank you and goodbye.