Home > Jeffrey Alexander ~ Published Articles
Jeffrey Alexander ~ Published Articles
Jeffrey C. Alexander
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“To Be Truly Radical is to Make Hope Possible ,” Perspectives , Newsletter of the ASA Theory Section, pp. 22-23
“Trauma, solidarity, and division ,” Yale News , The legacy of 9/11: Reflections on a global tragedy. September 9, 2021.
“In Memoriam: Bernard Giesen ,” pp. 238-240 in Soziologie: Forum Der Deutschen Gesellschaft Fur Soziologie . Heft 2.
“Anti-Utilitarian Theorizing from Parsons to Durkheim And Cultural Sociology Today .” MAUSS International , #1,
“The Prescience and Paradox of Erich Fromm ,” Thesis Eleven , 165(1):3-9.
“Recovering the Primitive in the Modern: The Cultural Turn and the Origins of Cultural Sociology ,” Thesis Eleven , 165(1):10-19.
Interview: “Ritual and Myth in the International Corona-Drama: A Conversation with Jeffrey Alexander ,” Javier Perez Jara, in Juan del Llano and Lino Camprubí (eds.). La sociedad entre pandemias , pp. 249-264. Madrid: Fundación Gaspar Casal. 2021. (In Spanish )
Interview (In Italian): “Sfera civile e radicalismo: il pendolotra “frontlash” e “backlash ”,” by Maria Elena Camarda, in La Revista/Revolta , AREL agenzia di ricerche e legislazione fondata da Nino Andreatta.
Podcast: “The Cultural Sociology of Political Performance, Icons, and Social Media, with Prof. Jeffrey Alexander ,” Social Media and Politics podcast , hosted by Michael Bossetta. #126. May 16, 2021.
Podcast: Panelist, “Learning by Comparing Global Protest Politics: BLM, Anti-CAA, Farm Protest ,” IMPRI Impact and Policy Research Institute, New Delhi, and Indrastra Global, New York, organized an IMPRI #WebPolicyTalk - Panel Discussion. February 26, 2021.
The performativity of objects . Sociologisk Forskning, 57, (3–4).
Civil Sphere and Transitions to Peace: Cultural Trauma and Civil Repair . International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society.
Interview: “Hope and a horizon of solidarity – An interview with Jeffrey C. Alexander ,” Anna Lund and Andrea Voyer, Sociologisk Forskning , 57(2).
The Double Whammy Trauma: Narrative and Counter-Narrative during Covid-Floyd . Thesis Eleven , online project: Living and Thinking Crisis . July 9, 2020. (Brazilian translation , 2020; French translation , 2020)
Interview: “Yale’s Jeffrey Alexander on how Today’s Crises Might Shape Tomorrow ,” Mike Cummings, Yale News . June 10, 2020.
Cultural sociology in a secular age . American Journal of Cultural Sociology . Online first
Against the Idea of ‘Western Modernity’: Axial Foundations and Contemporary Civil Spheres in East Asia . Culture: Newsletter of the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association . Volume 32(1): 10-13.
Interview: “Kerala Is a Wonderful Example of Democratic Socialism and Planning ,” in Kerala Calling , Chandralekha C. S. & Dr. Chitra S. Nair. March 15, 2020.
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Raging Against the Enlightenment: The Ideology of Steven Bannon . ASA Sociology of Culture Newsletter, Vol. 29(1 & 2), Spring/Summer 2017. (Portuguese translation , 2018)
Seizing the Stage: Mao, MLK, and Black Lives Matter . The Drama Review , 61/1, Spring 2017. (Portuguese translation , 2017; Chinese translation , 2017)
The Facticity of Symbols: A Reply to Morton Keller , with B. Nadya Jaworski. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society .
Interview: “Was the election a ‘shattering’ experience for you? There is hope, says a Yale sociologist ,” Yale News, January 27, 2017
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Performance and Politics: President Obama’s Dramatic Re-Election in 2012 . The Drama Review , 60/4, Winter 2016.
Dramatic Intellectuals. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society. 29. (Portuguese translation, Teoria e cultura , 2017)
Progress and disillusion: Civil repair and its discontents. Thesis Eleven , 137(1).
Culture trauma, morality and solidarity: The social construction of ‘Holocaust’ and other mass murders. Thesis Eleven, 132(1). (Chinese translation, forthcoming; Spanish translation , 2016).
Obama’s final State of the Union: Scholars React. The Conversation, January 13, 2016. (Norwegian translation , 2016)
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Measuring, counting, interpreting: Our debate on methods continues . American Journal of Cultural Sociology, 3(3).
Afterword: The Strong Program and the Iconic Turn. Sociologica, Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna 1/15.
Introduction to the Special Section on “The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered: Cultural Power. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences , 8(1).
The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered: Cultural Power. Fudan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences , 8(1), 9–31.
Interview with Jeffrey Alexander. (in Portuguese) Revista Estudos Politicos , Alexandre Werneck, Antonio Brasil Jr., Cristina Buarque e Marcelo de Oliveira, 5(2).
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In memoriam: Robert Neelly Bellah (23 February, 1927–30 July, 2013) . American Journal of Cultural Sociology , 2, 1–2. 2014.
The Dark Side of Modernity. Theory (The Newsletter of the Research Committee on Sociological Theory), International Sociological Association, Spring/Summer 2014
The Fate of the Dramatic in Modern Society: Social Theory and the Theatrical Avant-Garde. Theory, Culture & Society , 31(1).
Interview: Cultural Sociology as Social Research: A conversation with Jeffrey C. Alexander , by Hakon Larsen. Sosiologisk Tidsskrift , 1(22).
Symbolic re-inflation: Barack Obama and the last campaign. (Novoe simvolicheskoe napolnenie: Barack Obama i posledniya izbiratel’naya kampaniya). In Symbolic Politics Yearbook - Simvolicheskaya politika . (in Russian)
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Afterword . Nations and Nationalism, 19(4).
Interview: Five minutes with Jeffrey C. Alexander: “Southern European countries are not just experiencing an economic crisis, but also an identity crisis.” European Policy and Politics Blog , London School of Economics and Political Science, April 2013.
The Promise and Contradictions of Axiality. Sociologica , 1.
Legitimation Crisis: Recovering the Performance of Power. Culture , 26 (3).
Struggling over the Mode of Incorporation: Backlash against Multiculturalism in Europe. Ethnic and Racial Studies , 36(4) (Portuguese translation , 2015)
The arc of civil liberation: Obama–Tahrir–Occupy. Philosophy and Social Criticism, 39(4-5).
Foreword, in “Neil Smelser: Distinguished Sociologist, University Professor and Servant to the Public” Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
The sociology of the sacred: A conversation with Jeffrey Alexander. Gordon Lynch and Ruth Sheldon, Culture and Religion .
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Blog interview: Social Scientists Studying Social Movements , by Sinan Erensu, Kyle Green, and and Sarah Lageson, The Society Pages Blog – Inaugural Round Table Conversation .
“The Performance of Politics Election 2012 .” HuffPost . 09/19/2012 (Updated Nov 19, 2012).
“Obama’s Downcast Eyes .” HuffPost . 10/04/2012 (Updated Dec 04, 2012).
“Laughing Man and Choir Boy .” HuffPost . 10/12/2012 (Updated Dec 12, 2012).
“Courtroom Drama of Truth and Lies .” HuffPost . 10/17/2012 (Updated Dec 17, 2012).
“A Fallen Hero, or the Once and Future King? ” HuffPost . 11/01/2012 (Updated Jan 01, 2013).
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Market as Narrative and Character: For a Cultural Sociology of Economic Life . Journal of Cultural Economy, 4(4).
Obituary: Shmeul Noah (S.N.) Eisenstadt , (with Bernhard Giesen). Footnotes, the Newsletter of the American Sociological Association , 39(3).
Interview: How Obama Is Failing at the Dramatic Side of the Presidency. If he wants to win in 2012 the president must be a better performer. Jessica Rettig, US News and World Report. January 7, 2011.
Blog interview: Why Politics is Theater . Zocalo Public Square Chats , January 2011.
Fact-Signs and Cultural Sociology: How Meaning-Making Liberates the Social Imagination . Thesis Eleven , 104.
American Culture Facing China’s Rise: Can We Make Room at the Top? (with Hans Andersson). Hedgehog Review , 13(1). (Chinese translation , 2011).
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Remembrance of Things Past: Cultural Trauma, the Nanking Massacre” and Chinese Identity , in Peking-Yale University Conference Publication on Tradition & Modernity: Comparative Perspectives .
Performance/Cultural Pragmatics . Monash University Podcast. School of English, Communications and Performance Studies, Monash University - ECPS Conference. Wednesday 19 December 2007
Globalization as Collective Representation: The New Dream of a Cosmopolitan Civil Sphere. pp . 371-382 in Frontiers Of Globalization Research: Theoretical And Methodological Approaches , Edited by Ino Rossi. Springer.
Keeping Faith with The Civil Sphere , and My Critics . Perspectives , October.
Power and Performance: The War on Terror between the Sacred and the Profane, RSCAS Distinguished Lectures, 2007/01, European University Institute, Florence, Italy.
On the Interpretation of The Civil Sphere: Understanding and Contention in Contemporary Social Science. Sociological Quarterly 48.
The Meaningful Construction of Inequality and the Struggles Against It: A ‘Strong Program’ Approach to How Social Boundaries Change. Cultural Sociology , Volume 1(1).
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Introduction: Symbolic Action in Theory and Practice: The Cultural Pragmatics of Symbolic Action. in J. Alexander, B. Giesen, and J. Mast, eds., Social Performance: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics and Ritual . Cambridge University Press.
Performance and Counter Power-1: The Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Sphere. Culture , Volume 20, No. 2 (Winter 2006)
Performance and Counter Power-2:The Civil Rights Movement and the Civil Sphere. Culture , Volume 20, No. 3 (Spring 2006)
Global Civil Society. Theory, Culture and Society 23 (Problematizing Global Knowledge, special issue) (2-3)
Tocqueville’s Two Forms of Association: Interpreting Tocqueville and Debates over Civil Society Today. The Tocqueville Review, Vol. XXVII No. 2.
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Contradictions in the Societal Community: The Promise and Disappointments of Parsons’ Concept. Pp. 93-110 in R. Fox, V. Lidz, and H. Bershady, eds., After Parsons: A Theory of Social Action for the Twenty-First Century . Russell Sage Foundation.
Performance and Power. Culture , 20(1).
Central Problems of Cultural Sociology: A Reply to My (Friendly) Critics. Culture , Winter.
Introduction: The New Durkheim (with P. Smith). pp. 1-37, in J. Alexander and P. Smith, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim . Cambridge University Press.
The Dark Side of Modernity: Tension Relief, Splitting, and Grace. Pp. 171-182, in E. Ben-Rafael and Y. Sternberg, eds., Comparing Modernities: Pluralism Versus Homogenity. Essays in Homage to Shmuel N. Eisenstadt. Leiden: Brill.
The Sixties and Me: From Cultural Revolution to Cultural Theory . Pp. 37-47, in A. Sica and S. Turner, eds., The Disobedient Generation . University of Chicago Press.
Why Cultural Sociology is not ‘Idealist’: A Reply to McClennan . Theory, Culture & Society, 22(6).
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Canons, Discourses, and Research Programs: Plurality, Progress and Competition in Classical, Modern and Contemporary Sociology. In Alexander, ed., Mainstream and Critical Social Theory: Classical, Modern and Contemporary , London: Sage.
Robust Utopias and Civil Repairs. International Journal of Sociology 16 (4).
The Long and Winding Road: Civil Repair of Intimate Injustice. Sociological Theory 19(3).
Theorizing the Modes of Incorporation: Assimilation, Hyphenation, and Multiculturalism as Varieties of Civil Participation. Sociological Theory 19(3).
Toward a Sociology of Evil: Getting Beyond Modernist Common Sense and the Alternative to “The Good”. In M.P. Lara, ed., Rethinking Evil: Contemporary Perspectives . Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press
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Cultural Structures, Social Action, and the Discourses of American Civil Society: A Reply to Battani, Hall, and Powers , with Philip Smith. Theory and Society , 28.
The Ideological Discourse of Cultural Discontent: Paradoxes, Realities and Alternative Ways of Thinking , with Neil J. Smelser. In Diversity and Its Discontents: Cultural Conflict and Common Ground in Contemporary American Society. Princeton University Press.
The Public Representation of Culture and History , with Neil J. Smelser. American Behavioral Scientist , 42.
Why We Might All be Able to Live Together: An Immanent Critique of Alain Touraine’s Pourrons-nous vivre ensemble? Thesis Eleven 58.
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Civil Society Between Difference and Solidarity: Rethinking Integration in the Fragmented Public Sphere. Theoria: Journal of Social and Political Theory , 92 . (Spanish translation, 2000. )
Mass Communication, Ritual, and Civil Society, with Ronald N. Jacobs. In T. Leibes and J. Curran (eds.), Media, Ritual and Identity , Routledge.
Sociologie culturelle ou sociologie de la culture? Un programme fort pour donner à la sociologie son second souffle, with Philip Smith. Sociologie et Societes , 30(1). (In French.)
Sociology, Theories of. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy , 10, Routledge.
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After Neofunctionalism: Action, Culture, and Civil Society . In J. C. Alexander, Neofunctionalism and After , Basil Blackwell. (Russian translation, 1998 .)
Bush, Hussein and the Cultural Preparation for War: Toward a More Symbolic Theory of Political Legitimation . Epoche: Journal for the Study of Religions , 2 (1).
Civil Society I, II, III: Constructing an Empirical Concept from Normative Controversies and Historical Transformations . In J. C. Alexander (ed.), Real Civil Societies , Sage Publications. (Spanish translation , 2000.)
From Functionalism to Neofunctionalism: Creating a Position in the Field of Social Theory . In J. C. Alexander, Neofunctionalism and After , Basil Blackwell.
Les Règles secrètes de Durkheim . In E.H. Cuin (ed.), Durkheim d’un siecle a l’autre: Lectures actuelles des regles de la methode sociologique , Paris: PUF. (In French)
General Introduction: The Paradoxical Relations of Self and Society in American Sociological Thought . In J. C. Alexander, R. Boudon and M. Cherkaoui (eds.), The Classic Tradition in Sociological Theory , Sage Publications.
Une histoire critique de la sociologie allemande: Postface . In F. Vandenberghe, Une histoire critique de la cociologie allemande , Paris: La Decouverte/MAUSS. (In French)
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Collective Action, Culture and Civil Society: Secularizing, Updating, Inverting, Revising and Displacing the Classical Model of Social Movements . In M. Diani and J. Clarke (eds.), Alain Touraine . Falmer Press. (Portuguese translation , 1998.)
Cultural Sociology or Sociology of Culture? Culture , 10(3-4).
Critical Reflections on “Reflexive Modernization” (Review Essay). Theory, Culture and Society , 13(4).
Durkheim’s Religious Revival , with Philip Smith (Review Essay, E. Durkheim/K. E. Fields trans., The Elementary Forms of Religious Life ). American Journal of Sociology , 102(2).
Honneth’s New Critical Theory of Recognition , with Maria P. Lara. New Left Review , N. 220.
On Choosing One’s Intellectual Predecessors: The Reductionism of Camic’s Treatment of Parsons and the Institutionalists , with G. Sciortino. Sociological Theory , 14(2).
Social Science and Salvation: Risk Society as Mythical Discourse , with Philip Smith. Zeitschrift fur Soziologie , Aug.
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Funzionalismo e neofunzionalismo , with Paul Colomy. Enciclopedia delle Scienze Sociali , 4. (In Italian.)
How “National” is Social Theory? A Note on Some Worrying Trends in the Recent Theorizing of Richard Munch . Theory: Newsletter of the Theory Section of the International Sociological Association , Autumn: 2(8). (In English) Full English reprint, 1995 ; Abridged English reprint, 1995 .)
Interview with Jeffrey Alexander on Cultural Sociology . Sociology Newsletter of Hong Kong University , Volume 3.
Modern, Anti, Post, and Neo: How Social Theories Have Tried to Understand the “New World” of “Our Time” . Zeitschrift fur Soziologie , 23(3). (In English) (Reprinted in English, 1995 )
Religio . In C. Mongardini and M. Ruini (eds.), Religio: Ruolo del Sacro, Coesione Sociale e Nuove Forme di Soidarieta nella Societa Contemporanea , Bulzoni Editore. (In Italian)
The Paradoxes of Civil Society . Social Sciences Research Centre, Occasional Paper 16 . University of Hong Kong. (In English) (Spanish translation, 1994 ; Italian translation, 1995 ; English reprint, 1997 ; Ukranian translation, 1999 )
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Citizen and Enemy as Symbolic Classification: On the Polarizing Discourse of Civil Society . In M. Fournier and M. Lamont (eds.), Where Culture Talks: Exclusion and the Making of Society . Chicago University Press. (Full English version) (Abridged English version, 1991 ; Italian version, 1990 .)
Die neue Theoriebewegung: Eine ihrer Erscheinungsformen . In J. C. Alexander (ed.), Soziale Differenzierund und Kultureller Wandel Studien zur Neofunktionalistischen Gesellschafstheori . Frankfurt, Germany: Campus Verlag. (In German) (Spanish version, 1991 )
“Formal Sociology” is not Multidimensional: Breaking the “Code” in Parsons’ Fragment on Simmel. Teoria Sociologica , 1(1): 101-114.
More Notes on the Problem of Agency: A Reply. Revue suisse de sociologie , 19.
Reduction and Deceit in Social Theory. In H. Martins (ed.), Knowledge and Passion: Essays in Honour of John Rex . I. B. Tauris.
Retorno a la democracia: La solidaridad universalista y el mundo. In Modernizacion Economica, Democracia Politica y Democracia Social . Centro de Estudios Sociologicos, el Colegio de Mexico. (In Spanish) (English version, 1991 )
Risking Enchantment: Theory and Method in Cultural Studies , with Philip Smith and Steven Sherwood. Culture: Newsletter of the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association , 8(1).
The British are Coming… Again! The Hidden Agenda of “Cultural Studies ”, with Philip Smith and Steven Sherwood. Contemporary Sociology , 22(3).
The Discourse of American Civil Society: A New Proposal for Cultural Studies , with Philip Smith. Theory and Society , 22(2). (In English) (German translation, 1994 )
The Return to Civil Society (A review essay of J. Cohen and A. Arato, Civil Society and Political Theory ). Contemporary Sociology , 22(6).
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Between Progress and Apocalypse: Social Theory and the Dream of Reason in the Twentieth Century. In J. C. Alexander and P. Sztompka (eds.), Rethinking Progress . Unwin Hyman Limited.
Beyond the Epistemological Dilemma: General Theory in a Post-Positivist Mode . Sociological Forum , 5(4).
Intelectuales rencidos . Topodrilo , 14 (Nov-Dec). Mexico: Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. (In Spanish)
Must We Choose Between Criticism and Faith? Reflections on the Later Work of Benjamin Barber . Sociological Theory , 9(1).
Neofunctionalism Today: Reconstructing a Theoretical Tradition , with Paul Colomy. In G. Ritzer (ed.), Frontiers of Sociological Theory . Columbia University Press. (Russian translation, 1992 ; German translation, 2000 )
Structure, Value, Action: On Parson’s “Prolegomena” . American Sociological Review , 55(3). (Italian translation, 1995 )
Sacred and Profane Information Machine . Archives de sciences sociales des religions , 35e Année, No. 69.
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