Alle Publikationen
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2016
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(2016): Normality and Trust in Goffman's Theory of Interaction Order. In: Sociological Theory 19 (3), S. 312-324. DOI: 10.1111/0735-2751.00143
Abstract: The article asserts that Goffman's concept of normality comes close to the notion of trust as a protective mechanism that prevents chaos and disorder by providing us with feelings of safety, certainty, and familiarity. Arguing that to account for the tendency of social order to be seen as normal we need to conceptualize trust as the routine background of everyday interaction, the article analyzes Goffmans concepts of normal appearances, stigma, and frames as devices for endowing social order with predictability, reliability, and legibility. For Goffman, normality is a collective achievement, which is possible because of the orderliness of interactional activities, which is-in turn-predicated "on a large base of shared cognitive presuppositions, if not normative ones, and self-sustained restraints".
Keywords: Anerkennung und kollektive Intentionalität, Disziplin, Erwartungen, erwartungen und Erwartungserwartungen, familiarity, Frame theory, Frameanalysis Rahmenanalyse Framing, Goffman, Interaktion, kollektive Intentionalität, Natur & Genese von Normen, Soziale Ordnung, Soziologie, Theorie der Normen und Kollektive Repräsentationen (Durkheim), Theory of interaction (Goffman), Vertrauen -
(2016): Vortexes of Involvement. In: Philosophy of the Social Sciences 37 (4), S. 433-448. DOI: 10.1177/0048393107307662
Abstract: How does social organization persist? How does social organization transform? This article proposes that social scientists can begin to answer these questions by considering social organization as the intermittent construction and decay of patterned action, and social actors as centers of organization with the capacity to exert force within some social scene. From this perspective, contexts that shape the dynamics of both actors and scenes could be imagined as turbulent flows that push and pull action into temporary patterns. By viewing social organization as temporary vortexes of involvement within turbulent flows of action, social scientists can focus their attention on the processes at play in the creation, stabilization, and collapse of social organization. Such a perspective corrects some of the limitations in network and field approaches for investigating the fluidity of social organization.
Keywords: cycles, Disziplin, Layers of Interaction, network and field approaches, Normenwandel, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Organisation des Sozialen, Philosophie, social organization, social patterns, Soziale Ordnung, sozialer Wandel, Sozialverhalten, Soziologie, stability, timing, Überblick, Voraussetzungen für sozial angemessenes Verhalten -
(2016): Foundations of Niklas Luhmann’s Theory of Social Systems. In: Philosophy of the Social Sciences 29 (4), S. 481-516. DOI: 10.1177/004839319902900402
Abstract: Of all contemporary social theorists, Luhmann has best understood the centrality of the concept of meaning to social theory and has most extensively worked out the notion's implications. However, despite the power of his theory the theory suffers from difficulties impeding its reception. This article attempts to remedy this situation with some critical arguments and proposals for revision. First, the theory Luhmann adopted from biology as the basis of his own theory was a poor choice since that theory has no explanatory power, being purely descriptive; furthermore, that theory is fundamentally flawed since it implies that viruses are impossible. Second, Luhmann's theory of meaning cannot coherently make the social domain autonomous as he desires since Luhmann does not take into account the distinction between syntax and semantics. By introducing this distinction, making clear that social systems consist of rules, not just communications, and raising the rule concept to the same prominence in social theory as those of actor and system, autonomy can be maintained while avoiding the counterintuitive aspects of Luhmann's theory.
2015
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(2015): Decorum and Desire. Dance in Renaissance Europe and the Maturation of a Discipline. In: RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY 68 (2), S. 597-612
Abstract: Dance in early modern Europe was actively enganged in by all levels of society. Thus research into past practices has implications for many areas of historical inquiry: music, theater, festivals, visual arts, costume, gesture, literature, garden design, political processes, and intellectual movements, as well as questions of identity, oder and moral virtue.
Keywords: decorum, Geschichte, Kulturelle/soziale Rituale, Renaissance, Soziale Ordnung, Tanz, Werte 2014
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(2014): Managing subjects, manufacturing citizens. Picturing sites of social control in nineteenth-century America. In: Early Popular Visual Culture 12 (2), S. 104-126. DOI: 10.1080/17460654.2014.923160
Abstract: This article examines structures of social control that became institutionalized in the United States in the 1870s and 1880s. In particular, it examines how key philanthropic and penal institutions within New York City, including the school, workhouse and prison, were represented in the illustrated popular press as sites for both controlling and training an industrializing workforce. Examining how the language of scientific management seeped into the social realm, this essay argues that visual representations of these sites helped to reinforce normative middle-class ideals about education, work and punishment. Examining the ways that artists interpreted and framed these sites for a group of primarily middle-class viewers and readers, this essay argues that social systems helped to construct an ideal, imagined citizen who is, first and foremost, an efficient worker. The purpose of these institutions was, in main part, to teach their inmates to labor and to replicate the state apparatus by maintaining social order. This article also deals with the increasingly structured and professional implementation of education and social work during the years leading up to the Progressive Era.
Keywords: Bildsemantik, education, Identitätsstiftung, Kulturtechnik, Kunst, Kunstgeschichte, labor, Rollen, social control, Social Rank, social systems, Soziale Klasse / Schicht, Soziale Ordnung, United States, Vergangenheit / Erziehung, visual culture, Vorurteile, Zuschreiben einer erwarteten Rolle 2010
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(2010): Mental health care and the politics of inclusion. A social systems account of psychiatric deinstitutionalization. In: Theoretical medicine and bioethics 31 (6), S. 411-427. DOI: 10.1007/s11017-010-9155-8
DOI: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20711755 Abstract: This paper provides an interpretation, based on the social systems theory of German sociologist Niklas Luhmann, of the recent paradigmatic shift of mental health care from an asylum-based model to a community-oriented network of services. The observed shift is described as the development of psychiatry as a function system of modern society and whose operative goal has moved from the medical and social management of a lower and marginalized group to the specialized medical and psychological care of the whole population. From this theoretical viewpoint, the wider deployment of the modern social order as a functionally differentiated system may be considered to be a consistent driving force for this process; it has made asylum psychiatry overly incompatible with prevailing social values (particularly with the normative and regulative principle of inclusion of all individuals in the different functional spheres of society and with the common patterns of participation in modern function systems) and has, in turn, required the availability of psychiatric care for a growing number of individuals. After presenting this account, some major challenges for the future of mental health care provision, such as the overburdening of services or the overt exclusion of a significant group of potential users, are identified and briefly discussed.
Keywords: Bioethics,, Community Mental Health Services/organization & administration, Deinstitutionalization, Diskriminierung, Ethik, Fehlverhalten, Gesellschaftsprofit, Health Services Accessibility, Hospitals, Psychiatric, Humans, Medizin, Mental Disorders, Mental Health, Pathologie, Patient Care Team, Pflege, Politics, Psychiatry/trends, social systems, ethics, Social Values, Soziale Ordnung, Spain, systems theory, Werte 2008
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(2008): Charles Lamb on Romantic Reading and Social Decorum. In: WORDSWORTH CIRCLE 39 (3), S. 79-85
Abstract: This article discusses topics related to Charles Lamb on Romantic reading and social decorum. It states the for Lamb, reading is essentially an indoor, private activity for pleasure rather than duty. It explains that Lamb cares for the physical condition and appearance of his books and believes that reading entails appreciating its social and cultural status. In addition, Lamb dislikes hearing written and printed works being read aloud, especially newspapers, wherein he states that reading aloud in public is a tedious and potentially embarrassing activity because most readers are slow readers and because their private pleasure is rarely suitable for public exposure.
2006
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(2006): Idiocy in Virginia, 1616-1860. In: BULLETIN OF THE HISTORY OF MEDICINE 80 (4), S. 677-701
Abstract: Like the English, Virginians tended to think that idiocy, a condition analogous to intellectual disability in the twenty-first century, was congenital, untreatable, and incurable, and they adopted legal remedies that corresponded closely to the laws of England. In addition, concepts of idiocy reflected some of the unique aspects of Virginia's social system, which was dominated by a coterie of powerful men. With a need to preserve social order and maintain decorum, the Virginia legislature established in 1769 the Eastern State Hospital to house unruly and objectionable people who were mentally disabled. Although idiots were among the hospital's first patients, they were eventually banished due to their presumed failure to respond to treatment. The social stigma attached to idiocy extended from Virginia's city streets and jails to the private homes of prominent families. Personal reticence regarding shameful family matters hid the identity of people thought to be intellectually disabled. Even Thomas Jefferson, a prolific author, entered only cryptic notes about the limitations of his sister, Elizabeth. In summary, Virginians' response to idiocy suggests a two-tiered approach: public disclosure and disdain of poor and dependent people with intellectual disabilities, and silent avoidance of the problem in prominent families. In both situations, idiocy represented images of shame and humiliation that threatened the social order.
Keywords: Beeinflussung sozial angemessenen Verhaltens, Beispiel, chemisch / neurologisch / medikamentös / durch Substanzen, decorum, Diskriminierung, Fehlverhalten, Geschichte, Gesellschaftsprofit, "idiocy", Medizin, Mental Health, Observablen/Kriterien für sozial angemessenes Verhalten und dessen Bewertung, Soziale Ordnung, Sozialer Raum / Kultureller Kontext 2005
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(2005): Nonlinearity, chaos, and complexity. The dynamics of natural and social systems. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Online verfügbar unter http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=177022
Abstract: Covering a broad range of topics, this text provides a comprehensive survey of the modelling of chaotic dynamics and complexity in the natural and social sciences. Its attention to models in both the physical and social sciences and the detailed philosophical approach make this an unique text in the midst of many current books on chaos and complexity. Part 1 deals with the mathematical model as an instrument of investigation. The general meaning of modelling and, more specifically, questions concerning linear modelling are discussed. Part 2 deals with the theme of chaos and the origin of chaotic dynamics. Part 3 deals with the theme of complexity: a property of the systems and of their models which is intermediate between stability and chaos. Including an extensive index and bibliography along with numerous examples and simplified models, this is an ideal course text.
Keywords: Adaptive Systeme, Chaos, Chaotic behavior in systems, Dynamics, Dynamique, Im (wissenschaftlichen) Diskurs, Komplexitätsforschung, Künstliche Intelligenz, Mathematical models, Mathematik, Mensch-Technik-Relationen (MTR), Modèles mathématiques, Modell, Modellierung, Multi-Agenten-Systeme, Nonlinear theories, Ontologische Differenzierungen: Tier, Mensch, Maschine, Realtechnik, Reflexionen über MTR, social systems, Soziale Ordnung, Soziale Systeme, Systemtheorie, Technik, Théories non linéaires, Überblick 1995
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(1995): The power of sex. Some reflections on the Caldwells’ ’African sexuality’ thesis. In: AFRICA 65 (4), S. 489-505
Abstract: This article consists of a series of reflections about the nature of sexuality in East Africa framed in response to the theories put forward by J. C. Caldwell and his collaborators. It argues that their views fail to grasp the way sexual restraints and restrictions form the basis of the moral order in East African societies. Their model of a distinctively African sexual system overemphasises descent in a way that systematically underplays the importance of marriage and reduces ancestor cults to exclusive concern with lineage, reproduction and continuity. By contrast, it is argued with reference to the Gisu of Uganda, ancestral beliefs in their general form are associated with the overall templates for correct social living and these hinge not on lineality but on sexuality and its control. In this light, most East African cultures can be labelled ‘respect cultures’, in that they see their social orders as rooted in respect, respect which implies deference, attention to proper decorum and above all self-restraint. The rules problematise sexuality. The article then turns to the sacred power attributed to coitus itself. This is addressed by looking at the metaphor of the mingling of bloods, widely used of sexual intercourse in East Africa. In the last section of the article attention is paid to the contrast between consanguinity and alliance and the idea that the union of man and woman serves as the prototype of contractual relationships.
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