The Unhappy Divorce of Sociology and Psychoanalysis Diverse Perspectives on the Psychosocial

Preface by Jeffrey Alexander and Foreword by Craig Calhoun.

Why does the field of sociology in the United States often overlook or marginalize psychoanalytic
concepts like anxiety, defence mechanisms and the unconscious dating back to Sigmund Freud?
The Unhappy Divorce of Sociology and Psychoanalysis shows that this was not always the case,
and that the field of contemporary sociology can benefit from inclusion of psychoanalytic
perspectives. It features eighteen essays by well-known scholars in and outside the United
States – including Nancy Chodorow, George Cavalletto and Catherine Silver, Jeffrey Prager,
Neil Smelser, and Gilda Zwerman – alongside junior scholars who are all working on how
sociology, psychoanalysis, and the psychosocial interrelate. The articles consider the history
of the relationship, ongoing debates and the need for psychosocial analyses when studying
racism, gender, immigration, class and the housing crisis, trauma and social movements
(among other applied topics). This book makes a lively case for the significance of tapping into
interdisciplinary approaches, including the psychosocial, if sociology is to offer cutting-edge
research on a range of contemporary social issues requiring multi-dimensional insights.

Lynn S. Chancer is Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, USA, and Chair of the Hunter Department of Sociology. She is the author of four books: Sadomasochism in Everyday Life, Reconcilable Differences: Beauty, Pornography and the Future of Feminism, High-Profile Crimes: When Legal Cases Become Social Causes, and Gender, Race and Class: An Overview.

John Andrews received his PhD in sociology from the City University of New York Graduate Center, USA. He lives and teaches sociology in New York. He has published most recently in the journals Women and Performance and Social Text , and is currently completing a book manuscript exploring the confluence of collective moods and the economy in American culture and politics.

Preface; Jeffrey Alexander
Foreword; Craig Calhoun
Introduction: The Unfulfilled Promise: From Marginalization to Revitalization; Lynn S. Chancer and John Andrews
PART I: THE HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS IN THE US: DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES ON A LONGSTANDING RELATIONSHIP
1. Opening/Closing the Sociological Mind to Psychoanalysis; George Cavalletto and Catherine Silver
2. Paranoid and Institutional Responses to Psychoanalysis Among Early Sociologists: A Socio-psychoanalytic Interpretation; Catherine Silver
3. The Unconscious in Cultural Dispute: On the Ethics of Psychosocial Discovery; Thomas DeGloma
PART II: ARE PSYCHOSOCIAL/SOCIOANALYTIC SYNTHESES POSSIBLE?
4. Sustaining an Unlikely Marriage: Biographical, Theoretical, and Intellectual Notes; Neil Smelser
5. Why is it Easy to be a Psychoanalyst and a Feminist, but not a Psychoanalyst and a Social Scientist? Reflections of a Psychoanalytic Hybrid; Nancy Chodorow
6: The Narcissism of Minor Differences: The Status Anxiety & Disciplinary Intolerance between Sociology and Psychoanalysis; Siamak Mohavedi
PART III: THE UNFULFILLED PROMISE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS AND SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY
7. Escapes from Freedom: Political Extremism, Conspiracy Theories and the Sociology of Emotions; Neil McLaughlin
8. C. Wright Mills, Freud and the Psychosocial Imagination; Lynn S. Chancer
9. Bourdieu, Socio-analysis and Psycho-analysis; George Steinmetz
10. The Ethnographic Spiral: Reflections on the Intersection of Life history and Ideal-Typical Analysis; Philip Manning
PART IV: THE PSYCHOSOCIAL(ANALYTIC) IN RESEARCH AND PRACTICE
The Psychoanalytic Underpinnings of Subject (Object) Selection?
11. PERSONA: Psychodynamic and Sociological Dimensions of a Project on US Activism and Political Violence; Gilda Zwerman
Applying Freud's Ideas to Contemporary Culture
12. Foreclosure from Freud to Fannie Mae; John Andrews
13. 'Mourning becomes Eclectic': Racial Melancholia in an Age of Reconciliation; Jeffery Prager
14. On The Melancholia of New Individualism; Anthony Elliot
15. The Shame of Survival: Rethinking Trauma's Aftermath; Arlene Stein
Integrating Sociological Subfields and Psycho/analytic Frameworks
16: Racial Hatred and Racial Prejudice: A Difference That Makes a Difference; Tony Jefferson
17. Definitive Exclusions: The Social Fact and the Subjects of Neo-Liberalism; Vikash Singh
18: 'One Has to Belong, Somehow': Acts of Belonging at the Intersection of Ethnicity, Sexuality, and Citizenship; Ilgin Yorukoglu