I’ll email him about the initial question.

At that time I also read a couple ASR pieces, including one by the 1939 ASA president Sutherland on white collar crime. I really liked that paper and wonder if anyone ever picked up on it.

Well, I suppose it all depends on the meaning of the word “basically.” If this means “mainly” or “only,” then I’m not so sure. Lamont’s analysis suggests that those who teach “theory”—and let’s assume, contrary to the old saw, that those who teach theory not infrequently find themselves doing it too, and perhaps even doing it well—”do not define themselves first and foremost as theorists.” That is, they self-define as “‘cultural sociologists’ or something like that,” though whether this is “masquerade” is perhaps a separate question.

But—and here I think Shamus and I agree—we should be careful not to conflate being and doing. As he puts it: “you can certainly do theory without being one who does ‘theory’.” That is—if I’m getting this right—you can do theory without defining yourself primarily as a theorist—though yes, this does mean that you will have to masquerade as (indeed, you will have to be) something and someone else. But that is probably all to the good, since even the most die-hard theorists ought to be urged to get out of their armchairs. Bourdieu once called it “fieldwork in philosophy.”

And what about “intellectual history”? Sociology as a discipline would probably be at least somewhat better off if more sociologists were willing to pay it some good attention. We ought to hesitate before forgetting our founders (and their followers), if only because they helped forge the field that now forges us (and because even those who did not significantly shape the field might, with a bit of reading and reflection, still manage to significantly shape us).

But again, this could, and perhaps should, be figured not as a matter of exclusive intellectual identity, but rather as one form of intellectual activity among many. Kieran Healy is not primarily an “intellectual historian,” but his article does some good work that looks a lot like intellectual history. Similarly, Shamus himself has done a bit of intellectual history, it seems to me, for an excellent chapter in this big fat book. This isn’t the only thing that theorists (or those who “do theory”) might do. Yet it is, I think, worth doing.

And will those who do it find jobs in departments of sociology? Good question. But it is probably safe to say that the American sociologist does not usually live by theory alone.

Re: theory. I work in a fairly undervalued area of soc, especially when it comes to theory. I got job offers because of the methods I use but people are always pleasantly surprised when I say I’d like to teach theory (in my area, we have a shortage). Again, I second olderwoman when I say that talking about theory as an “area” is weird to me.

Also, I blog under a pseudonym because it throws the packs of snark-bloggers off my scent, and because the real Jeremy doesn’t seem to care.

Re pseudonyms, I started that way because I don’t want this blog to come up in a google search on my name. I’m still deciding how I want this persona to relate or not relate to my more public persona. But I assume that most of the readers of this blog either know who I am or can figure it out, so I don’t feel any license to say anything I would not otherwise say.