The Political Sociology Research Cluster seeks to create an engaged community of scholars interested in the relationship between power, engagement, and social life.
The Political Sociology Research Cluster is an open, welcoming space that encourages scholars to share new ideas and works in progress, with the goal of building confidence, community, and collaboration. Political Sociology poses timely and exciting questions of theoretical and empirical analysis. These include, but are not limited to, examining the role of social inequality, ideology, social movements, public opinion, nationalism, and political participation in society.
We aim to address these areas through interdisciplinary research perspectives from across the social sciences within a committed and cooperative space. Our main objectives are a) connecting students and faculty — within and beyond the department — who have an interest in political sociology and comparative historical methods, and b) to inspire new research and help ready outputs of publications or presentation. We maintain a fluid structure in order to allow for different activities with different aims: seminars, reading groups, workshops, and conferences are all organised within this research group to make use of our strengths and resources.
The cluster brings a sense of community to the department and it affords its students a way to connect and collaborate with others whose research pertains to political sociology, an active and growing subfield at Cambridge and beyond. Part think space, part discussion venue, and part workshop, the Political Sociology Research Cluster aims to enable and improve research and be a resource for those who conduct it.
Format
The Political Sociology Research Cluster meets on a biweekly basis. A text is pre-selected and circulated in advance so that people can prepare for a discussion. The text can be a published paper suggested by a group member or an invited speaker, or a group member's own work in the form of a draft paper or a chapter. The group engages in open discussion and/or Q&A where appropriate.
Lent Term 2023
Since Walter Benjamin coined the term the 'aestheticization of politics', several scholars, including Adorno and Debord, have sided with him and signalled the risks that come with projects that make politics about aesthetics; in other words, that make power about beauty. Others, instead, have argued that politics is, in itself, an aesthetic endeavour. Closely interwoven with the doublet politics/aesthetics is the notion of charisma, a concept that has experienced an academic revival in the past few years, after Max Weber first introduced it. Weber put forward charisma as a non-rational form of legitimized authority. Others suggest that charisma actually rationalizes anti-establishment discourses. And yet others denounce charismatic politics as suggestive of populist or authoritarian projects.
This year's Political Sociology Research Cluster will take on these and other debates. It includes readings by Jacques Rancière and on Weber's sociology of charisma, as well as research discussions and work-in-progress presentations.
Lent 2023 zoom links for meetings
Mailing List and Contact
To join the Political Sociology Research Cluster mailing list, subscribe here.
For more details on participation and involvement, please don’t hesitate to contact the convener, Santiago Vargas-Acevedo sv471@cam.ac.uk.
[Image: 'Change the Politics' by Joanna Penn [CC BY 2.0]]