Patricia Madoo Lengermann

Intersubjectivity and domination: a feminist investigation of the sociology of Alfred Schutz

This paper argues the case for a renewed interest in Schutzs work by extending his theory of the conscious subject to the feminist concern with the issue of domination. We present a theoretical analysis of the subjective and intersubjective experiences of individuals relating to each other as dominant and subordinate; as our theoretical point of departure we use Schutzs concepts of the we-relation, the assumption of reciprocity of perspectives, typification, working, taken-for-grantedness, and relevance. Schutzs sociology of the conscious subject is striking in its lack of any extended consideration of power, perhaps one reason why support for his work has diminished since the mid-1970s. Our overlayering of feminist sociological theorys interest in domination with Schutzs concerns about subjectivity and intersubjectivity produces an elaboration and a critique of Schutz and expands feminist understanding of relationships of domination.

Scholarship and Advocacy: Continuing the Feminist Revision of Sociology’s History

In Annie Marion MacLean and the Chicago Schools of Sociology, Mary Jo Deegan continues her project of reclaiming the women founders of sociology by offering a portrait of Annie Marion MacLean (who lived from 1869 to 1934), a sociologist unknown to the discipline in general and existing only as a peripheral figure even to scholars engaged in that same project of recovery. This review weighs the validity of Deegan’s claim that MacLean is a major figure in sociology’s history in two ways—one, by looking at the authority of the claim-maker and two, by examining the evidence presented in support of that claim. The enormous authority that Deegan brings to her presentation of MacLean rests in part on her earlier success in solving a key problem in the history of sociology— the grounds for claiming past thinkers as sociologists. Her first publication on this problem, ‘‘Women and Sociology: 1890– 1930’’ (1978), appeared in the inaugural volume of the Journal of the History of Sociology. Ten years later, Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892–1918 (1988) made her a figure of both inspiration and controversy—the controversy arising from the responses, some passionate, from sociologists who argued that Addams was ‘‘just not a sociologist.’’ Deegan established her claim by evaluating Addams in terms of Dirk Käsler’s (1981) five criteria for identifying past thinkers as sociologists: having taught sociology, been a member of a professional society (the American Sociological Society from its founding), published in sociological journals (including the first volume of the American Journal of Sociology), self-defined as a sociologist, and been accepted by others as a sociologist. With this argument, Deegan paved the way for a revision of the history of American sociology to include contributions by women and began a feminist revolution in the discipline’s historiography (see, e.g., HoeckerDrysdale 1992, Lengermann and Niebrugge 1998, MacDonald 1994). Deegan remains the most productive scholar in this continuing revolution. Following the Addams study, she edited and wrote many of the entries in Women in Sociology: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook (1991). With Michael R. Hill, she recovered Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s writings from The Forerunner, Gilman’s self-published journal, including With Her in Ourland, Gilman’s sequel to Herland and a work of enormous interest to scholars of Gilman’s sociology. In some 13 volumes of both original research and edited collections and close to one hundred articles, she has continued as the leader of what is now a scholarly community working on expanding the sociological canon to include an ever-growing list of significant early women sociologists. Annie Marion MacLean and the Chicago Schools of Sociology, 1894–1934, by Mary Jo Deegan. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 2014. 348 pp.

Jane Addams and the Men of the Chicago School, 1892-1918.

49.95 cloth. ISBN: 9781412852883.