Remi Clignet

Household Work as an Ordeal: Culture of Standards Versus Standardization of Culture

Some feminist authors assert that household work is inexorably debasing for women. This paper questions that hypothesis on both theoretical and methodological grounds by exploring (a) ambiguities in the links between patriarchy and capitalism and (b) the meanings of housework across cultural and historical settings. A research agenda is proposed in which it is suggested that housework is both an ordeal of civility through which individuals judge their joint membership in the same social milieu and an ordeal of conviviality through which individuals who pass within the same milieu reinforce social bonds. The conclusion elucidates why changes in the division of housework should not be synonymous with the eradication of tasks.

MADAME BOVARY AND LADY CHATTERLEY'S LOVER AS SOCIAL PROBLEMS: THE "NATURAL HISTORY" OF IMMORAL NOVELS*

The “careers” of the charges of obscenity formulated against Madame Bovary and Lady Chatterley are compared, in order to identify the dual aspect of the concept of natural history as it applies to the study of social problems. At a microlevel, natural history refers to the variable outcome of the negotiations which take place between the initial claimants, the relevant public agencies and the individuals accused of wrongdoing. At a macrolevel, natural history refers to the variability of the generic concepts on which the case made against a specific statement or “condition” is based. Correspondingly, the natural history of social problems requires an examination of the dialetic interaction between the generic aspects of their “careers” and the variable development of each specific instance where the reprehensible condition is evoked.

Can American Social Science Majors Acquire an International Perspective

Concern is growing over the lack of sensitivity that American social sciences students display toward the rest of the world (Brademas 1983; Tiryakyan 1986; Shenon 1989; Hechinger 1989). In economic terms, this insensitivity is seen as preventing free trade; in political terms, as hampering effective diplomacy. In scientific terms, it prevents a proper use of comparative methods. Since the curriculum represents an ideological superstructure, innovations will alter students world views only if they have been preceded by changes in the organization of academic institutions and disciplines. The effectiveness of curricular innovations requires a tightening of the links among disciplines and universities. Further, the effectiveness of these innovations depends also on a dialectic resolution of the tensions between the purity of disciplines and their relevance to the abilities and aspirations of students. Because students initate the beliefs and behaviors of their familial, academic, and disciplinary environments, these three environments combined should determine the range of the reforms proposed (Bourdieu et Passeron 1964, 1970).

Death, Deeds, and Descendants: Inheritance in Modern America.

Clignets analysis of inheritance patterns in modern America is the fi rst sustained treatment of the subject by a sociologist. Clignet shows that even today inheritance serves to perpetuate both familial wealth and familial relations. He examines what leads decedents to chose particular legal instruments (wills, trusts, insurance policies, gifts inter vivos) and how, in turn, the instrument chosen helps explain the extent and the form of inequalities in bequests, of a result of the gender or matrimonial status of the beneficiaries. The authors major is to identify and explain the most signifi cant sources of variations in the amount and the direction of transfers of wealth after death in the United States. He uses two kinds of primary data: estate tax returns fi led by a sample of male and female benefi ciaries to estates in 1920 and 1944, representing two successive generations of estate transfers, and publicly recorded legal instruments such as wills and trusts. In addition, Clignet draws widely on secondary sources in the fi elds of anthropology, economics, and history. His fi ndings reflect substantive and methodological concerns. Th e analysis underlines the need to rethink the sociology of generational bonds, as it is informed by age and gender. Death, Deeds, and Descendants underscores the variety of forms of inequality that bequests take and highlights the complexity of interrelations between the cultures of the decedents nationalities and issues like occupation and gender. Inheritance is viewed as a way of illuminating the subtle tensions between continuity and change in American society. This book is an important contribution to the study of the relationship between sociology of the family and sociology of social stratifi cation.

Independent Inventions in the Social Sciences A Plea for Multidisciplinarity

This research note examines a historical example of independent inventions in the social sciences—specifically, convergences between sociological and cognitive psychological research on ambiguous stimuli. During the same year (1949), psychologists Bruner and Postman experimented with perceptual responses to freak, or anomalous, playing cards, while sociologist Hughes identified patterns of human responses to anomalous social identities and roles. This unique example of synchronic independent inventions illustrates, at once, the hazards of interprofessional insularity and the rich potential of interdisciplinary cross-fertilization.