Contenu du sommaire : Les passions de la recherche (II) : L'allemagne revisitée

Patricia Paperman, Concerning Emotions : From the Physical to the Social Positivist sociology reduces emotions to states of neurophysiological activity and therefore considers them only as natural responses to social stimuli. In contrast to this approach, the "constructivist" perspective directs attention towards the social and cultural processes that influence or control the emergence and the expression of emotions. Patterns of socialization regulate emotions defined as the internal states of actors, sensations or directly lived experiences. The essential criteria used in identifying emotions are not private, interior, nor provoked by a state of neurophysiological activity ; they are, on the contrary, public.

Michel Pinçon et Monique Pinçon-Charlot, Comforts and Discomforts of the Investigator : Reflections on Sociological Inquiry in Fancy Neighborhoods Sociologists who carry out "investigations" of the wealthy families of the aristocracy and the old bourgeoisie often experience a double feeling of betrayal. On the one hand, they must expose a social milieu for which closure and privacy are golden rules and, on the other hand, part of the vocation of sociology is to define and analyze social problems with a view towards their resolution. Because of the difficulties caused by problematical relationships between the surveys and the surveyors, the sociology of families who have accumulated all forms of capital is perhaps most revealing of the complex relations between the sociologist and the object of his or her study.

Frederik, Mispelblom, A Central Fiction in Sociology :The Individual-Society Duality The duality of individual and society is a fiction structuring sociological writing and discourse. It inspires the problematics specific to the discipline of sociology and affects its relations with the other social sciences. It forms one of the most important theoretical obstacles to a non-psychological, yet non-sociological reductionist understanding of the nature of subjectivity. In order to renew sociological theory it is important to understand the fundamental relationship between sociologists and their object of research. It is especially important, therefore, to question and go beyond the dualism of "individual and society".

Annick Madec, The Heart and the Mind Participant observation nuances Pascal 's famous dictum that "the heart has reasons that the mind ignores". It is unrealistic to maintain that the emotional dimension of sociological research has no influence on the results of such research. Between objectivism and subjectivism, it is possible to employ rational precepts that both the heart and the mind recognize, to use emotions as guidelines for research. Sociology is not only the analysis of the relationship between social groups, it is one of the forms of this relationship.

Pierre Lantz, To Whom Should One Speak ? The presentation of the results of sociological research is often considered an indication of its scienticity. Sociologists sometimes attempt to dissimulate the singularity of their approach by a technical and impersonal style of writing conventionally considered a sign of objectivity. Social upheavals and changes in methodologies have, however, removed some inhibitions about subjectivity and affectivity. Sociological writing could become more accessible to the public and break with the opposition between esoteric scienticity and its vulgarization.

Jacques Hamel, Interdisciplinarity : The Fiction of Scientific Research and the Reality of Its Contemporary Management Interdisciplinarity in the social sciences, and especially in sociology, poses a number of questions. What is interdisciplinarity in relation to multidisciplinarity, to transdisciplinarity and to pluridisciplinarity ? Is interdisciplinarity derived from the definition of an object of study ? Can interdisciplinarity be achieved through the mediation of theory ? Does interdisciplinarity come from a methodology or a method ? Is interdisciplinarity revealed in the transition from explanation to action ? In the light of such questions, interdisciplinarity is a "theory" of theories of philosophical knowledge capable of explaining movements from one discipline to another, from one field of knowledge to another.

Bruno Groppo, "The Schafranek Case" : An Historian before the Bar Since 1991, the Austrian historian Hans Schafranek is the object of a legal action that concerns all historians of modern history. Author of a book about the deportation from the Soviet Union of hundreds of German and Austrian antifascists to Nazi Germany between 1937 and 1941, he has been brought to court and convicted of using archival documents open to any researcher, documents calling into question a political official who, previously, hotly denied that the deportations took place. Even the decision of the court of appeals, favorable to the defendant, in part of a dangerous precedent with respect to the freedom to do research and publish in the field of contemporary history. The scientific community in Germany and Austria has mobilized in defense of Schafranek and this freedom to do research.

Daglind Sonolet, What Culture for Unified Germany ? German Intellectuals and the Culture of Eastern Germany The end of the communist regime and the reunification of Germany have intensified the debate over the cultural identity of the country. The reevaluation of the postwar literature of East Germany imperceptibly redefines the foundations of German culture either by returning it to its "authentic" sources, or by defining a democratic culture purified of all traces of the "irrational". Of particular interest is the attempt to discredit all East German literature by establishing a link between the ideas that inspired the conservative revolution of the 1920s and those that have informed contemporary writers like Mailer, Wolf, Braun and Hein. These attempts reduce writing to ideology while presenting as democratic the notion of a closed culture.

Claus Offe, Wellbeing, Nation, Republic : Aspects of the "German Way" in the Transition from Socialism to Capitalism Social integration can occur in three different functional modes : the politico-constitutional, the cultural-national and the economic. Eastern Germany has represented a relatively pure form of the third ideal type. Its disintegration is more the result of an historical accident provoked by largely external causes than that of a political decision to change (or of an exhausting of its mode of politico-economic development). Beyond short term political calculations, unification with West Germany must also be understood in terms of economic categories. However, economic integration is quite fragile. It is for this reason that East Germany required a repressive governing structure. And it is for this reason that political elites today have recourse to an instrumentalized nationalism that will create as many problems as it resolves.

Siegrief Heimann, On the Political Uses of a Symbol : Concerning a Controversy in Berlin The concept of political symbol and the uses made of it can help in understanding how the Neue Wache on the Unter den Linden in the heart of Berlin has become the central memorial of the German Federal Republic which, with a "pietà" by Käthe Kollwitz increased in size 64 times over and with the inscription "To the victims of war and dictatorship" on its base, forms an indissociable whole. Placing this complex within the context of the history of monuments to war dead and of the political cults created around them elucidates how the symbol effects the reconciliation between executioners and victims in an attempt to strengthen German national identity.