Current Table of Contents

• Introduction to Emile Durkheim's "Anti-Semitism and Social Crisis"*
  Emile Durkheim's "Antisémitisme et crise sociale," written in 1899 during the Dreyfus Affair in France, is introduced. The introduction summarizes the principal contributions that "Antisémitisme et crise sociale" makes to the sociology of anti-Semitism, relates those contributions to Durkheim's broader theoretical assumptions and concerns, situates his analysis of anti-Semitism in its social and historical context, contrasts it to other analyses of anti-Semitism (Marxist and Zionist) that were prominent in Durkheim's time, indicates some of the revisions and additions that a fuller and more complete Durkheimian theory of anti-Semitism would entail, and highlights the significance of Durkheim's ideas for the contemporary study of ethnic and racial antagonism. While noting the limitations of Durkheim's analysis, the introduction concludes that "Antisémitisme et crise sociale" has sadly regained its relevance in the light of a revival of anti-Semitism at the turn of the millennium.
• Anti-Semitism and Social Crisis (1899)†
  
• The Portable Home: The Domestication of Public Space*
  Much commentary indicates that, starting from the 19th century, the home has become the privileged site of private life. In doing so it has established an increasingly rigid separation between the private and public spheres. This article does not disagree with this basic conviction. But we argue that, in more recent times, there has been a further development, in that the private life of the home has been carried into the public sphere[mdash]what we call "the domestication of public space." This has led to a further attenuation of public life, especially as regards sociability. It has also increased the perception that what is required is a better "balance" between public and private. We argue that this misconstrues the nature of the relation of public to private in those periods that attained the greatest degree of sociability, and that not "balance" but "reciprocity" is the desired condition.
• The Art of Social Forms and the Social Forms of Art: The Sociology-Aesthetics Nexus in Georg Simmel's Thought*
  This article examines the sociology-aesthetics nexus in Georg Simmel's thought. The article suggests that it is useful to divide Simmel's linking of sociology and aesthetics into three distinct types of propositions: (1) claims regarding the parallels between art and social form (the "art of social forms"); (2) statements regarding principles of sociological ordering in art and aesthetic objects (the "social forms of art"); and (3) analytical propositions where aesthetic and social factors are shown to work in combination. In the latter case, the sociology-aesthetic nexus moves beyond mere analogy. It is argued that in those instances where Simmel shows that aesthetic factors are central to the social bond the linking of aesthetics and sociology is theoretically most insightful.
• The Social Characterizations of Price: The Fool, the Faithful, the Frivolous, and the Frugal*
  This article extends both Viviana Zelizer's discussion of the social meaning of money and Charles Smith's proposal that pricing is a definitional practice to the under-theorized realm of the social meanings generated in the pricing system. Individuals are attributed with calculating or not calculating whether an object or service is "worth" its price, but these attributions differ according to the individual's social location as being near to or far from a societal reference point rather than by the inherent qualities of the object or service purchased. Prices offer seemingly objective (quantitative) proof of the individual's "logic of appropriateness"[mdash]in other words, people like that pay prices such as those.This article sketches a preliminary but nonexhaustive typology of the social characterizations of individuals within the pricing system; these ideal types[mdash]the fool, the faithful, the frugal, and the frivolous[mdash]and their components offer a systematic approach to understanding prices as embedded in and constituents of social meaning systems.
• About the Authors