Godless Intellectuals?

Acknowledgements Chapter One: The Intellectual Pursuit of the Sacred Chapter Two: Intellectual Production and Interpretation: The Intellectual Habitus Chapter Three: The Scene of Durkheimian Sociology: A View of the Parisian Intellectual Field at the Turn of the 19th century Chapter Four: Ecoles, Masters, and The Dreyfus Affair : Institutions and Networks that Shaped the Durkheimians and the Political Affair that Positioned Them Chapter Five: The Scene of Poststructuralism: A View of the Parisian Intellectual Field from the End of WWII to the 1960s Chapter Six: Ecoles, Masters, and May '68: Institutions and Networks that Shaped the Poststructuralists and the Political Affair that Positioned Them Chapter Seven: Being a Durkheimian Intellectual Chapter Eight: The Sacred in Durkheimian Thought I Chapter Nine: The Sacred in Durkheimian Thought II: Ascetic and Mystic Durkheimianisms Chapter Ten: The Descent of the Mystics: The College de Sociologie and Critique as the Conduits to Poststructuralism Chapter Eleven: Being a Poststructuralist Intellectual Chapter Twelve: The Sacred in Poststructuralist Thought Chapter Thirteen: Godless Intellectuals, then? Or - Something Else?

Alexander Tristan Riley received his PhD from the University of California, San Diego in 2000. Currently he is Professor of Sociology at Bucknell University. He writes and teaches in the areas of cultural and social theory and cultural sociology.

" - an innovative, timely, ambitious, rigorous and stimulating work of Durkheimian sociology and social theory about the academic, existential, and political impact of the development of a rich Durkheimian culture sociologique from Durkheim's day up to very recent poststructuralisms - Riley's work is suggestive of possibilities for a renewed, empirically based, reflexive Durkheimianism." * Durkheimian Studies "Riley's treatment of the 'sacred' is original and informative. Scholars interested in the history of the social sciences, in the production of knowledge, and in the formation of categories like 'intellectual' will find much to ponder and emulate here." * Anthropology Review Database "Through a close scrutiny of an impressive archive of unpublished, untranslated, or relatively unappreciated materials, [the author] conducts his own experiment or test by probing the scholarly journals, personal correspondence, social networks, educational institutions, and contextualizing political events that provided the scenes and settings for this uniquely "intellectual" experience of the sacred." * American Journal of Sociology "I recommend this book to any reader with an interest in Durkheimian sociology, intellectual history, post-structuralism or social theory. [It] extends the cultural sociology associated with Jeffrey Alexander and his colleagues to a unique exploration of one of the roots of that school of sociology. Thus, it would also make an interesting and accessible senior undergraduate course text in the sociology of knowledge, or in cultural theory." * Canadian Journal of Sociology "Few have failed to recognize the return of the religious as a factor in social theory. None, so far, has more cogently explained the contributions of French social thought to the challenge of the Sacred in our day than Riley." * Charles Lemert, author of Durkheim's Ghosts "Alexander Riley's radically revisionist account throws down the gauntlet to the conventional wisdom of