Description:

Please join the Comparative Historical Social Sciences as they host Nick Wilson, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Stony Brook University.

If historical sociology is indeed balkanized among different analytic architectures, what binds the field together as a coherent "thing"?  In this paper, we explore three possibilities: (1) that the field is unified by a shared scholarly canon; (2) that it is bound together by a concrete social network composed both of people and institutions; and (3) that acts of consecration endow certain works with paradigmatic status in the field.  With an eye to these possibilities, we explore the structure of historical sociology compared to both similar and dissimilar sub-disciplines within the American Sociological Association, and evaluate their effect on the reception by subsequent work.

Prof. Wilson's research focuses on the historical sociology of empires and colonialism, through the case of the English East India Trading Company's presence in South Asia.  In addition, Wilson studies the methodology of interdisciplinary research, transformations in the historical category of corruption, the sociology of knowledge and morality, fiscal sociology, and the philosophy of social science.