A crise da esperança na crise da sociologia

Abstract

T hiS doSSier gathers the papers presented at the international Seminar on Sociology and hope, held at the department of Sociology, School of Philosophy, Letters and human Sciences, University of São Paulo (FFLCh-USP) in october 2011, under the sponsorship of the research Support Foundation of the State of São Paulo (FAPeSP), the dean's office for Culture and extension, University of São Paulo, and the Graduate Program in Sociology, School of Philosophy, University of São Paulo. The support of the institute for Advanced Studies at USP, which compiles on the pages of its journal the dossier with the papers presented, was decisive to make the wealth of ideas from that seminar available to the public in record time.The seminar brought together researchers from USP, Cambridge University and the University of Lisbon. it had been considered, over several years, in conversations with Graham howes, Peter Burke and Maria Lúcia Pallares-Burke, in Cambridge, and Fraya Frehse, at USP. it was an interdisciplinary seminar because it is precisely in interdisciplinarity that sociology has historically defined topics and issues of research, and enriched itself theoretically. it was in interdisciplinarity, here in Brazil, that sociology unveiled historical hindrances to the social development of the country and revealed the alternative of the historically possible.We have but to remember that of the great founding names of sociology at USP, many graduated from the perspective of what in sociology are the socalled ancillary disciplines. Claude Lévi-Strauss, founder of the Sociology chair and one of the forefathers of modern anthropology, was a philosopher by academic trade. his successor, roger Bastide, practiced a sociology with strong connections with anthropology and psychoanalysis. his first course at USP was precisely about sociology and psychoanalysis. Florestan Fernandes, who succeeded both, got his master's and doctoral degrees with research on anthropological topics, not to mention that his professorship thesis on black people is sociology of extensive and consistent dialogue with history. The beautiful sociology of Antonio Candido in underpinned by the dialogue with anthropology, history and literature.The following generations were educated based of these convergences, up to the inflection that started with the political crisis of the 1964 coup and the generational crisis that reached its climax with the student revolt of 1968. Since estudos avançados 26 (75), 2012 188 then, sociology has closed in on itself, generally preferring topics that reduce it to the here and now. The very education of Social Sciences students today is restricted to fragments and to an early ultra-specialization. At the same time, what for sociology had always been ancillary disciplines seizes, competently, the topics typical of sociology, as has been the case with anthropology, geography, history, and psychology. Sociology is at risk of becoming a residual science of the trivial.in large part the void created by the two mentioned crises -politi...