Chasing Society

In this podcast series, I want to take a deep dive into the rationalization of society. In this first episode, I want to set the stage for this series and answer a simple question: What do sociologists mean when they speak of the rationalization of society? 

This episode is a general introduction to the topic and I?ve kept it as short as possible so you can smoothly immerse yourself in this complex phenomenon. If you enjoy it, please be sure to follow this show on your preferred streaming platform so you don?t miss out on the next one. 

I?m glad to announce that the Chasing Society podcast will soon be back with new episodes. I haven't had the time to write and produce new material lately due to many professional commitments and the never-ending hustle of navigating academia's twists and turns. 

But now that I've emerged from the academic trenches, I've decided it's time to get back and produce new material. I?m very happy to tell you that I am currently cooking up an entire podcast series about a phenomenon that we sociologists call the rationalization of society. It's a big term with even bigger implications, but I think a highly important one in these times, especially in the face of a looming AI revolution. 

Why do we entrust the destiny of society to programmers, economists, scientists, bureaucrats and engineers? What makes them the architects of our future and not artists, athletes or priests? To understand that we will have to explore buzzwords like effectivization, optimization, standardization, and quantification. We will delve into whether rationalization strips away the magic and humanity from our world, and I also want to tell you what all of this has to do with Friedrich Nietzsche and Franz Kafka .

 I hope you are as excited as I am. The first episode is almost finished, and you?ll soon be hearing from me on this channel when it?s finally time to chase the rational society. 

In this episode, I talk to Ingvill Stuvøy about surrogacy, technology and the economics behind it...and about Karl Marx. Yes!

An interview with Romit Chowdhury about men, masculinity and city life. Romit is currently based at the University of Rotterdam in the Netherlands. 

Reading recommendations will follow soon.

In this episode, I will attend to one of the lesser known texts of Pierre Bourdieu: The Peasant and His Body. The text was published as a  chapter in Bourdieu's last book and as a separate article in the journal Ethnography. The body takes centerstage in this ethnographic analysis of the lifeworld of the peasant in Bourdieu's home region of Béarn. 

In this episode, I attend to Simmel's  famous text The Metropolis and The Mental Life which was published in 1903. It seems as if this one has aged pretty well and may still be a valid description of the urban lifestyle.

This episode zooms in on Durkheim's concept of social facts as outlined in The Rules of the Sociological Method.

In this episode, I introduce Georg Simmel's idea of a 'formal sociology' and use his ideas about 'conflict' and 'the stranger' as an example.