Stalking Sociologists: J. Edgar Hoover's FBI Surveillance of American Sociology

Front Cover
Transaction Publishers - Social Science - 239 pages

Until recent years, the Federal Bureau of Investigation enjoyed an exalted reputation as America's premier crime-fighting organization. However, it is now common knowledge that the FBI and its long-time director, J. Edgar Hoover, were responsible for the creation of a massive internal security apparatus that undermined the very principles of freedom and democracy they were sworn to protect. While no one was above suspicion, Hoover appears to have held a special disdain for sociologists and placed many of the profession's most prominent figures under surveillance. In Stalking Sociologists, Mike Forrest Keen offers a detailed account of the FBI's investigations within the context of an overview of the history of American sociology.

This ground-breaking analysis history uses documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Keen argues that Hoover and the FBI marginalized sociologists such as W. E. B. Du Bois and C. Wright Mills, tried to suppress the development of a Marxist tradition in American sociology, and likely pushed the mainstream of the discipline away from a critique of American society and towards a more quantitative and scientific direction. He documents thousands of man-hours and millions of dollars dedicated to this project. Faculty members of various departments of sociology were recruited to inform on the activities of their colleagues and the American Sociological Association was a target of FBI surveillance. Keen turns sociology back upon the FBI, using the writings and ideas of the very sociologists Hoover investigated to examine and explain the excesses of the Bureau and its boss. The result is a significant contribution to the collective memory of American society as well as the accurate history of the sociological discipline.

"This ground-breaking book documents in meticulous detail decades of harassment and surveillance of major American sociologists by the FBI. The misuse of power...will outrage all Americans and raise significant professional issues within the social sciences."--Mary Jo Deegan, professor of sociology, University of Nebraska

Mike Forrest Keen is professor in the department of sociology at Indiana University South Bend. His previous work includes numerous scholarly articles and Eastern Europe in Transformation: The Impact on Sociology, edited with Janusz L. Mucha.

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Contents

Introduction
1
WEB Du Bois Sociologist beyond the Veil
11
Ernest W Burgess Security MatterC
33
William Fielding Ogburn Scientist Statistician Schizophrene
55
Robert and Helen Lynd From Middletown to Moronia
69
E Franklin Frazier Enfant Terrible
85
Pitirim A Sorokin Sociological Prophet in a Priestly Land
105
No One above Suspicion Talcott Parsons under Surveillance
123
Samuel Stouffer Patriot and Practitioner
155
Our Man in Havana C Wright Mills Talks Yankee Listens
171
The Crimefighter and the CriminologistThe Case of Edwin H Sutherland and J Edgar Hoover
187
Conclusion
203
Bibliography
211
Bibliography 2004
225
Index
229
Copyright

Testing a Concept Herbert Blumers Loyalty
143

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Page xxi - He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.
Page 28 - But so far as Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, North or South, does not rightly value the privilege and duty of voting, belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training and ambition of our brighter minds, — so far as he, the South, or the Nation, does this, — we must unceasingly and firmly oppose them.
Page xxii - ... there is no power relation without the correlative constitution of a field of knowledge, nor any knowledge that does not presuppose and constitute at the same time power relations.
Page vi - There can be no real academic freedom in that environment. Where suspicion fills the air and holds scholars in line for fear of their jobs, there can be no exercise of the free intellect. Supineness and dogmatism take the place of inquiry. A "party line" — as dangerous as the "party line" of the Communists — lays hold.
Page 13 - One ever feels his twoness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.
Page xxii - dream" instrument for controlling and regulating the market system, extended to include knowledge itself and governed exclusively by the performativity principle. In that case, it would inevitably involve the use of terror. But it could also aid groups discussing metaprescriptives by supplying them with the information they usually lack for making knowledgeable decisions. The line to follow for computerization to take the second of these two paths is, in principle, quite simple: Give the public free...
Page xxi - Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its effects, even if it is discontinuous in its action...
Page xix - Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001 (USA Patriot Act) was enacted on October 26, 2001.
Page xxii - We are finally in a position to understand how the computerization of society affects this problematic. It could become the "dream" instrument for controlling and regulating the market system, extended to include knowledge itself and governed exclusively by the performativity principle. In that case, it would inevitably involve the use of terror. But it could also aid groups discussing metaprescriptives by supplying them with the information they usually lack for making knowledgeable decisions. The...

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