ABSTRACT
The school of ‘Analysis’ (henceforth capitalized so as to be distinct from social analysis as such) associated with Alan Blum, Peter McHugh, and a number of likeminded colleagues and students, most particularly Stanley Raffel and Kieran Bonner, emerged in a period, the 1970s and 1980s, of great theoretical ferment within the academy. The ascendance of high theory was evident in a wide array of culturally-inclined academic fields, most notably literary studies, anthropology, and cinema and media studies, in addition to the disciplinary context of sociology in which Analysis emerges. While Analytic work, including of course On the Beginning of Social Inquiry, attracted significant comment within sociology, its relationship and indeed contribution to a wider range of research fields and interpretive practices has not been properly recognized. I would argue that this is due largely to the limitations associated with viewing Analysis as a sort of wayward child of the ethnomethodological tradition or, more theologically, as a heretical deviation from ethnomethodological dogma. By reframing the work, to use Goffmanian terminology, as kindred spirit to a wide range of concurrent and indeed earlier thinking from what could broadly be called the continental tradition, the line running from Nietzsche, Hegel, and Kierkegaard (and fueled by the distinct philosophical positions amongst them) to Derrida, Deleuze, and Baudrillard, a clearer picture of both the influences and possibilities of the analytical school emerges. While some of the key Continental figures important for Analysis, most notably Heidegger, are directly addressed in Analytic work, there is relatively little treatment of this larger set of thinkers, perhaps explained by the authors’ interest in intervening in the North American sociological scene and in their roots in the ethnomethodological revolution.
