social sciences

The way nightlife has been affected by the recent Covid-19 restrictions invites us to think back on the value and features of the night as we have known it for most of our lives. A pioneer in the burgeoning field of night studies, Will Straw sheds light on the history of the night and the issues related to its loss.

Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will be offering weekly selections of reviews and essays published over the last year. This week’s selection focuses on ways to shift our intellectual categories.

How do the social sciences and humanities deal with human-animal relationships? Between epistemic and political aims, animals have progressed on either side of the Atlantic as legitimate subjects of study and even as political subjects in their own right.

Media, publishing, photography, theatre and political discourse are now shifting their attention to the lives of ordinary people. Does this move serve the need to better understand contemporary society? Sylvain Bourmeau, an actor and observer of these changes, offers some explanations.

The recent success of books on economic history – at a time when this specialism often seems disregarded in universities – coupled with parallel developments in both history and economics gives hope for new links between the two disciplines.

Food is now a conspicuous topic, from culinary blogs to magazines, diet books, TV shows and contests. Yet unbeknownst to many, it often holds an underground, clandestine place in some of social science’s major works. This dossier assesses the current importance of such scholarly endeavors, known as “food studies” in the United States.