DIRECTORY
layer structure now used in Europe,
Australasia, and North America.
He is a critic of the concepts of
“cultural capital” and “habitus,”
especially as formulated by Pierre
Bourdieu. He was a fellow of Oxford
University from 1969 to 2002 and
holds a US visiting professorship
at Cornell University.
See also: Max Weber 38–45 ■
Pierre Bourdieu 76–79MICHAEL LÖWY
1938–The French-Brazilian sociologist
and professor Michael Löwy grew
up in São Paulo, Brazil, in a family
of immigrants from Austria. He is
best known for developing Georg
Lukács’ idea of “romantic anti-
capitalism,” which seeks to disrupt
capitalism not through socialism,
but by a return to a pre-industrial
past and way of thinking. Löwy
was politicized by reading the
Marxist theorist Rosa Luxemberg,
and studied sociology at the
University of São Paulo under
Fernando Cardoso and Antonio
Candido. He gained a PhD from
the Sorbonne, France, focusing
on Marxist theory.
See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■
Pierre Bourdieu 76–79 ■ Walter
Benjamin 334JON ELSTER
1940–Norweigan sociologist Jon Elster
focuses on rational-choice theory—
the idea that people make decisions
based on rational considerations
of fact (although his later work
reveals his disenchantment with
the power of reason). Elster’s ideas
have influenced governments,economists, sociologists, and
psychologists. He has taught in the
UK, US, and France. In 1995 he
became the first Robert K. Merton
Professor of the Social Sciences at
Columbia University in New York.
See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■ Max
Weber 38–45 ■ Talcott Parsons
300–01JULIA KRISTEVA
1941–Julia Kristeva was born in Bulgaria.
Her writings on linguistics,
semiotics, psychoanalysis, and
feminism have received worldwide
acclaim. After graduating from
university in Sofia, she gained
a scholarship to study in Paris.
She became part of the left-wing
intellectual group associated with
St. Germain (the Parisian “Left
Bank”), and her study of language
and linguistics was heavily
influenced by the work of
contemporaries such as Michel
Foucault and Roland Barthes.
She became a psychoanalyst,
and increasingly interested in
the nature of the relationship
between language and the body.
See also: Michel Foucault 52–55;
302–03 ■ Elizabeth Grosz 339NANCY CHODOROW
1944–Born in New York, Nancy
Chodorow is a leading theorist
in feminist thought. She studied
anthropology at Radcliffe College,
Massachusetts, then trained as a
psychoanalyst in San Francisco.
In 1975, she received a PhD in
sociology from Brandeis University,
Boston. Using an interdisciplinary
approach, she formulated aat the University of São Paulo,
becoming a professor there in 1958.
His left-wing articles made him
popular with the public, but they
antagonized the military regime,
which forced him into exile in
- He taught at universities
in Latin America, Europe, and
the US before returning to Brazil.
See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■
Immanuel Wallerstein 144–45
CHRISTOPHER LASCH
1932–1994
The US political theorist and
historian Christopher Lasch was an
only child of left-wing intellectuals.
He graduated from Harvard
University in 1954 and took an MA
in history at Columbia. While on a
sabbatical in the UK, he wrote The
New Radicalism in America (1965).
It portrayed intellectuals as self-
indulgent strivers, who professed to
offer guidance, but were really
interested in status and power. An
iconoclast who tried to disrupt
consensus thinking, his work
included strong critiques of
democratic citizenship, elite
groups, consumerism, mass
culture, US institutions, and the
idea that Western societies are
making some kind of “progress.”
See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■
Jürgen Habermas 286–87 ■
Theodor W. Adorno 335
JOHN GOLDTHORPE
1935–
John Goldthorpe was born in
Yorkshire, UK, and attended the
London School of Economics. An
expert in social mobility and class
stratification, he invented the
Goldthorpe Class Scheme, a seven-
337