The LSE Department of Sociology aims to provide a teaching and learning environment in which students are encouraged to think critically and independently. Browse the latest blog posts written by our students here.
Gallery“Please do not touch”: what the Hoa Hakananai’a controversy tells us about museums and why more sociologists should study them.
MSc Sociology student Lucy Smith reflects on a visit to the British Museum and the implications of the protests over the display of Easter Island moai statue Hoa Hakananai’a.
In his 1992 paper ‘Where Are the Missing Masses? The Sociology of a Few Mundane Artifacts’, Bruno Latour observed how sociology suffers from a theoretical deficit. Scholars have, in his view, […]
GalleryWorld Cup 2018: be relieved football didn’t come home, we all know it’s better off elsewhere
“Everyone seems to know the score, they’ve seen it all before.” The prevailing image of English football supporters as ‘hooligans’ failed to budge during the 2018 World Cup. But then, we know the score, right? We’ve seen this all before. Here, Lucy Smith considers the pervasiveness of class power in relation to ‘the beautiful game’.
Image Credit: (Alex McGibbon CCBY-NC-ND2.0)
When a plethora of Three Lions memes […]
GalleryA sociology of home?
Housing is dominated by economic and political logics, raising fundamental questions about what, and whom, housing is for. But the need for a home is universal. In this post, Tom Brookes considers what a sociology of home could look like.
Image Credit: (freestocks.org CC0 1.0)
One year ago, I returned to the UK for the first time in eighteen months. In my mind rang […]
GalleryThe importance of praxis: class, social mobility and “Sociology as a Martial Art” – Part II
Inspired by the LSE Library’s latest exhibition on Beveridge and the welfare state, student Lucy Smith organised a visit to the LSE for her A-Level teacher and his pupils from Drapers’ Academy, Romford. Their thoughts about the visit, studying sociology and the class system – written in their own words – are detailed in this post. Find out how the visit came about […]
The importance of praxis: class, social mobility and “Sociology as a Martial Art” – Part I
Inspired by the LSE Library’s latest exhibition on Beveridge and the welfare state, student Lucy Smith organised a visit to the LSE for her A-Level teacher and his pupils from Drapers’ Academy, Romford. Her post underlines the importance of praxis and reminds “all of us who say ‘sociology’ to actually do sociology”.
Firstly, I’d like to thank Tom Brookes for a fascinating blog post which inspired […]
GalleryThe Wire as sociology
In this post, Tom Brookes considers ‘The Wire’ as a sociological cultural object in its production, form and content, and consumption.
Ten years ago this month, HBO broadcast the final episode of The Wire (2002-2008). It had not been plain sailing. Since its inception, The Wire had weathered low viewing figures and regular threats of cancellation. However, by its conclusion, and throughout the subsequent […]
GalleryA Response to Critiques of ‘To the Bone’: why films on anorexia will never do it “right”
In this piece, Clotilde Du Mesnil De Maricourt considers a number of critiques of the 2017 Netflix production ‘To The Bone’, drawing on her own experience and the dissertation she’s currently writing on eating disorder recovery narratives.
TW: eating disorders
Following mixed responses to Netflix’s new film To the Bone which came out last summer, I decided to make up my own opinion of it. A year […]
GalleryRepresenting (Ir)Reverence: what The Crown can tell us about our relationship with the monarchy today
In this piece, Anirbaan Banerjee explores the pervasiveness of the British monarchy through the lens of the historical television drama series, The Crown.
One does not need to be facing the imposing façade of the Buckingham Palace to be able to acknowledge the indelible imprint of the monarchy on British society. Homage to the sovereign is omnipresent – from city streets to […]
GalleryDecolonising Social Thought and Contemporary Social Discourse: the diversification and globalisation of sociology
Do movements dedicated to decolonising sociology need to press further? Ashley Masing explores what a fully decolonised sociology could look like.
In The Communist Manifesto (1848), Marx once wrote that our political, legal, and educational systems were built on the foundations of existing structures which have scaffolded our society — and our colonial past is no exception to such influence. […]
GalleryRoad to LSE: escaping thresholds
In this piece, Sandeepan Tripathy recounts his journey to sociology: both the discipline and the Department of Sociology at LSE, exploring the thresholds he has passed along the way.
It would be sociologically inadmissible to say it was all “fate and luck” (well I share my date of birth with August Comte). Turning to Sociology was based on a desire to […]
