Article,
Lost & Forgotten: An Index of the Famous Works Which Sociology Has Left Behind
The American Sociologist, 52 (2): 304--340 (Jun 1, 2021)
DOI: 10.1007/s12108-021-09490-4
Abstract
The bibliography of this paper is provably the most unspeakable, out of fashion, no longer necessary or relevant set of references ever published in a sociology journal. They are not the least cited, but the most forgotten. These books and articles were at one point quite famous among publishing sociologists but have since suffered near-complete extinction. The explanations of these famous works' unlikely demise reflect the mechanisms and history of the maintenance and change of the discipline, such as obliteration by incorporation, topical and epistemological shifts in the field, founder-selection, the effects of reputation entrepreneurship, and the shifting of what is intellectually unspeakable. I give this index of the forgotten some face-validity by reviewing exegetical work on ``forgotten'' sociologists and by conducting qualitative analysis (autopsies) of the biggest falls in conversation with the history of sociology and the sociology of science. Finally, I provide an online tool for further investigation into events in sociology's citation history.
