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Christopher Montel, Charles University, Czech RepublicAbstract
The French sociologist René Worms (1869–1926) is recognised as a brilliant organiser who managed to recruit prestigious collaborators across borders and vocations for his International Institute of Sociology. This achievement is also held against him—namely, the expected failure to produce anything substantial at a propositional or methodological level from such an assemblage of academics, statesmen, or even novelists. Worms’ recruitment policy nevertheless played a part in a wider communication strategy that contributed to the institutionalisation of sociology as an academic discipline through a logic of academisation. Academisation is here defined as Worms’ adaptive art of communicating, as the leader of the IIS, in terms of an academy, and in a context of setbacks, crises, and competition. Worms referred to his International Institute of Sociology as a “special academy” or “world academy”, an “authorised guardian”, and a “regulating centre” for sociology. Worms’ communication strategy speaks to wider topics, e.g., the vocational challenge facing sociology, or the role of awards and ceremonies, office and authorisation as control mechanisms over an expanding but irredeemably discordant sociological movement during this period. This paper identifies four fields in which Worms monitored events and developments as signs of an inexorable path towards the recognition of sociology: 1) awards and titles, 2) politics, 3) academia, and 4) protocol within the IIS. This approach helps redefine the standards by which Worms has been studied in historiography, by focussing on the organisational culture of the period, which helped shape and orient his communication strategy for the IIS.
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Conference: PCAH2026Stream: History/Historiography
This paper is part of the PCAH2026 Conference Proceedings (View)
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