NSA Annual Lecture in Social Theory 2026: Monika Krause (LSE)
What is Sociological Critique?
This lecture advances an argument about the nature of sociological critique in the context of the discussion of specific critical traditions on the one hand and the discussion of general critical operations on the other hand. It discusses elements in the long history of critique and highlights its contingent and problematic association with notions of totality, which becomes especially prominent since the turn of the 19th century. It suggests that the specifically sociological notion of critique is tied to the language of social forms that different sociological traditions have developed together through their debates. If critique is not to say, “this is bad” but “this could be otherwise”, the language of social forms, which sociology nurtures and cultivates, provides tools for the imagination of all the different specific ways in which social arrangements could be different.
Bio:
Monika Krause is Professor of Sociology at London School of Economics, with a PhD in sociology from New York University. She has written several books and articles on theorizing, and is the recipient of the 2019 Lewis A. Coser Award for Theoretical Agenda Setting in Sociology. Monika is one of the Editors of the European Journal of Sociologyand is known for her books The good project(2014) and Model cases (2021).
Key expertise: Knowledge, Expertise, Social Theory, Culture, Human Rights, Humanitarianism, International Political Sociology
Introduction: Pål C. Halvorsen, Chair, Norwegian Sociological Association (Oslo Metropolitan University)
Comment by Erik F. Rasmussen
Light refreshments, including coffee and fruit, will be available at the lecture.
