Thomas Kemple is Professor of Classical Social Science and European Sociology in Central, Eastern & Northern European Studies (CENES). His recent books include Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling (Palgrave, 2014), Simmel (Polity, 2020), and Marx’s Wager: Das Kapital and Classical Sociology (Palgrave 2022).  His articles have appeared in Theory, Culture & Society and Journal of Classical Sociology.

Professor Kemple will be on leave for the 2023 – 2024 school year.

Research Interests

Professor Kemple’s research focuses on classical social science and contemporary social theory; the formation of concepts and the public relevance of sociological arguments, including post-structuralist, semiotic, psychoanalytic, feminist, and queer theory; the history of social and political thought; interpretive methods and interdisciplinary approaches to the humanities and social sciences; science, technology and media studies; visual and popular culture.

Current Research Activities

Professor Kemple’s research advances European and Anglo-American traditions of classical and contemporary social theory from the late 18th century to the present. Rather than focus on the scientific formulation and empirical testing of hypotheses, his work emphasizes the reappraisal of classic problems and the recovery of forgotten or undervalued ideas, texts, and authors in the history of the social sciences. Showing how rhetorical arguments, interpretive methods, and literary genres contribute to the formation of concepts and enhance the public significance of sociological arguments, his publications emerge from five distinct yet related research projects:

1. On Karl Marx’s (1818-1883) most influential writings, which are treated as ‘melodramatic’ and ‘epic’ narratives informing the critique of political economy and sociology of work in the context of globalizing markets, colonial expansion, and increasing inequalities.
2. On the speeches and writings of Max Weber (1864-1920), which offer an ‘allegorical’ interpretation of industrial capitalism and state bureaucracy while evoking a critical understanding of science, politics, and art as modern professions or callings.
3. On Georg Simmel’s (1858-1918) studies of the money economy and the modern metropolis, which highlight the ‘tragedy’ of contemporary culture as social relationships are transformed by emerging forms of imperial power and social media.
4. On Emile Durkheim’s (1858-1917) lectures concerning civil society and writings on the ritual character of social life, which guide an ethnographic investigation into the ‘comic’ significance of off-campus classrooms — an urban field school in Vancouver and global seminar program in Guatemala — as critical sites for decolonizing education and fostering civic engagement.
5. On Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) psychoanalytic method of dream-interpretation, which examines the unspoken dimensions of personal experience and the unconscious dynamics of popular culture expressed in fantasies of the family ‘romance’ and their institutionalization.

Through a substantial body of publications in a wide range of interdisciplinary and international venues, this research program aims to bridge the social sciences and humanities by recovering their common intellectual sources, developing innovative techniques for the critical interpretation of texts, and experimenting with the visual display of concepts.

‘Marx’s Wager: Das Kapital and Classical Sociology’. New Books Network podcast interview with Stephen Dozeman, 2022 (50 minutes):https://newbooksnetwork.com/marxs-wager

‘Thinking Through Images and Text’. Podcast interview (1 hour) with William Flynn and Phillipp Primeau. Carleton University Sociology Department Podcast. October 2020. https://www.departmentpodcast.ca/

‘On Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism’. Interview with Carla Nappi. New Books Series, 2014: https://files.newbooksnetwork.com/history/288historykemple.mp3

‘An Interview with Thomas Kemple and Austin Harrington on Simmel.’ Theory, Culture & Society blog, February 2013: http://theoryculturesociety.blogspot.ca/2013/03/interview-with-thomas-kemple-and-austin.html

Books

2022. Marx’s Wager: Das Kapital and Classical Sociology (Palgrave Macmillan Series in Marx, Engels, Marxisms).

2020. Writing the Body Politic: A John O’Neill Reader. Introduction and co-edited with Mark Featherstone (Routledge Series in Classical and Contemporary Theory).

2018. Simmel (Polity Series on Classic Thinkers).

2016. The Anthem Companion to Georg Simmel. Co-edited with Olli Pyyhtinen. London and Delhi: Anthem Press.

2014. Intellectual Work and the Spirit of Capitalism: Weber’s Calling. Palgrave Macmillan.

2004. The Vocation of Reason: Studies in Critical Theory and Social Science in the Age of Max Weber, by H. T. Wilson. Edited with an Introduction on “The Age of Weber” by Thomas M. Kemple. Leiden: The Netherlands: E.J. Brill Academic Publishers.

1995. Reading Marx Writing: Melodrama, the Market, and the ‘Grundrisse.’ Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

2023. ‘The Wretched of the Earth as Interrogation-Machine: Nationalism, Religion, and Race in Fanon’s Decolonization Manifesto.’ Feature Article co-authored with Jastej Luddu. New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry 12(2): 7-20 (https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/newproposals/article/view/196051).

2023. ‘Academic Freedom between Objectivity and Cultural Values’. Routledge International Handbook of Weber Studies. Edited by Alan Sica (Routledge). Pages 118-28.

2022. ‘A Symposium on Georg Simmel: Essays on Art and Aesthetics’. Co-authored (20%) with Elizabeth Goodstein, Austin Harrington, and Nicola Marucci. Thesis 11, Special Section on Simmel’s Aesthetics. 172 (1): 111-126. https://doi.org/10.1177/07255136221121707

2022. ‘Milestones and Cornerstones: Queering the Life Course’. Roundtable on ‘Existence Theory’, by Patrick Baert, Marcus Morgan, and Rin Ushiyama. Journal of Classical Sociology 22(1-2): 100-106.

2022. ‘A Century of Weber and Simmel: Review Essay’. Theory, Culture & Society Annual Review 27 (7-8): 421-430. https://doi.org/10.1177/0263276420958460

2021. ‘Economy and Society in the Pandemic Era: The Enduring Insights of Karl Polanyi and Karl Marx’. Co-authored (50%) with Amy Hanser (50%). In: Covid & Society, e-book edited by Katherine Lyon (Oxford University Press, online).

2020. “Framing, Painting, Seeing: Simmel’s Rembrandt and the Sense of Modernity.” In: The International Routledge Handbook of Simmel Studies. Edited by Gregor Fitzi. (Routledge). Pages 196-209.

2019. “The Rationalizations of Culture and their Directions.” In: The Oxford Companion to Max Weber. Edited by Lawrence Scaff, Sam Whimster, and Edith Hanke. (Oxford University Press). Pages 445-64.

2019. ‘The Tragi-Comic Lives of Theory: Values of a Simmelian Existence’. Special issue on ‘Fictioning Theory’, edited by Olli Pyyhtinen. Digithum 24: 10-20. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335852331_The_Tragi-Comic_Lives_of_Theory_Values_of_a_Simmelian_Existence

2019. “Simmel’s Sense of Adventure: Death and Old Age in Philosophy, Art, and Everyday Life”. The Germanic Review: Literature, Culture, Theory, Special Issue on ‘Interdisciplinary Simmel’, edited by Willi Goetschel and Daniel Silver. 94 (2): 163—74.

2018. “Infinite Ends and the Tempo of Life: Notes on the Marx/Simmel Divergence/Convergence”. Dissonância: Critical Theory Journal 2(2): 137-166. https://www.ifch.unicamp.br/ojs/index.php/teoriacritica/article/view/4314/3283

2017. “Comte’s Civic Comedy: Secular Religion and Modern Morality in the Age of Classical Sociology.” Anthem Companion to Auguste Comte. Edited by Andrew Wernick. London, New York, Delhi: Anthem Press. .

2016. “Editors’ Introduction – Thinking with Simmel.” Co-authored with Olli Pyyhtinen. The Anthem Companion to Georg Simmel. London, New York, Delhi: Anthem Press, pages 1-12.

2016. “Simmel and the Sources of Neoliberalism.” The Anthem Companion to Georg Simmel. London, New York, Delhi: Anthem Press, pages 141-160.

2016. “Un Weber-Simmel Dialogue: Le Conflit, en Quatre Époques” [A Weber-Simmel Dialogue: Conflict in Four Epoques]. Co-Authored with Austin Harrington. Translated by Rosalie Dion. Sociologie et societies XLVIII (1): 213-219.

2014. “Mannheim’s Pendulum: Refiguring Legal Cosmopolitanism.” Special Issue on ‘Law as… Theory and Method in Legal History’, edited by Christopher Tomlins. UC Irvine Law Review 4 (1): 273-295.

2013. “Allegories of the End: Classical Sociologies of Economic Sustainability and Cultural Ruin.” Special Issue on ‘The End(s) of History’, edited by Amy Swiffen and Joshua Nichols.  Journal of Historical Sociology 26 (3): 365-382.

2012. “Georg Simmel’s ‘Sociological Metaphysics’: Money, Sociality, and Precarious Life.” With Austin Harrington. Special Double-Issue on ‘Simmel’s Sociological Metaphysics’, edited by Austin Harrington and Thomas M. Kemple. Theory, Culture & Society 29 (4): 6-25.

2012. “Un problème de chiffres: ‘l’utilisation des conaissances empiriques en statistique dans la théorie sociale classique.” With Zohreh Bayatrizi. Translated by Jan Baertens. Special issue on ‘Reciprocités sociales: Lectures de Simmel,’ edited by Gregor Fitzi and Denis Thouard. Sociologies et sociétés XLIV (2): 54-74.

2012. “The Eye / I of Capital: Classical Theoretical Reflections on the Spectral Economies of Late Capitalism.” In The Economy as Cultural System: Theory, Capitalism, Crisis. Edited by Todd Dufresne and Clara Sacchetti. London: Continuum Press, pp 1-20.

2011. “The Spatial Sense of Empire: Encountering Strangers with Simmel, Tocqueville and Martineau.” Journal of Classical Sociology 11 (4): 340-355. (Reprinted in Oñati Socio-Legal Series 2 (7) 2012: 1-17. Available from:  http://ssrn.com/abstract=2004301).

2011. “The Saving Power of Social Action: Arendt between Weber and Foucault”. Action and Appearance: Ethics and the Politics of Writing in Hannah Arendt. Edited by Anna Yeatman, Philip Hansen, Charles Barbour, Magdalena Zolkos-Kavalski. London: Continuum.

2009. “The Sociological Imagination and its Imperial Shadows.” Co-Authored with Renisa Mawani. Theory, Culture & Society 26 (7-8): 228-249.

2009. “Weber / Simmel / Du Bois: Musical Thirds of Classical Sociology.” Journal of Classical Sociology 9 (2): 183-203.

2007. “Allosociality: Bridges and Doors to Simmel’s Social Theory of the Limit.” Theory, Culture & Society (Annual Review) 24 (7-8): 1-19.

2007. “‘Let the Streets Take Care of Themselves’: Making Sociological and Common Sense Out of ‘Skid Row’.” Co-Authored with Laura Huey. Urban Studies 44 (12): 2305-2319.

2007. “Spirits of Late Capitalism.” Theory, Culture & Society 24 (3): 147-159.

2006. “‘Unfashionable Observations’ on the Use and Abuse of Weber.” Minerva 44: 325-337.

2006. “Observing the Observers: Researching Surveillance and Counter-Surveillance on ‘Skid Row’.” Co-authored with Laura Huey. Surveillance & Society 3 (2/3): 139-157.

2006. “Founders, Classics, and Canons in the Formation of Social Theory.” In Handbook of European Social Theory. Edited by Gerard Delantey. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 3-13.

2005. “Writing the Republic: Politics and Polemics in ‘The German Ideology’.” With Charles Barbour. Telos 130: 9-37.

2005. “Instrumentum Vocale: A Note on Max Weber’s Value-Free Polemics and Sociolgical Aesthetics.” Theory, Culture & Society 22 (4): 1-22. (Reprinted in Max Weber, edited by Alan Sica. London: Ashgate Publishers, 2013).

2005. “The Pleasures of Silence” (Feature Editorial). Semiotic Review of Books (January): 1-4.

2004. “L’Effet Comte: Recycling French Social Theory.” Journal of Classical Sociology 24 (2) 2004: 360-388.

2003. “The Last Hand: On the Craft of Editing Weber’s Börsenschriften.” With Cornelia Meyer Stoll. Max Weber Studies 3 (2): 165-194.

2001. “The Trials of Homo Clausus: Weber, Elias, and Goethe on the Sociogenesis of the Modern Self.” In Human Interdepencies and Norbert Elias: A Critical Reader. Edited By Thomas Salumets. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press, pp. 137-48.

2001. “Sycophancy” (Feature Editorial). Semiotic Review of Books 1 (3): 1-2.

2000. “Post-Marx: Temporal Rhetoric and Textual Action in The Communist Manifesto.” Rethinking Marxism. 12 (2): 44-60.

1997. “The Unrepresentable: Weber and Klinger on the Forms of Death.” Semiotic Review of Books 8 (3): 11-12.

1996. “Trois figures de la psychose: Schreber en procès.” Translated by Jean-François Côté. In Schreber et la paranoia: Le meutre de l’âme. Edited by Eduardo Prado de Oliveira. Paris: L’Harmattan, pp. 175-220.

1996. “Les Illusions spéculaires du capitalisme: Marx et Balzac sur les fictions critiques de l’économie politique.” Translated by Louis Jacob. Special issue on “La Sociologie saisie par la littérature” . Cahiers de recherche sociologique (26): 35-59.

1995. “Litigating Illiteracy: The Media, the Law, and ‘The People of the State of New York vs. Delbert Ward’.” Canadian Journal of Law and Society 10 (2): 73-97.

Translations

2012. Georg Simmel: “Selections from Simmel’s Writings for the Journal Jugend: ‘Beyond Beauty’ (anecdote 1897); ‘Only a Bridge’ (poem 1901); ‘Money Alone Doesn’t Bring Happiness’ (snapshot sub specie aeternitatis 1901); ‘The Maker of Lies’ (snapshot 1901); ‘Relativity’ (snapshot 1902); ‘La Duse (snapshot 1901).” Translated from the German with an introduction. Special Double-Issue on ‘Simmel’s Sociological Metaphysics’, edited by Austin Harrington and Thomas M. Kemple. Theory, Culture & Society (Annual Review) 29 (4): 263-278.

2007. Georg Simmel: “Rome” (1898), “Florence” (1906), “Venice” (1907), “The Social Boundary” (1908), “The Metaphysics of Death” (1910), “The Problem of Fate” (1913), “Goethe and Youth” (1914), “‘Become What You Are’” (1915). Translated from the German with Ulrich Teucher with an introduction and notes. Special Section on ‘Simmel’s Metaphysics, Ethics, and Aesthetics’, edited by Thomas M. Kemple. Theory, Culture & Society (Annual Review) 24 (7-8): 20-90.

2005. Max Weber: “Remarks on ‘Technology and Culture’” (1910/1911). Translated from the German with Beatrix Zumsteg, with an introduction and notes. Theory, Culture & Society 22 (4): 23-37.

2001. Jean Baudrillard:. “The Border: Toward the Seventh Spring of the German Democratic Republic.” Translated from the French. In The Uncollected Baudrillard. Edited by Gary Genosko. London: SAGE, pp. 29-38.