This is the inverse of the post from a few days back. I am a humanities scholar who read sociologists and tries, when I can, to read them as someone doing social science. What this means to me is that I’m less interested in the conclusions they draw than on their methodology, concept construction, and argument. This is similar to how I read papers in the humanities sans the methodology bit, usually.

That said, to be honest, it’s rare that I go to contemporary U.S. sociology for my concept building. I like to think that I “use” recent sociology the same way that, say, a philosopher of mind would “use” neuroscience: I’m looking for what kind of empirical research would corroborate the conclusions I’ve reasoned my way to, as well as what kind of empirical research would suggest they need further thinking. That’s also why I try to read as someone “doing science”: I don’t want to have to rethink something on the basis of someone’s findings if they reached them doing shoddy science.

So, my question to empirical sociologists, rather than social theorists: how do you read humanities scholarship? What do you get out of reading our work or what do you hope to get out of it?