Feeling Knowledge: Howard Odum's Journal of Social Forces in an Orthodox South

• In Event: 024 - Regular Session. Correcting the History of Sociology: Du Bois, Odum, Parsons, and Merton

Abstract

In this paper, I make the case that the early twentieth century sociologist and Social Forces founding editor Howard Washington Odum came to know through what he felt resulting in the acquisition and production of what I am calling “feeling knowledge.” I analyze a religious controversy that racked the Journal of Social Forces in 1925, radically altering what Odum [thought he] knew about his native South. I utilize this controversy as well as a preceding set of conversations Odum engaged in during 1923 and 1924 to better understand both the nature of knowing and to advance a theory of “feeling knowledge”. I explore letters Odum wrote and received between 1922 and 1925, paying particular attention to Odum’s articulation of his feelings in response to the censure and criticism that he and the Journal received during the controversy of 1925. From this exploration, I find that Odum’s emotions both inform and color his knowledge. Further, I posit that feeling and emotion are, in fact, a central part of Odum’s process of knowing, and knowing more generally.

Author

• David M. Ferguson, University of Chicago