Teaching Areas:

Classical and contemporary social theory; interpretive methods; interdisciplinary approaches to the humanities and social sciences; science, technology and media studies; visual and popular culture.

Most of my undergraduate and graduate courses in social theory are required for Sociology Majors, and for MA and PhD candidates. I change many of the course readings each year and organize classroom discussions around a distinctive theme in order to keep my courses up-to-date with recent scholarship; to ensure that they reflect my own evolving research interests and expertise; and to speak to changing student interests. My courses are reading- and writing-intensive, and aim to foster critical reflection and independent thought on perennial sociological problems concerning class and status, race and gender, and ethnicity and sexuality in everyday and institutional life.

In the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 academic years, I taught full-time in the ‘Hero, Anti-Hero’ stream of the Arts One Program. I have also taught courses for the Centre for Cross-Faculty Inquiry, the Foundations Program, as well as the Global Citizenship Term Abroad (GCTA) in Guatemala and the Urban Ethnographic Field School (UEFS), both of which are the focus of current research projects. I supervise a full load of Honours, Masters, and Doctoral students. I will be on sabbatical in 2022-2023.

Research Interests

Contemporary social and cultural theory (including post-structuralist, semiotic, psychoanalytic, feminist, and queer theory); the history of the social sciences; sociological classics, canons, and founders; literary and interpretive methods; aesthetic sociology; the visual representation of concepts and arguments.

Current Research Activities

My research advances European and North 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, I emphasize the reappraisal of classic problems and the recovery of forgotten or undervalued ideas, texts, and authors in the history of the social sciences. I aim to show how rhetorical arguments, interpretive methods, and literary genres that contribute to the formation of concepts enhances the public significance and cultural relevance of thinking sociologically.

To date my publications and current research have emerged from five distinct yet closely related research projects:

1. My work on both well-known and posthumously published writings of Karl Marx (1818-1883) examines how ‘melodramatic’ narratives inform his critique of political economy, and the contemporary significance of his influential account of the confrontation between classes for the post-socialist world of globalizing markets.
2. My studies of the speeches and writings of Max Weber (1856-1920) address the ‘allegorical’ character of his interpretive sociology of capitalism and bureaucracy, especially its implications for how we understand science, politics, and art as modern professions or callings.
3. A series of essays on non-canonical sociological thinkers takes up the thesis of Georg Simmel (1858-1918) concerning the ‘tragedy’ of sociotechnical culture, with a focus on how gender and generational differences, racial and ethnic identities are being transformed by new forms of imperial power and social media.
4. With reference to the ‘comical’ strain in Emile Durkheim’s (1858-1917) lectures on civil society, I am currently undertaking an ethnographic investigation into the significance of off-campus classrooms — namely an urban field school (Vancouver) and a study abroad program (Guatemala) — as sites for fostering global citizenship.
5. Drawing on Sigmund Freud’s (1856-1939) psychoanalytic case studies and dream-interpretation, an ongoing project examines how the unspoken dimensions of everyday personal experience and the unconscious limits of popular culture are expressed through fantasies of the family ‘romance’ and their institutionalization.

Through a substantial body of publications in a variety of interdisciplinary and international venues, my research bridges the social sciences and humanities by recovering their common intellectual sources, and by experimenting with innovative techniques for the critical interpretation of texts and the visual display of concepts.

Carla Nappi interviewed me on Weber for her New Books series:
http://newbooksinsociology.com/2015/04/28/thomas-kemple-intellectual-work-and-the-spirit-of-capitalism-webers-calling-palgrave-macmillan-2014/

Simon Dawes interviewed Austin Harrington and me on Simmel for the special issue of Theory, Culture & Society that we co-edited:
http://theoryculturesociety.org/interview-with-thomas-kemple-and-austin-harrington-on-simmel/

And you can also check out my video abstract for this issue on the TCS website and on YouTube:
http://theoryculturesociety.org/video-thomas-kemple-on-simmel/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03LlEVaChGE

Books

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

Read our Q&A with Professor Kemple about Marx’s Wager here.

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 (forthcoming). “The Wretched of the Earth as Interrogation-Machine: Nationalism, Religion, and Race in Fanon’s Decolonization Manifesto.’ Co-authored (33%) with Jastej Luddu and Mona Prakesh. New Proposals.

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. XX (X): 1-16.

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 International 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.

Book Reviews

2016 (in press). Review of Max Weber’s Theory of Modernity: The Endless Pursuit of Meaning, by Micheal Symonds. Max Weber Studies.

2014. ‘Presenting Max Weber’. Review essay of Max Weber’s Comparative-Historical Sociology Today, by Stephen Kalberg, and Max Weber and Contemporary Capitalism, by Nicholas Gane. Canadian Journal of Sociology, 28, 3: 407-413.

2013. Review of Sociology: Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms (2 volumes), by Georg Simmel. Edited and translated by Antony J. Blasi et. al. Comparative Sociology 12: 127-129.

2012. Review of Twentieth Century Music and the Question of Modernity, by Eduardo De La Fuente. Thesis 11 111 (1): 130-133.

2011. Review of Godless Intellectuals? The Intellectual Pursuit of the Sacred, by Alexander Tristan Riley. American Journal of Sociology 115 (5): 1701-1703.

2009. Review of Afro-American Pioneers of Sociology: A Critical History, by Pierre St-Arnaud. Canadian Journal of Sociology (Online).

2008. Review of Understanding Weber, by Sam Whimster. “Re-Reading Max Weber.” Minerva 46: 385-389.

2007. Review of Born in Flames: Termite Dreams, Dialectical Fairy Tales, and Pop Apocalypses, by Howard Hampton. Critical Sociology 33: 981-988.

2007. Review of Early Writings and The Court Society by Norbert Elias. Canadian Journal of Sociology (Online).

2005. Review of Max Weber’s ‘Economy and Society’: A Critical Companion, edited by Charles Camic, Philip S. Gorski, and David M. Trubek. Canadian Journal of Sociology (Online).

2003. Review of Sociology as Political Education, by Karl Mannheim, and Karl Mannheim’s Sociology as Education, by David Kettler and Colin Loader. Canadian Journal of Sociology.

2003. Review of Founders, Classics, Canons: Modern Disputes over the Origins and Appraisal of Sociology’s Heritage, by Peter Baehr. Canadian Journal of Sociology (Online).

2002. Review of The Radical Durkheim (second edition), by Frank Pearce. Canadian Journal of Sociology 27 (2): 277-279.

1999. Review of Norbert Elias: An Introduction, by Robert Van Krieken. Canadian Journal of Sociology (Online).

1998. Review of World in Fragments: Writings on Psychoanalysis, Society, Politics and the Imagination, by Cornelius Castoriadis. American Journal of Sociology 104 (2): 577-578.