This article engages with the proposal and call for a renewed engagement with civil society by American academic sociology as put forth by Michael Burawoy's 2004 presidential theme for the American Sociological Association. An examination of the history of US academic interdisciplinary scholarship in area-studies programs suggests that the roots of such a knowledge enterprise in the American university are deeply embedded in state and market interests. It is argued that these imbrications of the university in civil society limit the goal of creating a public sociology that can vitalize civil society and foster counter-hegemonic publics. However, greater attention to this history, and to issues of culture, methodology and interdisciplinarity, may assist in the endeavor to foster a critical (counterhegemonic) public sociology.
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