Associate Professor, Sociology
Education
Ph.D New School for Social Research, 2008
Biography
Reha Kadakal is a critical social theorist teaching in the Sociology Program. His
current research examines paradigms of normativity in social theory. Can social theory
inform us on what constitutes a good life? What is a good society? How are normative
foundations of social theory possible? These and other similar questions of normativity
have been central to debates over ‘modernity’ and modern life within diverse theoretical
standpoints and paradigms across the disciplines. Building on the original project
of critical social theory, his work investigates the normative foundations of social theory
not only in order to evaluate those different paradigms, but also as a means to address
the unresolved dilemma of modernity, namely the relationship between knowledge, truth,
and good society.
In his secondary, empirically oriented research agenda Kadakal brings the analysis
of those questions to bear on the rise of religious politics in Turkey within the
larger, global context of populist and authoritarian politics. How can we understand
the success of religious politics in Turkey? Is the rise of Islamism a popular reaction
against Western secularist ideologies? What are the causes underlying current, global
rise of authoritarian politics and conflicts? His research investigates the success
of Islamism in Turkey through a twofold analyses of national cultural projects, economic development
plans and administration of the political public sphere on the one hand, and the historical
specificity of Islam and its distinctive religio-political discourse on the other.
Representative Courses taught
- SOC 311 Classical Sociological Theory
- SOC 315 Contemporary Sociological Theory
- SOC 322 Sociology of Popular Culture
Select Publications
- Kadakal, Reha. 2015. “Toward a Critical Ontology of the Social: Hegel, Lukács, and the Challenge of Mediation,” in Harry F. Dahms (ed.) Globalization, Critique and Social Theory: Diagnoses and Challenges (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Volume 33) Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp. 165 - 188. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/abs/10.1108/S0278-120420150000033005
- Kadakal, Reha. 2013. “Truth, Fact, and Value: Recovering Normative Foundations for
Sociology.” Society. Volume 50, Issue 6.
Keywords:
Critical theory, normative social theory, critical ontology, truth, populism, Islamism
Additional Teaching and Research Information:
- Personal webpage: http://rehakadakal.cikeys.com