Summary: The paper begins with a sociologically triumphalist critique of philosophical aesthetics, grounded on the work of Ernest Gellner and Emile Durkheim. It proceeds to note the practical failure of this kind of sociology to become institutionalised within the wider discipline. It explores a number of possible explanations for the failure, but finally suggests that a normalised sociology of art requires a normalised conception of art itself, such as that tentatively advanced by Pierre Bourdieu and Franco Moretti. The paper also has an autobiographical subtext. Andrew Milner is Professor of Cultural Studies in the Centre. His most recent publications include Re-Imagining Cultural Studies (Sage, 2002), Contemporary Cultural Theory (Routledge, 2002, co-authored with Jeff Browitt), Literature, Culture and Society (Routledge, 2005), Postwar British Critical Thought (Sage, 2005, 4-volume edited collection) and Tenses of Imagination: Raymond Williams on Science Fiction, Utopia and Dystopia (Peter Lang, 2010).
