This week we talk with Bartholomew Ryan from the Walker Art Center and co-curator of the Baby Marx exhibition. We chat about what happens when you combine social theorists, puppetry, and a trip to Occupy Wall Street.
politics
This week we talk with Gary Alan Fine. We discuss his recent article in Contexts, Uncertain Knowledge, on how rumors shape our world and explain why some people still think we have a Kenyan President.
Today we talk with Joe Soss, author of the forthcoming book, Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race, co-authored with Richard C. Fording and Sanford F. Schram. Soss traces the major changes and continuities in welfare provision and poverty governance in the United States over the past 40 years, and the racial, political, and economic factors in creating these policies.
This week we talk with Corey Shdaimah, author of Negotiating Justice: Progressive Lawyering, Low-Income Clients, and the Quest for Social Change. Shdaimah examines how the themes central to progressive lawyering—autonomy, collaboration, transformation, and social change—look on the ground, in the legal services office. We discuss the ethnographic methods she used for this research, and how lawyers and clients navigate their relationships with one another.
This episode we talk with Monte Bute, a backstage sociologist at Metropolitan State University. Last year, Monte was diagnosed with stage three pulmonary lymphoma. Rather than retreating quietly, however, Monte has turned his illness into a learning experience for students (he’s continued to teach) and into an opportunity to revisit some of the core questions of the human experience. We talk about the effect of Durkheim on sociology’s impoverished understanding of dying, and the ways in which literature and the humanities do a better job of grasping the existential realities of dying. Other topics include Monte’s Facebook page, his take on the Minnesota state shutdown, and why Monte has changed his opinion on Tuesdays with Morrie (following up on his discussion with John Hines).
Imagine you’ve been doing research on the possibility of revolution in Egypt and you’ve just published a paper asking why revolutions in Egypt have failed to materialize and then, two weeks after publication: revolution in Egypt. That’s the situation Hazem Kandil found himself in these past few months, and in this episode Kandil, who is a PhD candidate in the UCLA sociology department, talks with Sinan Erensu about the causes and consequences of revolution in Egypt and how sociology can help us better understand what happened and is happening still.
This week we talk with Richard Lachmann, author of the article, The Roots of American Decline in the Winter 2011 issue of Contexts. Lachmann addresses common misunderstandings we Americans tend to have about our government’s spending, particularly military spending, and the current “fiscal crisis”. Lachmann compares the decline of American dominance with past empires and offers some lessons about what we might do to have a graceful decline as opposed to a painful, violent one.
This episode we talk with humorist Dylan Brody about the power of humor and storytelling to transform the way people look at the world around them. Brody discusses the effects of television on political comedy, the sad state of heroes in our storytelling today, and how he incorporates his political knowledge and ideals into the personal stories he tells before audiences.
After you listen, be sure to check out Brody’s albums:
This week, Tom O’Connell stops by Office Hours to talk about the history of Hull-House and how to bring community service to the social sciences. O’Connell is the author of Jane Addams’s Democratic Journey from the Fall 2010 issue of Contexts.
This week, Frances Fox Piven stops by Office Hours for a discussion of the impact of labor on the American Left. Topics include labor history, globalization and labor, and the future of labor strikes.
This week we talk with Gary Alan Fine. We discuss his recent article in Contexts, Uncertain Knowledge, on how rumors shape our world and explain why some people still think we have a Kenyan President.
Today we talk with Joe Soss, author of the forthcoming book, Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race, co-authored with Richard C. Fording and Sanford F. Schram. Soss traces the major changes and continuities in welfare provision and poverty governance in the United States over the past 40 years, and the racial, political, and economic factors in creating these policies.
This week we talk with Corey Shdaimah, author of Negotiating Justice: Progressive Lawyering, Low-Income Clients, and the Quest for Social Change. Shdaimah examines how the themes central to progressive lawyering—autonomy, collaboration, transformation, and social change—look on the ground, in the legal services office. We discuss the ethnographic methods she used for this research, and how lawyers and clients navigate their relationships with one another.
This episode we talk with Monte Bute, a backstage sociologist at Metropolitan State University. Last year, Monte was diagnosed with stage three pulmonary lymphoma. Rather than retreating quietly, however, Monte has turned his illness into a learning experience for students (he’s continued to teach) and into an opportunity to revisit some of the core questions of the human experience. We talk about the effect of Durkheim on sociology’s impoverished understanding of dying, and the ways in which literature and the humanities do a better job of grasping the existential realities of dying. Other topics include Monte’s Facebook page, his take on the Minnesota state shutdown, and why Monte has changed his opinion on Tuesdays with Morrie (following up on his discussion with John Hines).
Imagine you’ve been doing research on the possibility of revolution in Egypt and you’ve just published a paper asking why revolutions in Egypt have failed to materialize and then, two weeks after publication: revolution in Egypt. That’s the situation Hazem Kandil found himself in these past few months, and in this episode Kandil, who is a PhD candidate in the UCLA sociology department, talks with Sinan Erensu about the causes and consequences of revolution in Egypt and how sociology can help us better understand what happened and is happening still.
This week we talk with Richard Lachmann, author of the article, The Roots of American Decline in the Winter 2011 issue of Contexts. Lachmann addresses common misunderstandings we Americans tend to have about our government’s spending, particularly military spending, and the current “fiscal crisis”. Lachmann compares the decline of American dominance with past empires and offers some lessons about what we might do to have a graceful decline as opposed to a painful, violent one.
This episode we talk with humorist Dylan Brody about the power of humor and storytelling to transform the way people look at the world around them. Brody discusses the effects of television on political comedy, the sad state of heroes in our storytelling today, and how he incorporates his political knowledge and ideals into the personal stories he tells before audiences.
After you listen, be sure to check out Brody’s albums:
This week, Tom O’Connell stops by Office Hours to talk about the history of Hull-House and how to bring community service to the social sciences. O’Connell is the author of Jane Addams’s Democratic Journey from the Fall 2010 issue of Contexts.
This week, Frances Fox Piven stops by Office Hours for a discussion of the impact of labor on the American Left. Topics include labor history, globalization and labor, and the future of labor strikes.