I received an e-mail from one of my colleagues at Minnesota State University-Mankato just yesterday, and couldn’t help but think of the current Office Hours episode in which our own illustrious Sarah Shannon (who seems to conjure more hours in the day than most) interviewed Walker Art Center curator Bartholomew Ryan about the recent “Baby Marx” run at the Walker (you can listen to the interview here or check out more on the Baby Marx project, including video of Baby Marx visiting Occupy Wall Street, here). Still, what Steve Buechler was writing about was actually the  one-man play “Marx in Soho,” written by Howard Zinn and currently being performed by Bob Weick in conjunction with Iron Age Theatre. Steve’s got a performance of the play scheduled–mark your calendars–for the MSU-Mankato campus on Oct. 23, 2012, and is hoping to both get the word out and let everyone know that, if you’d like to see Weick take the stage and bring Marx to your Minnesota (or Midwest) community, this is a great chance.

Writing about the production for the Iron Age website, Steve said in 2007: “This production does several different things with great skill, subtlety, and professionalism. The audience will encounter a Marx who remains passionate about injustice, critical of inequality, and combative with his rivals… but also a Marx who is loving toward his family, saddened by their poverty, and willing to rethink some of his ideas. Bob Weick is a gem of a performer, taking the audience on a whirlwind tour of different moods, attitudes, and ideas. Whether you’re a novice undergraduate, a Marxist scholar, a social justice advocate, or an interested citizen, you will find much of value in this production.” Steve can be contacted at steve.buechler@mnsu.edu.

Finally, in one last Marxist moment, I’d like to point readers to author Mary Gabriel’s new Hachette tome, Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution. While I haven’t tucked in, our associate editor Letta Page has been delighted thus far and seems pretty close to adding it to her list of exemplary books for social scientists who hope to reach public audiences (and be explicable to those audiences at the same time).

Just a quick post that might seem a little too “insider baseball” for many of our readers, but Karl Bakeman, W. W. Norton’s sociology editor, has brought another online gem to our attention: OrgTheory’s post “One way of specifying the agency problematic.” Here’s a sample from the welcome return of Omar!

The lesson? Agency means many things. One obvious thing that it means is freedom. Yet, a curious quirk in the history of social theory linked “freedom” to cognition or thought (Kant)… [S]ocial-construction types of debates are so predictable: on the one side you usually have somebody vigorously stomping his/her feet and saying that there are objective features of the world (e.g. and by “objective” the foot-stomper means features of reality that demand that they be conceptualized in ways that leave no freedom for alternative construals). Let’s call these features non-negotiable features. On the other side you have social constructionists carefully denying that such non-negotiable features exist (or more precisely, claiming that they might exist in a neutral ontological sense but they don’t really constrain thought in the way that the non-constructionist claims that they do; i.e. they are epistemically indeterminate). For the (strict) social constructionist everything that the non-constructionist claims is non-negotiable could be construed otherwise, and that’s why culture is autonomous and people have agency.

Heady stuff, to be sure, but I’d encourage those with the interest to dive on in. Be sure to check out the comments section!

A few days ago the Vancouver Sun ran a story about new Canadian research on the topic of prejudice against atheists in North America. The article’s lead author, Will M. Gervais, told the Sun, “The only group the study’s participants distrusted as much as atheists was rapists.”

The newspaper story implies this is a new finding, but the paper, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, builds off an article I published with my colleagues Penny Edgell and Joe Gerteis a few years ago in the American Sociological Review. In that paper, part of our ongoing American Mosaic Project, we found that atheists were the least trusted on a long list of racial and religious minorities that we asked about in a representative national survey of Americans. It might not have been the first time this result was reported, but it seems to have been the first and fullest treatment of the anti-atheist phenomenon in the post 9/11 era. (It also resulted in what is perhaps the proudest citation of my scholarly career–and certainly the one my teenagers are most impressed with: p. 62 of Stephen Colbert’s I Am America (and So Can You)!. Colbert compares atheists with homosexuals, whom he says rate higher because at least we trust them with our hair. Okay, so we aren’t as funny as Colbert and weren’t mentioned by name, but the point is to get the work out there, right?)

Anyway, this new JPSP article, co-authored with Azim F. Shariff and Ara Norenzayan, not only confirms our initial findings about the level of anti-atheist sentiment, it takes the research further to explore the social psychological underpinnings of this bias. One important point they make is that anti-atheist bias is not just dislike or distaste, it is active distrust. And, using a series of survey questions designed specifically to probe these mechanisms, the authors are able to show that religious belief is one important factor that seems to be driving this phenomenon. North Americans, it would seem, believe that people behave better if those people think there is a god watching them.

None of this is to say that this is actually true, but, it does seem to be what regular folks think. My hope, as expressed in the original piece with Edgell and Gerteis, is that this work will stimulate better thinking and research not only on atheists, but on the role and significance of religious belief and practice–or lack thereof–in contemporary society.

*Photo by Eric Ingrum via flickr.com (click for original)

Okay, so we’re not in the habit of quoting facts from the mainstream media nor, for that matter, of trumpeting the work of economists (who already have a pretty solid status in the media, at least as far as social science disciplines go), but the Dec. 5th issue of Newsweek published some facts about work in the United States that seemed important for folks who believe the American work ethic is a thing of the past. These include:

Americans have the fewest guaranteed vacation days and holidays of any major industrialized country;

Americans work more weeks per year than any industrialized country except Japan;

Americans workers work more hours per year on average than workers in any other Western nation;

And the productivity of American workers is top notch–second to none on many important measures.

Published under the title “Who You Calling Lazy?”, these were culled from a report recently published by the Economic Policy Institute.  Perhaps the more general lesson here is that important information comes in all forms and formats—and anything we can do to help get it out there is part of our mission.

Like many, I’m on all kinds of email lists and list servs for academic publishing. Usually I don’t pay them much attention. But the one below caught my eye for reasons that will probably be obvious: a public anthropology series being promoted by the University of California Press (the publisher of the first decade of Contexts) that includes an award-winning book by Paul Farmer (the subject of Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains which I use every time I teach Senior Projects). Anyway, I’m not trying advocate for the series or anything (I don’t even know anything else about what I’ve just read here), but thought folks would be interested to know the kind of public engagement being encouraged in other, related social science fields. All of the necessary information and places to find more are listed below.

Cheers!

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The California Series in Public Anthropology encourages professional scholars in a range of disciplines to discuss major public issues in ways that help the broader public understand and address them.

Based on a decade of success, the California Series in Public Anthropology’s International Competition is initiating a new competition for 2012 that emphasizes short books for undergraduates focused on how social scientists are successfully facilitating change. We are looking for accessible, grounded accounts that present compelling stories as well as offer enough interpretation to make these books useful in undergraduate courses.

The books should be relatively short – around 100 pages – with a personal touch that captures the lives of people. They should convey how social scientists have brought (or are bringing) about change. The core of the books will be stories of social scientists as change agents, as making a difference in the world.The books should involve stories that inspire.

The University of California Press, in association with the Center for a Public Anthropology, will award publishing contracts for up to three

such book proposals independent of whether the manuscripts themselves have been completed. The proposals can describe work the author wishes to undertake in the near future.

Interested individuals should submit a 3-4,000 word overview of their proposed manuscript detailing (a) the problem addressed as well as (b) a summary of what each chapter covers. The proposal should be written in a manner that non-academic readers find interesting and thought-provoking.

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS IS MARCH 1, 2012 Submissions should be emailed to: bookseries@publicanthropology.org with the relevant material enclosed as attachments.

Naomi Schneider and Rob Borofsky, Co-Editors, California Series in Public Anthropology

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We would appreciate your forwarding this email on to students and colleagues who might be interested in the Competition. Thank you.

The Center for a Public Anthropology is a non-profit organization that encourages scholars and their students to address public problems in public ways.

One of our most popular, regular features here at TSP is the “Citings & Sightings” section in which we track media references to sociology, sociologists, and social science more generally. Though it is fun to create and serves an obvious cheerleading function, the impetus behind the feature is not mere disciplinary hubris. Instead, we see Citings & Sightings as a way to help us and our fellow travelers better understand how sociology and social science are understood by others–what the public looks for and expects when they think about the world around them and our contributions to it. In the iteration of this idea we created for Contexts when we were editors of that fine journal (I can use the past tense, since our final issue ships tomorrow!), we borrowed a phrase from the symbolic interactionists for a title: “Reflected Appraisals”–or, as our tag line put it: “We perceive ourselves as we believe others perceive us.”

Of course, in order for us to have Citings & Sightings material, social scientists will have to keep talking to reporters and commenting on timely, public issues. Working with the media like this can be enlightening, but it is not always the easiest or most comfortable exercise. As a sociologist often interviewed on issues related to sports and popular culture, I’ve found this week unusually busy… and nerve-wracking.

It started, innocently enough, with a piece that appeared in one of the major local papers (yes, we have two, one on each side of the river) about the cultural and social effects of having so many unsuccessful sports teams and franchises in the Twin Cities market. (Even Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak’s been known to get in on the Twins-bashing.) Anyhow, I gave my standard responses, tailored as much as I could to the immediate context. I talked about how following a losing team can and often does negatively impact sports fans–and, moreover, how those who have this reaction are often celebrated (or celebrate themselves) as “true fans,” while others are denigrated as fair-weather or band wagon fans. Then I went on to try to defend the latter group a bit, suggesting that their response might actually reflect the fact that they have a pretty good perspective on sports–that while they are happy to celebrate victories, they simply refuse to let the losses bring them down. The finished product focused on these later comments, especially one quote in which I formulated this point specifically with respect to Minnesota fans. The reporter (or, more likely, his editors) even created a sort of side bar to call attention to this portion of our conversation.

The interview itself actually didn’t seem like that big of a deal at the time (I actually took the call between sessions at the national Sociology of Sport meetings that were here in town last weekend), and I even missed the piece when it appeared in the paper on Wednesday morning. But others didn’t. I was asked about it in the coffee shop I use as my satellite office and writing station, and then again when I went to my church choir rehearsal that evening. I don’t know exactly what folks thought about my comments or how they were portrayed (there were several jokes, including one about my apparent ignorance of the recent and decisive Minnesota Lynx WNBA championship), but they definitely saw the piece and at least a few of them were thinking and talking about the topic.

I often try to use such opportunities not only to answer questions, but make bigger points and offer more critical insights about sport and society. And once in a while, there are sports stories and issues that really demand and require it. I certainly felt that way when the rest of my media calls started coming in last week. These ones were about the whole ugly saga unfolding at Penn State.

Thursday morning, I appeared on Kerri Miller’s talk show Midmorning on Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) to comment on Joe Paterno’s firing in the wake of sexual abuse revelations at Penn State. Miller’s producer wanted me to specifically comment on the student response: I said the rioting was uninterested and uniformed, denial at best (and that’s being charitable). And I tried to use the opportunity also to talk about the paradoxical, contradictory place of sport in American culture: how, on the one hand, sports enthusiasts often justify their passions and obsessions on the grounds that sport occupies a higher place; and then, how quickly these same folks can set aside or dismiss social issues that come up in the world of sport on the grounds that it’s “just a game” and shouldn’t be taken so seriously. If ever there was a great example of this, it is Penn State and Paterno. I mean, the whole institutional reputation and legacy was built not only on the fact that Penn State football had a winning tradition, but also on the claims that Paterno led a program that did all this the “right way.” That is, Paterno and his team recruited athletes of high character and integrity, pushed them to become better on and off the field, graduated them at unparalleled rates, etc. All of this, along with the personal ties Penn State fans feel to “JoePa” and to the football program, means that a lot of people are feeling overwhelmed and unable to even talk about this awful situation.

Obviously I didn’t get to say all of that or take any of the tangents that might be sociologically productive in a mere 15 minutes that included several call-ins and a promo or two for next week’s shows. Nerve-wracking to be sure–and rushed as well. But hopefully I was able to contribute some perspective on an episode that so many are struggling to make sense of and live with.  I’m not sure if I should follow this up, or how. Certainly, I’ll continue to follow the case, and I let Miller’s producers know I’d be willing to participate in an extended, followup (though obviously that is not my decision). Perhaps I should write something of my own or undertake a study of what is going on. (Maybe I should just keep my head down and focus on the book project that has been the focus of so much of my time and energy this fall.) But even if I don’t take the initiative myself, I will continue to make myself available to speak when called upon. This, after all, is what public engagement is all about. I mean, how can we complain about the lack of social scientific information and perspective in the public sphere if we don’t at least answer when called upon. Of course, I also have to give Citings & Sightings some material!

Check out this provocative post from this morning (or was it last night?) by the always-probing Jeff Weintraub, inspired by Paul Krugman’s recent reflections on deregulation and the economy.

I spot at least two great sociological contributions on display in this material:

(1) Weintraub’s piece highlights the importance of empirical data. In this case, it seems to clearly undercut the main neoliberal assumptions and establishment claims about the virtues of deregulation (see the chart).

(2) The reflections and critical insights from Krugman about the power and persistence of neoliberal orthodoxy–what Weintraub neatly characterizes as “a sociological analysis of hegemonic ideologies.”

The comedian Elon James White (who hosts the web series “This Week in Blackness,” writes for a number of venues including Slate and The Huffington Post, and undertakes a huge array of other endeavors) has started the “Have a Seat Movement” (http://haveaseatmovement.org/). The mission is simple and pretty amusing: to identify celebrities, scholars, pundits who speak out on public issues that they don’t know anything about or about which they don’t have any meaningful contribution to make… and then launch a collective campaign asking them to stand down.

This movement, according to its promotors, “crosses gender, class, race, and political lines” and “isn’t about ideology—it’s about common sense.” “When we tell someone to have a seat it doesn’t mean that they are bad people. It doesn’t mean that they are specifically malicious or evil. It means that on this particular issue that they are speaking on they need to stop speaking. They aren’t enlightening. They aren’t helping. They’re causing more harm than good and need to be told that. A seat is needed. They should take it.”

I’m definitely amused, and generally I think I’m with them. However, I do want to offer one caveat: while common-sense might offer a reasonable standard for advising people out of their element to sit down, I’m not quite sure if it provides an accurate compass or gauge for identifying those individuals and organizations who actually should speak up (especially when  issues require certain amounts of information and expertise). That seems the harder task—and a task, moreover, that sociologists could take a more active, engaged role. Indeed I like to think that that is part of what we long tried to do with Contexts and will continue to do with The Society Pages.

Maybe, while Elon James White invites folks to nominate candidates who need to sit down and clears the decks a bit, perhaps we should begin to collect the names of those who should be encouraged to stand up. Thoughts? Suggestions? Nominees?

With the new academic year underway, we’re starting to see an upswing of scholarly blogging and commentary on the web. One sociologist who has been particularly on fire is Jeff Weintraub at the University of Pennsylvania. I recently posted a quick aside linking to his views economic theory through the lens of Karl Polanyi and Richard Posner’s recent about-on face on Keynesian economics. This followed another recent post in which Weintraub drew upon Monty Python to “explain” rational actor models. And earlier in the summer, he  circulated a commentary on gender and sexuality in Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I found edifying, on point, and surprisingly entertaining. I don’t always agree with Weintraub’s choice of topics or conclusions (and when he posts, he often puts up more than I can read), but he is always well-informed. Andhe formulates and packages his thoughts in a rich, profound, and unrepentant social theoretical tradition.

That in mind, the post I’m highlighting today is Weintraub’s take on the recently released studies of the cost, inefficiencies, misperceptions, and outright misrepresentations of government contracts, contracting, and contractors in an age of neoliberal privatization.

Much of the piece is a repackaging of other reporting and commentary, but it’s also an important piece to call to attention. The material Weintraub gathers has a lot to say about the predictable problems and shortcomings of privatization as well as the crucial role of research, data, information, and scientific analysis and evaluation in bringing these realities to the fore. Indeed, what really caught my eye about Weintraub’s post–and, frankly, what cracked me up–was his re-appropriation of C. Wright Mills’s phrase “crackpot realism” near the end. The Mills term is, as Weintraub just wrote to me in a follow-up, “an absolutely brilliant formulation… for which the applications are, unfortunately, almost limitless.”