This photo does not depict either Doug Hartmann or Chris Uggen (nor any of the reporters they work with), but does come courtesy of Tommy Japan via flickr.com.
When scholars think about doing interviews with the media, we often imagine ourselves to be doing some kind of great public service–wherein we deign to come down from the ivory tower and share our wisdom and knowledge with naive, uninformed journalists and their massive, mostly ignorant, and fundamentally distracted masses. There is some truth to this conceit. Writers and producers often approach a story or a topic with a limited, fairly narrow frame of reference, and sometimes don’t even know the most basic facts or more general trends that are involved. I average maybe an interview a week, and find myself spending much of my time in these exchanges trying to get the writer or producer on the other end of the line to expand their scope, attend to some of the broader social forces or issues, or reframe their pieces in one way or the other. Sometimes this effort to frame and/or reorient stories works, sometimes it doesn’t (and rarely do we get credit either way).
But none of that is really the point of this post. The point of this post is that journalists often know a lot more than we give them credit for, and that we scholars–especially us sociologists–have got a lot more to gain from working with them than we usually realize. more...
Oh, have you heard of this Scholars Strategy Network? Of course you have! You’re hip, in-the-know sorts. But the reason I’m pointing it out specifically right now is that I want to direct your eyes to two specific things going on over at their site:
As Syria takes the spotlight off Miley (for real), I recommend you return to Richard Lachmann and Hal Brands’s thoughts on America’s foreign policy and its place in the world. SSN’er Jeff Faux also talks war-weariness in the Huffington Post.
September’s topical spotlight on SSN is labor and unionization. While we’ll be featuring several of the briefs in this suite (I believe 17 make up the full complement) on the SSN section of TSP (fun with acronyms!), it’s particularly worth reading Nick Carnes and Jake Rosenfeld’s summary of the spotlight pieces.
Now, back to TSP, riiiiiight after I wish my mom a happy birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom! more...
New years bring new goals and often bigger ambitions. One of our TSP goals, over the next year or two, is to better represent the field of sociology as a whole. Don’t get us wrong: we think we’ve got a great site with tremendous (and tremendously provocative) content. But there are some areas of specialization we don’t cover as well as others, and our suite of blogs probably leans more toward the op-ed, commentary-and-critique side than the more basic, empirical data and explanation of concrete social processes that dominates much of our journal research and scholarly publishing.
We are working with our graduate student board on some new features and initiatives to make our site even bigger and broader, and we’re hoping to begin rolling some of those out in the weeks to come. But in thinking through and working on all of this, Chris and I have also begun to believe that we’ve got some ideas about sociology itself—what it is, how it can be better understood and practiced, and what its role in society should and can be—that aren’t nearly as well represented or articulated as they should be. So what we are going to do is start laying out some of those observations and ideas as part of the Editors’ Desk. We’re not sure exactly how much we’ve got to say or how it will cohere, but for the next few weeks, under the heading of “Sketches,” that’s what we’re going to try to do. Here goes…
Getting down with what’s up on The Society Pages (and if you just wanna get down, NPR’s streaming the new Elvis Costello/The Roots album here)
Shiny New Book:
In case you missed our excitement about the publication of our first reader with W.W. Norton & Co. (hard to do, what with all the skywriters we hired…), please do check out the source of our pride, The Social Side of Politics. Click on through to Norton to request a desk copy or order your own.
Well, not really, but we’re doing a lot more posting on FB, usually drawing together related articles from across our site. Love a SocImages post? We’ll let you know about a White Paper or Special Feature that pairs well. Excited to see Dalton Conley in Vogue? We’ve got stuff on that, too!
Citings & Sightings:
“Social Network Sorrows,” by Andrew Weibe. Researchers are all over the map when it comes to deciding if social networking is “good” or “bad” for us. Here’s a new look. more...
In just three days, a new school year is upon us. For my part, I enjoy the ritual: I buy a new pair of Converse (high-top Chucks, black, always). I make sure I’ve got a fresh notebook or two. I think hard about how to be organized and motivated (this will fall away quickly), and I try to draw on the enthusiasm of all of the incoming students swarming the campus. And then I get geared up for the next wave of great ideas and new readers flowing into The Society Pages. Then Doug gives me a good “Coach Taylor” pep talk, and we dive in. Can’t wait to see what the inbox brings. All I know is, with readers and authors like these, we can’t lose.
If all else fails, show a movie (see the comments for many suggestions). more...
The U of Michigan drum major trailed by children across the quad. Photo from TIME LIFE, 1950. Click through for original.
Why is it that some people seem so much more energetic and productive than others? As is our wont, sociologists tend to answer such questions not with respect to individual characteristics and variations, but instead by thinking about the social context and cultural factors—the external forces that structure, inculcate, and incentivize individual output and creativity. Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism provides the usual point of departure. In an nutshell, Weber argues that the Protestant reformation, in shifting the hope for eternal salvation from institutional church membership to individual belief and one’s own relationship with God, put a new emphasis and impetus on personal practice that gave rise to attitudes and activities that provided the cultural foundations for capitalism.
I’ve been thinking about this the past few days as my son begins his freshman year of college (here at the University of Minnesota, no less!). College is obviously an environment designed to push, pull, and prod young people in ways and to a degree that they have never been pushed, pulled, or prodded before. And it is no great or original insight to suggest that our American system of higher education is one of the key institutional sites for the construction of the social skills and moral qualities that make our society so unique and uniquely productive. I’ve been particularly impressed with my first glimpse into the energy, excellence, and dedication displayed by the marching band, the proudly named “Pride of Minnesota.” As my son takes his place in the clarinet section, the band has put in 14-hour days in 100 degree heat (over 130 on the field turf yesterday afternoon, I heard) to get ready for the season opener tonight.
As I try to put myself in the shoes of these exceptional band members as well as all of the other energetic, excited, and nervous new students I’m seeing walk around campus, I’ve reflected back on my own early college experience. And I am brought to think about other, more individual, non-contextualist, and even natural or biological factors that may be in play when it comes to explaining variations in energy, productivity, and creativity in college and the human context more generally. I say this because I don’t think there is any way I can bring the energy and enthusiasm I see in the band myself these days. And also because college was for me—as, I am sure, for many others—a time when I was not only propelled to levels of activity and output I could not previously have imagined, but also the moment in my life when I really began to realize the limits of my abilities and capabilities, especially emotionally and physically. I mean, I initially tried to do everything—high academic standards, a large list of extracurricular activities, and all of the social side of college as well as staying in touch with family and friends from home—but I soon began to find myself overly stressed and tired. My body was beginning to break down. Without a sufficient sleep, simple day-to-day functioning became a real issue. And soon I had to scale back, make choices about what I could and couldn’t do, find out how to balance different interests and activities and aspirations against each other. I came to see first-hand that others had abilities and capabilities above and beyond my own, and that I had realms in which I was particularly proficient.
Like most of us, I figured this out, as I trust my son and all of his new friends, classmates, and bandmates will. Yet I also am sure that the individual solutions that each of us work our way into are driven and constrained as much by our material needs and physiological makeups—how much sleep we need (I still can’t get over how much sleep I require in comparison to many higher octane folks out there), what we eat (and how much), how much stress we can tolerate, how much physical and psychic energy we can generate—as larger cultural contexts. Energy is a scarce and unevenly distributed resource. Perhaps this is a relatively trite, obvious observation. But it is one that we sociologists must—because of our culturalist and collectivist inclinations—remind ourselves of, both in our personal lives and in terms of the research and analyses we do in our professional capacities. Societies contain individuals, and our basic physical endowments do indeed shape and determine the energies we exert and the impacts we can make.
In the wake of the annual American Sociological Association meetings, it is always interesting to see what (if any) new research and ideas from the field capture media attention. One topic is fairly predictable: sex. Stories about sex and sexuality get the eyeballs, and sociology is no exception. (Uncomfortable point in fact: sex and sexuality are two of the most common search terms new readers use to find The Society Pages.) The most recent example is an article that originally ran in the Los Angeles Times on “hookup culture” on college campuses.
The story, from a writer named Emily Alpert, reports on recently released research from Martin Monto, a sociologist at the University of Portland. The main thrust of the findings is that, while a new form of sexual intimacy has emerged on college campuses in the last decade or so (intimate physical encounters between friends and casual-but-known acquaintances: “hookups”), this does not mean that college students are having more sex than ever before. Indeed, according to Monto’s work, fewer than one third of college students surveyed between 2002 and 2010 had had sex with more than one person in the preceding year—the same level reported in the 1980s and 1990s. (What is new is that 68% of those who were sexually active were involved with a friend, an increase from 56% in previous periods.) As one headline put it: “Sex on campus has changed, [but] not surged.”
Being both a bit titillating (sex on campus!) and yet reassuring (our kids haven’t gone completely wild—whew), the story definitely has legs. Since it originally appeared in the Times over a week ago (I’m actually not sure if it came directly from the meetings in New York, an ASA press release, or coincidental timing ), I’ve seen a number of references, reprints, and reflections—including, as of this morning, in both of the local papers in the Twin Cities. more...
So, we are back from that extravaganza of society’s science, the annual American Sociology Association meetings. Among all the usual parties, plenaries, and pleasantries, the conference, held this year in New York City, featured lot of talk about blogs and social media, websites, and public sociology. For example, incoming ASA President Annette Lareau has created an ad hoc task force on social media, and apparently several different proposals are floating around to create an association-sponsored blog. Who knows whether or how these ideas will come to fruition before next year’s meeting. What is particularly intriguing and exciting for us is that The Society Pages seems to be very much on people’s minds and it’s been at the center of many of these conversations. Even as our HQ dispersed for the meetings and our authors circulated in NYC, our bloggers continued to blog and contributions and exciting ideas continued to come in. Among the highlights on the site this past week was a roundtable on one of the most fascinating cultural festivals in the nation, Burning Man, assembled by Matt Wray. Below, Letta Page has assembled some of the other weekend reading from the past couple of weeks of site work.
One last note: for those who joined us on Monday night, you know that W.W. Norton & Co. throws a fantastic annual party, and we’re honored to be invited. Thanks for coming, and thanks to Karl Bakeman and his team for putting together such a fun night. The Norton Party is always the home of some unforgettable moments. more...
Hopefully, we all have a teacher or two who stirs fond memories. For me, one of the first to spring to mind is Loren J. Samons II, a professor of classical studies at my alma mater, Boston University. Prof. Samons is notable for many reasons (one of his brilliant strokes was to refer to the class, collectively, as “scholars”—a convention that set the tone for each lecture in just one word), but this week, I found an old syllabus. I wondered why I’d kept it—I took several classes from Prof. Samons in my time at BU, but it still seemed an odd document to cling to, some 12 years after graduation. And then I read. Nestled within many wise words for young students learning to learn, write, engage with literature, and find their way through sources both ancient and modern, was this gem: more...
A shedload of sociologists descends on New York next week for a big annual meeting. As we scuffle for jobs and book deals or steel ourselves for presentations, the vibe can be a bit tense in the hotel lobbies. It isn’t easy to present new ideas to an audience that prides itself on the critical analysis of new ideas.
But there’s a small move you can make to improve said vibe, whether you’re a professional academic or a civilian reader who just enjoys sociological writing. Has anyone’s work inspired or influenced you? Did a writer turn a particularly memorable phrase in an article or post on TSP or elsewhere? If so, let them know about it! Send a quick note or strike up a conversation with someone whose work you’ve enjoyed and tell them so.
A good compliment is an amazing restorative – enough to sustain many of us through professional or personal rough patches. But there’s a strong professional bias against giving and receiving compliments, as sociologists take a jaundiced view of the practice. A 2012 study is titled “apple-polishers, butt-kissers, and suck-ups” and most research on compliments points to class, race, and (especially) gender disparities in ingratiation. But there’s also a grain of truth in Oscar Wilde’s admonition in Lady Windermere’s Fan: it is a great mistake to give up paying compliments, “for when we give up saying what is charming, we give up thinking what is charming.”
Compliments can be an unexpected delight — people noticing your name tag or sending an email out of the blue (especially when you’re not chairing a hiring committee). And the more obscure and left-field the compliment, the better. Kind words about a newsletter piece, a talk for a community organization, or a small contribution to a book that sold 5 copies are especially appreciated. Looking over the past year, did you find something charming or true in one piece you read? Or, perhaps, in a piece of a piece you read? If so, the author would like to hear about it.
If you’re so inclined, here are a few general characteristics and specific examples of good compliments, as distinct from simple schmoozing. The first is the most important; if you’re not feeling it, the recipient won’t either. And do try to avoid backhanded compliments (saying something positive, and then bringing the nasty).
1. Genuine
Good: “I was struggling with the method until I read your description in that AJR article – it was so clear! I can’t tell you how much that helped me.”
Less good: “I saw your new article in AJR. It must be nice to be friends with the editors!” [tip: resist all temptation to follow-up a compliment with an “it must be nice to…” or “I wish I had…”].
2. Personal
Good: “As an ethnographer, I rarely find quantitative research that taps into what I’m doing. But you really seem to ‘get’ the processes I’m seeing in the schools.”
Less Good: “Your work has decent face validity.”
3. Acknowledge Effort
Good: “Please tell me it took you all day to write that last paragraph – you completely nailed that civic reintegration idea.”
Less Good: “I’ve seen your blog. I wish I had so much extra time on my hands!”
4. Specific
Good: “I really liked your health disparities review piece, especially how you pulled in public health stuff – it was great for my prelim.”
Less Good: “I’ve read a lot of your articles” [As an old friend once said, “that’s how I know they’re lying – there aren’t that many of my articles to read!”]
5. Memorable
Good: “Smashing network diagrams!”
Less Good: “Nice slides.”
Don’t be surprised if the recipient of your compliment doesn’t know how to respond (usually, a simple “thanks” will do). We’ve been socialized to expect ulterior motives or to think our work isn’t worthy of kind words. But don’t worry about embarrassing those you compliment. As Erving Goffman pointed out, when a person blushes upon receiving a compliment, she may lose her reputation for poise but confirm a more important reputation for modesty.
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