At the beginning of this academic year, Chris and I set a goal: we wanted The Society Pages to do a better job of representing the field of sociology  as a whole. This aim is driven by our sense that the site does a great job in certain areas and specialties (race, gender, and sexuality, for example), but not so much in others. In addition, much of our content tends to be more oriented toward commentary, advocacy, and critique than the facts, empirical data, explanations, and discoveries which are so crucial to the research orientation and contributions of the field. We’ve made some great progress on these fronts, especially with building the topical beat pages (which we will unveil soon), revitalizing the Reading List, and launching the new There’s Research on That! feature. But there is still work to be done. In addition to these innovations—actually, as a supplement to them—we want to push for a renewed emphasis on developing content and material that does a better job of identifying, illustrating, and advocating for distinctly sociological approaches and perspectives to the study of human life. more...

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From racial codes to technology design, “bland erotic pudding,” and why college is still worth the cost (but maybe shouldn’t be)—all that and a bag of weed (well, an article on the uneven policing of possession) on this week’s Friday Roundup! more...

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From Sport to Voting Rights

This week The Society Pages checked out gender stereotyping and toys, how we communicate our tone online (but really don’t want to talk on the phone), a whole collection of photoshop in the media, fatherhood and race, and we learned a thing or two from our Nordic friends. Enjoy! more...

This week saw outrage over personal loans offered to Nevada teachers just to buy classroom supplies (for their public school rooms!), a flurry of suggested “great books in sociology” reading lists, 40 years of the War on Poverty, another fight in the toy aisle, and, of course, Canada’s gift to the U.S., the Polar Vortex (we’re particularly sorry for the South… at least we Minnesota types have some snowpants we can dig out of the basement). Enjoy! more...

As a follow-up to my post about great books in sociology last week, I called for readers to send in their own Top 10 lists. It has been fun to see those starting to come in. Here’s one from TSP blogger, Monte Bute, the self-styled “backstage sociologist.” Replete with an introductory explanation and annotations for each proposed volume, Bute suggesetd the title “A Populist’s Top Ten Sociology Books.” I tend to think of it as a classic, old-school list. Take it away, Monte.

Wayne Booth once argued that every composition strikes a “rhetoric stance”—an author, a subject, and an audience. Usually these elements are implicit; in this essay, I give you the “Full Monte.”

What is my persona? I am a populist sociologist, an outsider with a hardscrabble perspective. Lacking what Tillie Olsen called “the soil of easy growth,” I acquired my taste for great books not in seminar rooms but on the streets. Never disciplined by a sociology graduate program, I forged my chops experientially—as a deviant, dissident, and organizer.

What is my subject? It is a case for the ten best sociology books. But what do I mean by “best”? I sought books that allow the reader to achieve, in the words of C. Wright Mills, “a quality of mind that will help them to use information and to develop reason in order to achieve lucid summations of what is going on in the world and of what may be happening within themselves.” (By the way, The Sociological Imagination came in 11th on my list.) more...

Happy New Year!

Most of our authors and students have been taking much-deserved breaks this week, but here’s a little taste of what we, along with our bloggers, have cooked up since the last Roundup.

The Editors’ Desk:

“What’s On Your List?” by Doug Hartmann. The follow-up to…

“Great Books in Sociology,” by Doug Hartmann. Doug dreams of a class based around the classics and commenters chime in with their own must-read soc books. more...

Happy New Year!  The “great books in sociology” post I did a few days back got a nice little response (not all of it online) and generated a number of new ideas for the graduate seminar I’ve proposed here in the old U of M Sociology department. And clearly some of you have more than just a book or two to add. So, inspired by these off-the-cuff suggestions, let me ask you a more serious, systematic question: What’s on your list? What books would you use?  Send in your Top Ten list of the greatest books in sociology. I can post some of those here on TSP and, if we get enough to make it meaningful, compile a list of the 10 greatest books of all time. Claude Fischer, for one, thinks there may be less consensus than you might think.

“Great Books in Sociology” is a new course I’ve proposed for our graduate curriculum here at Minnesota. I’m not sure I’ll get to teach it or not, but I’m having lots of fun thinking of the books I might include. Here’s my initial list.

1. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (Max Weber)

2. Black Reconstruction (W.E.B. DuBois)

3. Stigma (Erving Goffman)

4. The Managed Heart (Arlie Hochschild)

5. The Culture of Public Problems (Joe Gusfield)

6. Weight of the World (Pierre Bourdieu)

7. Sidewalk (Mitch Duneier)

8. Ghostly Matters (Avery Gordon)

9. Religion in Human Evolution (Robert Bellah)

Reactions? Thoughts? Anything obvious I’ve missed?  The main criteria or principles I’ve been using so far are: it has to be a real book not a collection; the author has to be a sociologist; and it has to be a work that is actually worth reading, not just something that you should read or that represents some larger point or principle.

Also, if it is not obvious: I’m trying to think of the list as a whole set as well. My larger idea and goal is that this kind of list/course should help us not only think more about book-length writing and research projects, but also about what sociology itself is as an intellectual tradition and scholarly pursuit. Anyway, comments and suggestions–for books, authors, or topics–appreciated. This should be fun.

Before we get to the heart of the matter, let’s just put it out there: SocImages’ annual Christmas Roundup is ready and ripe for the readin’! Get it!

Now, rather than our usual Roundup, it’s time to announce this year’s fully unscientific, but fully entertaining TSP Awards! Hopefully these excellent pieces from our original content, our blogs, and beyond will keep you in reading material in the days of travel and food comas ahead. We wish you a wonderful New Year full of health, productivity, and ridiculousness, because every good year is a little ridiculous. more...

This week we played around with #socgreetings, got excited to see movers and shakers talking about the We Are All Criminals project, and mourned rabble-rousing change-maker Nelson Mandela while hoping those he inspired would continue bending the arc of history… and society. Here’s what else we got up to. more...