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...
sociology
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...
You may have heard the story about the NFL lineman, JohnMoffitt, who recently up and quit the game just months away from locking in the guaranteed pension and benefits that comes with being in the league for three years. The New York Times story attributes Moffitt’s stunning decision to concerns about his health and well being, as well as his off-season reading of the Dalai Lama and Noam Chomsky. According to the Times, these intellectuals helped Moffitt conclude that “he was a pawn in a machine that controlled his life and that he no longer wanted to meet the expectations attached to that life.” But the report also also mentions that the “free spirited” Moffitt was a sociology major at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Do you think his sociological studies influenced his thinking and decision in any way? Seems like something that inquiring and aspiring sociologists might want to know.
Perhaps envisioning Chris Uggen as a Sociological Spiderman last week got me going, but over the past few days, I have found myself thinking about all kinds of super-hero analogies and metaphors for sociologists and the sociological enterprise. The one that has stuck with me is the idea of sociologists as “Society’s Super Egos.” more...
A few months ago, one of our bloggers, the “backstage sociologist” Monte Bute offered up a post that referenced political theorist Isaiah Berlin’s famous distinction between foxes and hedgehogs. In the world of ideas, according to Berlin (borrowing from ancient Greek poet Archilochus), there are those who know many, many things (foxes), and those who know one big thing (hedgehogs). Berlin’s categories have been widely referenced in both the social sciences and the humanities to identify styles of thought, the contributions of various scholars, and lines of research and writing. In reflecting on Berlin’s categories back in the long, lazy days of summer, Chris and I had a little fun putting our favorite sociologists and works in one box or the other. And as we played with the categories and thought about sociology as a discipline, we began to realize anew—much as I think Berlin meant to suggest (this appeared in an essay about Tolstoy)—that real insight and understanding in any field requires both foxes and hedgehogs. more...
For the next couple of Roundups, I’d like to welcome TSP’s graduate editor Hollie Nyseth Brehm. She’ll be covering for me as I head off on a 3-hour cruise. Actually, there’s no cruise. But I do expect to find myself washed up on a beach for a stretch, so I won’t be rounding up the site until… October 11th? Craziness. For now, one last hurrah before heading for the airport (yet again). 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...
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...
Addendum to my post last week criticizing Scalia’s characterization of the state of sociological research on the question of the impact of gay and lesbian parents on child development:
Phil Cohen (and others, in both public comments and private communications) point out that Scalia didn’t just miss the ASA brief or make up his claim that there is “no clear answer” among sociologists on the matter. Rather, it would appear that he got the line from reading another brief on parenting submitted by sociologist Mark Regenerus and his colleagues that explicitly and directly countered the organizational consensus account. (See Cohen’s account.)
So is Scalia off the hook? Not quite that easy. For one thing, Regenerus’s brief is based on a highly controversial paper published in the journal Social Science Research about a year ago. (To say that that study has been controversial is putting it mildly; just take a look at some of the reactions chronicled previously by Cohen). Setting aside the question of how this piece got published in the first place (a significant matter of speculation and consternation in the field), one wonders if Scalia read the paper, or subsequent commentary about it—much less really parsed through the research on both sides of the issue. And even if some of the findings hold more water than most sociologists will allow, there seems little ground to warrant the larger societal implications that Regenerus imputes.
I won’t get into the specifics further, except to paraphrase Cohen’s summary: So what we have here is one sociologist (or one sociologist and his collaborators) denying the scholarly consensus which Scalia takes to mean there is no consensus. “Just like with evolution and climate change,” as Cohen puts it. I guess there are folks scientists who still think the earth is flat or that gravity isn’t really real either.
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...
You may have heard the story about the NFL lineman, JohnMoffitt, who recently up and quit the game just months away from locking in the guaranteed pension and benefits that comes with being in the league for three years. The New York Times story attributes Moffitt’s stunning decision to concerns about his health and well being, as well as his off-season reading of the Dalai Lama and Noam Chomsky. According to the Times, these intellectuals helped Moffitt conclude that “he was a pawn in a machine that controlled his life and that he no longer wanted to meet the expectations attached to that life.” But the report also also mentions that the “free spirited” Moffitt was a sociology major at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Do you think his sociological studies influenced his thinking and decision in any way? Seems like something that inquiring and aspiring sociologists might want to know.
Perhaps envisioning Chris Uggen as a Sociological Spiderman last week got me going, but over the past few days, I have found myself thinking about all kinds of super-hero analogies and metaphors for sociologists and the sociological enterprise. The one that has stuck with me is the idea of sociologists as “Society’s Super Egos.” more...
A few months ago, one of our bloggers, the “backstage sociologist” Monte Bute offered up a post that referenced political theorist Isaiah Berlin’s famous distinction between foxes and hedgehogs. In the world of ideas, according to Berlin (borrowing from ancient Greek poet Archilochus), there are those who know many, many things (foxes), and those who know one big thing (hedgehogs). Berlin’s categories have been widely referenced in both the social sciences and the humanities to identify styles of thought, the contributions of various scholars, and lines of research and writing. In reflecting on Berlin’s categories back in the long, lazy days of summer, Chris and I had a little fun putting our favorite sociologists and works in one box or the other. And as we played with the categories and thought about sociology as a discipline, we began to realize anew—much as I think Berlin meant to suggest (this appeared in an essay about Tolstoy)—that real insight and understanding in any field requires both foxes and hedgehogs. more...
For the next couple of Roundups, I’d like to welcome TSP’s graduate editor Hollie Nyseth Brehm. She’ll be covering for me as I head off on a 3-hour cruise. Actually, there’s no cruise. But I do expect to find myself washed up on a beach for a stretch, so I won’t be rounding up the site until… October 11th? Craziness. For now, one last hurrah before heading for the airport (yet again). 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...
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...
Addendum to my post last week criticizing Scalia’s characterization of the state of sociological research on the question of the impact of gay and lesbian parents on child development:
Phil Cohen (and others, in both public comments and private communications) point out that Scalia didn’t just miss the ASA brief or make up his claim that there is “no clear answer” among sociologists on the matter. Rather, it would appear that he got the line from reading another brief on parenting submitted by sociologist Mark Regenerus and his colleagues that explicitly and directly countered the organizational consensus account. (See Cohen’s account.)
So is Scalia off the hook? Not quite that easy. For one thing, Regenerus’s brief is based on a highly controversial paper published in the journal Social Science Research about a year ago. (To say that that study has been controversial is putting it mildly; just take a look at some of the reactions chronicled previously by Cohen). Setting aside the question of how this piece got published in the first place (a significant matter of speculation and consternation in the field), one wonders if Scalia read the paper, or subsequent commentary about it—much less really parsed through the research on both sides of the issue. And even if some of the findings hold more water than most sociologists will allow, there seems little ground to warrant the larger societal implications that Regenerus imputes.
I won’t get into the specifics further, except to paraphrase Cohen’s summary: So what we have here is one sociologist (or one sociologist and his collaborators) denying the scholarly consensus which Scalia takes to mean there is no consensus. “Just like with evolution and climate change,” as Cohen puts it. I guess there are folks scientists who still think the earth is flat or that gravity isn’t really real either.