culture

This episode we talk with Natan Sznaider about the Holocaust, memory, and human rights. He is the author of Jewish Memory and the Cosmopolitan Order and The Compassionate Temperament. We discuss his work on the relationship between modernity, capitalism, and the development compassion.

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This episode we talk with Colin Jerolmack about his new book, The Global Pigeon. We discuss the social meaning attached to animals, how nature shapes our lives, efforts to control the wild, and the professionalization of pigeon racing.

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This episode we talk with Jessica Holden Sherwood about her book, Wealth, Whiteness, and the Matrix of Privilege: The View from the Country Club. We learn about how country clubs work, the various mechanisms of exclusion utilized by members, and how this relates to larger discourses of privilege.

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This episode we talk with Shai Dromi about his recent article, Penny for your Thoughts: Beggars and the Exercise of Morality in Daily Life. Dromi argues that past studies of the city have mischaracterized interactions between people passing by and people asking for money due to the focus on risk, fear, and crime. Instead, for many people in Shai’s study, homeless people’s requests for money provided a dimension of moral reflection to the urban landscape.

Download Office Hours #68

In this episode, we have a conversation with William Alexander. He is slightly different type of social theorist than we normally have on the podcast. Will teaches in the English Department at the Minnesota College of Arts and Design and last November he won the prestigious national book award for his first novel Goblin Secrets and the Earphones Award for narrating his book. Today Will is joining us to discuss the powers and politics of fantasy, and the relationship between fiction and the social world.

Download Office Hours #67

This week we talk with Gabriella Coleman about her current research on Anonymous and her recently published book, Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking, which you can download for free under a Creative Commons license. We discuss the rise of Anonymous, how to research a web-based collective whose members hide their identity, the art of “trolling”, and the political significance of the group.

The Society Pages’ Community Page Cyborgology has also written a review of Coding Freedom, which can be read here.

Download Office Hours #65

This week we talk with Joshua I. Newman and Michael Giardina about their recent book [Sport, Spectacle, and NASCAR Nation: Consumption and the Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism]. Our conversation covers topics including the whiteness of stock car racing, religion and rebellion at the race track, and the production and consumption of Southern identity. We also discuss the value of researching NASCAR, sports, and other popular culture activities.

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This week we talk with Shehzad Nadeem, author of Dead Ringers: How Outsourcing is Changing the Way Indians Understand Themselves. We discuss what it’s like to work at a call center in India, what Indians think about outsourcing, and the social and cultural challenges faced by both labor and management in outsourcing firms.

Download Office Hours #61.

In this episode we talk with Michael Schudson, author of The Sociology of News, recently released in its second edition. Schudson is the author of seven books and co-editor of three others concerning the history and sociology of the American news media, advertising, popular culture, Watergate and cultural memory. We discuss the changing nature of journalism, the effect of emerging technology on traditional news practices, and his new research on transparency as American value and policy.

Download Office Hours #60.

This episode we talk with Jay Gabler, sociologist, journalist, and creator of the play, Ivory Tower Burning. The play imagines a meeting between Talcott Parsons and C. Wright Mills where an intense debate about social theory and human nature ensues. We discuss bringing sociology to the theater and the role of sociology in the broader culture.

You can watch a preview clip on YouTube and see the entire play live August 4-11 at the Minnesota Fringe festival.

Download Office Hours #58