Colloquia

Trumpism before Trump: Traditional Party Breakdown in the American Rust Belt The talk draws on an ethnographic community study of two Rust Belt communities to show how broader shifting in American political economy undermined the social institutions that once anchored the two party system. Drawing on observation of the two parties and interviews with citizens, I show how this created opportunities and incentives for new kinds of party activists and candidates, notably those employing a reactionary and nativist appeals long before the 2016 Election.

  Marion Fourcade, Monday, March 18 in 402 Barrows Hall The type and the grade: On the institutional scaffolding of the judgment of taste We tend to evaluate objects and people around us in two main ways: as types (i.e., having a particular quality) or as grades (i.e., being more or less). In this presentation, I explore these two modes of judgment by diving into the world of wine. I contrast the history of wine classification in Napa Valley (United States) and Burgundy (France), to analyze the historical conditions under which imaginaries of type and imaginaries of grade developed, how these imaginaries were stabilized through specific institutions and instruments, how they shaped wine-making practices, and how they continue to inform subjective perceptions --in this case the "taste" of wine.

Pedagogy Colloquium: Wed., March 13th (4-5, 420 Barrows) for a discussion on exams, grading and evaluating students

  Ruth Milkman, Monday, March 11, 2-3:30pm in Barrows 402 De-unionization, Labor Degradation and the Immigrant Threat Narrative”

 

  Taking the Longer Route: Tryouts and the Search Behavior of Structurally Disadvantaged Job–Seeker

  Demographic Threat and Whites' Racial Classification of Latinos How do members of dominant groups, like US Whites, react when their privileged social status is threatened, for example, by the prospect of numeric decline? Prior studies identify two sets of reactions: (1) Whites identify more strongly with ingroup members, and (2) they withhold material and symbolic resources from outgroup members. Boundary-making scholars raise another possibility: Whites may alter the boundary around Whiteness by redefining the criteria for membership. The present study uses an original survey experiment to examine how demographic threat affects US Whites’ classification of racially ambiguous Latinos. The results reveal that Whites are less—not more—likely to classify people who are ambiguously White or Latino as “White” under threat. The results contribute to a growing literature on the racial classification of multiracial and racially ambiguous people that has previously ignored ambiguity around the Latino category; they also intervene in an active debate about demographic projections and the classification decisions on which they rely.

  Deciding to Kill or Defecting to Save? Individual, Relational, and Organizational Processes

Feb. 13th: SPECIAL COLLOQUIUM! WORKSHOP ON DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION IN THE CLASSROOM presented by Sociology Graduate Student Michel Estefan.  3:30-5 pm, 420 Barrows

  Co-sponsored by SOCA Immigrants and the Law: Crafting Moral Selves in the Face of Immigration Control US immigration laws criminalize unauthorized immigrants and render many of immigrants’ daily activities “illegal.” How does this affect immigrants’ attitudes and practices toward the law? Drawing on interviews with unauthorized Mexican immigrants in Philadelphia, this study examines how respondents resolve problems of law in their everyday lives. I show how time spent in the United States transforms migrants’ legal attitudes from one of “getting around the law” to one of “doing things the right way.” I highlight the implications of this legal transformation for the moral economy of immigration policy, for immigrant claims-making, and for Latino immigrants’ place in the racial hierarchy.