Colloquia

  Summoned: Identification and Religious Life in a Jewish Neighborhood Based on ethnographic fieldwork, Summoned presents an account of the fabric of everyday life in an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood, and an attempt to think through the relationship among actors' identifications, the crystallization of their social worlds, and the micro-patterning of social interaction. I trace the ways in which both entrenched institutions and fleeting moments of interaction on the streets of LA's Melrose-La Brea neighborhood solidify actors' identifications and social worlds. Through this case, I argue that focusing on the rhythms and expectations of interaction allow sociologists to tie interactional analyses to wider social patterns and cut through some of the debate between theorizations of identity and identification.

 

  February 22, 2-3:30pm in 420 Barrows Hall Combinatorial Politics:  Civic Benevolence and the Making of the American Nation-State

  Monday, February 8, 2-3:30pm in 402 Barrows Hall Culling the Masses: The Democratic Origins of Racist Immigration Policy in the Americas Professor Fizgerald will present his recently co-authored (with David Cook-Martín) book. Culling the Masses (Harvard University Press 2014) questions the widely held view that in the long run democracy and racism cannot coexist. The authors show that democracies were the first countries in the Americas to select immigrants by race, and undemocratic states the first to outlaw discrimination. Through analysis of legal records from twenty-two countries between 1790 and 2010, the authors present a history of the rise and fall of racial selection in the Western Hemisphere.Biography:

  Survey research in the digital age: The past, present, and very bright future The digital age has transformed how researchers are able to study social behavior.  Contrary to claims about the demise of the survey, in this talk, I will argue that the digital age actually increases the value of surveys.  I will use the traditional total survey error framework to organize the landscape, and then I’ll highlight three broad areas for development: changes in who we ask, changes in how we ask, and changes in how we link surveys to other sources of data.  The talk will conclude with some predictions for the future.  This talk represents one chapter from a book I’m currently writing about social research in the digital age.

  Monday, December 7, 2-3:30pm in 402 Barrows

  Monday, Nov 30, 2-3:30pm in Barrows 402 The Social Foundations of Positivism: The Case of Late Nineteenth Century Italy

  Akos Rona-Tas, Monday, November 23, 2-3:30pm in Barrows 402 Knowing What We Don’t: Food Risk Analysis in the United States and the European Union

  Monday, Nov 16, 2-3:30pm in 402 Barrows Hall   Elements for a social inquiry into capitalization

  November 9, 2015, 2:00-3:00pm Barrows, 402 Strange Bedfellows: Informal Relationships and Political Preference Formation Within Boardinghouses, 1825-1841