The Department of Sociology at Yale University provides concentrations in the fields of Comparative and Historical Sociology (CCR), Cultural Sociology and Social Theory (CCS), and Social Stratification and Life Course Research (CIQLE). In addition our faculty publish and teach in the areas of Gender and Sexuality, Political Sociology, Sociology of Religion, Economic Sociology, Urban Sociology and Ethnography, and Chinese Society.
Department News
New Book Publication by Ron Eyerman: The Assassination of Theo van Gogh: From Social Drama to Cultural Trauma
August 12, 2008 In November 2004, the controversial Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was killed on a busy street in Amsterdam. A twenty-six-year-old Dutch citizen of Moroccan descent shot van Gogh, slit his throat, and pinned a five-page indictment of Western society to his body. The murder set off a series of reactions, including arson against Muslim schools and mosques. In The Assassination of Theo van Gogh, Ron Eyerman explores the multiple meanings of the murder and the different reactions it elicited: among the Amsterdam-based artistic and intellectual subculture, the wider Dutch public, the local and international Muslim communities, the radical Islamic movement, and the broader international community. After meticulously analyzing the actions and reputations of van Gogh and others in his milieu, the motives of the murderer, and the details of the assassination itself, Eyerman considers the various narrative frames the mass media used to characterize the killing. For more details, or to order, visit the publisher link: Duke University Press.
Rene Almeling Wins the Roberta G. Simmons Outstanding Dissertation Award
July 17, 2008 Rene Almeling has won the ASA Medical Sociology Section’s Roberta G. Simmons Outstanding Dissertation Award. The award will be presented on Monday afternoon, August 4th, at the ASA Annual Meeting in Boston. Congratulations to Rene!
Scott Boorman Receives the James Coleman Distinguished Career Award
July 7, 2008 Congratulations to Scott Boorman who receieved The Distinguished Career Award of the Mathematical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. The award recognizes a lifetime of contributions to the field of Mathematical Sociology. Scott will be honored at this year's ASA Annual Meeting in Boston this August.
Department of Sociology Plans Two Tenure Track Appointments
May 21, 2008 The Department of Sociology at Yale intends to make two tenure track Assistant Professor appointments beginning July 1, 2009. The Department has a preference for applications in urban, race, ethnic and migration studies, social networks, development and transnational processes, but will consider applications in all areas of the discipline. The Ph.D. is expected. Yale is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer. Yale values diversity among its faculty, staff, and students and especially encourages applications from women and underrepresented minorities. Letters of application with a current vitae, summary of thesis, one page summary of current research interests, a brief sample of writings, and letters from three referees should be sent to the Chair of the Search Committee, Professor Richard Breen, Department of Sociology, Yale University, P.O. Box 208265, New Haven, CT 06520-8265. Review of applications will begin September 15, 2008.
Jeffrey Alexander Receives Mary Douglas Prize
May 9, 2008 The Mary Douglas Best Book Prize Committee has chosen The Civil Sphere as the co-winner of the 2008 ASA Culture Section book award. In a most competitive year, the committee received nearly 40 submissions. Congratulations to Jeff!
Lineages of Patrimonial Politics, Then and Now · May 9-10, 2008
May 8, 2008 This interdisciplinary conference, organized by Julia Adams (Yale) and Mounira Maya Charrad (University of Texas-Austin) under the auspices of the Center for Comparative Research, explores the intersections between states and family/household/kin networks across the globe. Participating scholars hail from the fields of sociology, history, political science, anthropology, and global studies. The countries and regions examined include South Korea, Taiwan, Western Europe, Malaysia, Africa, Singapore, the Philippines, Australia, and the United States. Area-specific inquiries complement others that are oriented toward general theory and/or consider agendas for future research. Visit the conference website: Lineages of Partimonial Politics, Then and Now, Center for Comparative Research, Yale University.
Laudatio on Iván Szelényi's 70th Birthday by Uli Mayer
April 28, 2008 Iván Szelényi turned 70 on April 17. I would to make a few very sketchy notes on Ivan’s scholarly work. Sketchy because it would take a symposium of several days to do justice to it and also because he has himself written beautiful and much too self-critical reviews of his major works.
I have titled this section “Irony and Testimony” or “How to be an Intellectual as a Sociologist?”. What is striking about Ivan’s amazing oeuvre spanning almost 40 fertile years is at first glance its scope and breadth in both topics and methodological styles. Among else, he has written about... (Read Uli's entire laudatio here: Screen Viewing | Download for Print)
Urban Poverty, Ethnography, and the City · April 26, 2008
April 16, 2008 As part of the 2008 Yale Urban Ethnography Conference, the Saturday afternoon sessions will focus on the cultural manifestations of urban inequality—and the challenge to clarify, understand, and represent these pressing issues ethnographically. Please join us for these open discussions and be a part of the ideas that can shape the future. For the full schedule, please visit the Urban Poverty, Ethnography, and the City web site. OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Download Poster.
2008 Urban Ethnography Conference: Urban Ethnography: Its Traditions and Its Future · April 24-26, 2008
April 2008 The Ethnography Workshop is aimed at developing a community of participant observers who are working in the traditions of DuBois, Park, Thomas, Blumer, Hughes, Drake and Cayton, Gans, Goffman, and Becker, among others. The two day workshop is designed to provide a forum that will bring fieldworkers of different generations together to share thoughts about the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. April 24-26. View the program and schedule on the 2008 Urban Ethnography Conference web site. REGISTRATION CLOSED FOR THIS EVENT. Download Poster.
Sarah Ireland Wins First Prize in ICPSR Competition
April 3, 2008 Sarah Ireland (Class of 2007) won the First Prize in the undergraduate paper competition of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) with her thesis on "Intergenerational Class Mobility by Race: Can the Black Middle Class Reproduce Itself?" Her prize-winning paper used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to demonstrate that black middle class families show higher levels of class persistence than middle class whites, and that the black middle class is actually growing over time, in marked contrast to the shrinking of the white middle class.
New Book Publication Edited by Elijah Anderson: Against the Wall: Poor, Young, Black, and Male
March 11, 2008 Against the Wall is a wide-ranging series of essays, edited by Elijah Anderson, that look at the plight and prospects of young black urban men. The essays describe how the anonymous young black male has come to be publicly identified with crime and violence because of skin color alone. Featuring a foreword by Cornel West and sixteen original essays by contributors including William Julius Wilson, Gerald D. Jaynes, Douglas S. Massey, and Peter Edelman, Against the Wall illustrates how social distance increases as alienation and marginalization within the black male underclass persists, thereby deepening the country's racial divide. For more details, visit the publisher link: Penn Press.
New Book Publication by Karl Ulrich Mayer & Heike Solka: Skill Formation: Interdisciplinary and Cross-National Perspectives
March 7, 2008 Skill Formation: Interdisciplinary and Cross-National Perspectives is the first book of its kind to provide an up-to-date review of theories and research on skill formation in psychology, economics, political science, and sociology. It addresses issues of skill learning and measurement, institutional and policy differences among countries, and the issue of skill formation across the life course and disparities among socioeconomic groups. For excerpts, table of contents and more details, visit the publisher link: Cambridge University Press.
Paul Cleary Joins Yale Sociology Faculty
March 5, 2008 Starting with the spring term, Paul Cleary will join the Faculty of the Sociology Department. Paul Cleary, who is also the Dean of the School of Public Health and C-E.A. Winslow Professor and Chair of Epidemiology and Public Health at the Yale University School of Medicine, received a secondary appointment in our Department. Dr. Cleary received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Wisconsin. His earliest work focused on studies of health behavior. He also studied the recognition and management of conditions such as mental illness, alcohol abuse and functional impairment in primary care settings. From 1982 to 2006, Cleary was a professor in the Department of Health and Social Behavior in the Harvard School of Public Health and in the Departments of Health Care Policy and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. For more than 20 years, Dr. Cleary has been actively involved in research focused on persons infected with HIV. His recent research also includes a study of how organizational characteristics affect the costs and quality of care for persons with AIDS; a national evaluation of a continuous quality improvement initiative in clinics providing care to HIV infected individuals; and a study of the long-term impact of patient-centered hospital care. Dr. Cleary is currently the chair of the National Advisory Committee for The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Awards in Health Policy Research Program. By this courtesy appointment we will strengthen our relationship with both the teaching and research programs of the School of Public Health and improve the mentoring of our graduate students working in the areas of health and medicine.
Rene Almeling Joins Yale Sociology Faculty
March 5, 2008 Rene Almeling has accepted our offer to join the Sociology Faculty as assistant professor. Rene Almeling received her B.A. in the Study of Women/Gender and Religious Studies at Rice University and is currently finishing her Ph.D. thesis at UCLA on the topic of “Selling Genes, Selling Gender: Egg Agencies, Sperm Banks and the Medical Market in Genetic Material.” She published early results of her study in the American Sociological Review (2007). Dr. Almeling will start her appointment in January 2010 after a Robert Wood Johnson Fellowship in Health Policy which she will spend at UC Berkeley. With this appointment, the Department will strengthen its programs in gender, economic sociology, ethnographic methods as well as in the sociology of health and medicine.
Isaac Reed Awarded the 2008 Marvin B. Sussman Dissertation Prize
February 28, 2008 The Sussman dissertation prize is awarded annually to the most outstanding dissertation completed in the sociology department at Yale. Isaac will give a talk on May 2nd at 4:00 PM in Room 107, Williams Hall. We will post the title of his talk as soon as it is available. Please reserve the date and check back to the Department News page soon.
Come Learn About the Sociology Major at Yale!
February 18, 2008 Not sure what to major in? Tired of looking over the same old parts of the Blue Book? Thinking about a career in education, law, public health, business, consulting or public service? Meet with professors and current majors to learn about why Sociology might be a good choice for you at the Undergraduate Sociology Study Break. Trumbull Fellows Lounge, February 20th, 5:00pm - 7:00pm. Tasty Indian food provided.
Two New Book Publications by Jeffrey Alexander: A Contemporary Introduction to Sociology: Culture and Society in Transition, The New Social Theory Reader
February 13, 2008 Jargon-free, A Contemporary Introduction to Sociology: reflects the idioms and interests of contemporary American life and global social issues. It invites students to come to terms with their lives within the current world transition—a combustible leap from modern to postmodern life. For more details, visit the publisher link: Paradigm Press . The New Social Theory Reader provides students and academics with access to the writers and perspectives that are shaping some of the most exciting social thinking today, with the editors placing key figures in lively debate with each other. This carefully selected collection of articles has been fine tuned to ensure readers have the right selection in the best structure to get to grips with the recent dramatic shift in the nature of social theory. For table of contents and further description, visit the publisher link: Routledge.
Jeffrey Alexander Awarded Honorary Doctorate
December 14, 2007 Jeffrey Alexander will be awarded an Honorary Doctorate from La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia on December 17, 2007. He will present a lecture on “My Universities.” On Tuesday, December 18, he will present the La Trobe Inaugural Agnes Heller Lecture, Sociology Program, “Feeling Consciousness and the Materiality of Meaning.” Jeffrey has a long association with La Trobe Sociology, with Thesis Eleven Journal and the Thesis Eleven Centre for Cultural Sociology.
