Locating Zombies in the Sociology of Popular Culture

In this essay, focusing primarily on the cinema of the walking corpse, I provide an overview of zombie studies and suggest potential avenues for sociological inquiry into zombie phenomena. I argue that zombie films, comic books, novels, video games, and the like can be seen as significant cultural objects that reflect and reveal the cultural and material circumstances of their creation. Despite emanating from complex culture‐producing institutions and (arguably) capturing extant social anxieties, sociology has remained quiet on zombie phenomena. Issues of significance, history, and definition are discussed. I then locate three avenues of inquiry ideally suited to the sociological toolkit: symptomatic analysis of content, production, and audience response and interaction. I conclude by calling for a multipronged sociological analysis into “zombie culture.”     

Ontology and Method in Cognitive Sociology

The sociology of cognition could serve as a more effective bridge between sociology and other disciplines, and more of a two‐way thoroughfare, if we would consider doing the following two things, which we are already doing here and there. First, we need to take a stand in philosophy of social science debates. Second, we need to show how what we do contributes to sociological methods, and not only say that what we do contributes to sociological theory, however fundamental that contribution may be.     

Expanding Systems Thinking: Incorporating Tools from Medical Sociology into MFT Education and Research

The field of marriage and family therapy has historically focused on dynamics within family systems, and at times the role of social and cultural factors external to the family. To date, however, little scholarship has examined how therapists themselves are embedded within a mental healthcare system. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how structural components of the mental healthcare system shape the practice of therapy. We draw from the field of medical sociology to illustrate how three dominant structures—managed care, diagnosis, and evidence‐based models—are intertwining and mutually reinforcing systems that have significant and long‐term implications for systemic therapists and researchers. We recommend incorporating a sociological understanding of such structures into MFT education and research.     

Between sociology and theology: the spirit of capitalism debate

This paper revisits the debate on the Spirit of Capitalism in order to show how this well-known sociological theme might be revitalised through an encounter with themes from theology. The paper seeks to offer some of the resources by which it might be possible to think about the 'moral texture' of the German tradition of sociology. In so doing, it seeks to compare and contrast the general theme of the Spirit of Capitalism in the work of the Protestant theologian Paul Tillich with debates raised in the neo-Kantian sociology of Georg Simmel and Max Weber. Tillich's discussion of the Spirit of Capitalism is discussed in detail and it is used as the basis for some concluding speculations about the relationship between the disciplines of sociology and theology.     

Toward a political sociology of privatized punishment: Contestation,state structures,and stratification

Privatized punishment—in which nonstate actors carry out state-mandated criminal punishments—has developed into a common practice since its rise in the 1980s. Many disciplines, including criminology, political science, public administration, and economics, have examined its use over the past four decades. However, privatized punishment has not garnered much attention in sociology. This is surprising, as privatized punishment touches on the key themes in sociology, and in the political sociology in particular. In this paper, we attempt to insert privatized punishment into classic and contemporary discussions in political sociology. Below, we offer an overview of privatized punishment and provide a high-level review of how other social scientific disciplines have studied the phenomenon. Then we argue that political sociology provides a useful, if underutilized, lens for studying privatized punishment. In particular, we highlight three political sociological themes—contestation, state structures, and stratification—that can be fruitfully applied to the study of privatized punishment, and we sketch multiple lines of future research informed by these themes.     

Sociological Understandings of Conduct for a Noncanonical Activity Theory: Exploring Intersections and Complementarities

Following a discussion of activity theory as an approach to human development originally rooted in transformational change, we review the historical context and diverse conceptualizations of social conduct from the field of sociology. The discussion of social conduct is broken into theories of social action, theories of enactment, and contemporary sociological attempts at critical integration of the two across local and extralocal social processes. We conclude with an assessment of these sociological contributions in relation to what we term the threefold dialectic of material production, local and extralocal dimensions of intersubjective exchanges, and subjectivity that is fundamental to noncanonical understandings of activity theory.     

Clinical Sociology in Service Learning

Experiences in teaching internship courses illustrate some of the advantages of teaching sociological practice through community service. For example, a course requirement to spend 9 hours of each week of a semester in an advocacy group provides a richer variety of opportunities for students to learn about themselves, society, sociological theory, and research methodologies than is possible in conventional lecture–discussion classes. Furthermore, becoming participants in sociological interventions heightens students' awareness of related ethical concerns, as well as of the complexity of social problems, and of how to define viable individual and collective solutions.     

Intimacy,home, and emotions in the era of the pandemic

While much of the sociological scholarship on intimacy has been understood in the normative sense of foregrounding and supporting human closeness, this article points to the role intimacy has as a sociological concept to better understand regulatory ties between the subject and the institution. While subject and institution are treated by modernity as distinct entities, separated by the boundary between private and the public, the article elucidates their mutual engagements by reviewing the work on intimacy in the sociology of emotions. Discussing the scholarship on intimacy from this perspective enables us to understand private suffering as a social problem linked to the collective recognition of subjective feelings. To illustrate the point, the article briefly reflects the public discourse on home upended by world-wide stay-at-home orders to contain the spread of coronavirus disease 2019. While this article neither analyzes these orders, nor judges their legitimacy, it takes the particular situation as a chance to review the sociological discussion on the emotional boundaries of home, foregrounding the concept of intimacy. Intimacy is presented as a key sociological category for understanding collective recognition of people's emotions, which impacts the way emotions are seen as relevant and legitimate in public discussions of social problems.     

Sociological social work: a cartoon

I trace an account of social work—and sociology—that I believe holds a promise for re-forming the relationship between the two. I develop the argument in two ways. First, taking 1920s Chicago as a case study, I will attempt ‘a history of the present’ to suggest how the relationship between sociology and social work came to be as it is. I will suggest that the practice of some (both familiar and forgotten) people in 1920s and 1930s sociology and social work is best explained as a form of ‘sociological social work’. Second, after tracking this genealogy, I suggest an agenda for sociological social work that consists of straining to enact certain kinds of inter-disciplinary relationships, developing methodological social work practice, hearing occasional sociological frontier conversations and shared theorising. I illustrate how these arguments challenge both sociology and social work and both theory and practice.     

Bourdieu and the Sociology of Music Consumption: A Critical Assessment of Recent Developments

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has been an extraordinarily influential figure in the sociology of music. For over three decades, his concepts have helped to generate both empirical and theoretical interventions in the field of study. His impact on the sociology of music taste, in particular, has been profound, his ideas directly informing our understandings of how musical preferences reflect and reproduce inequalities between social classes. But, recently his legacy has been under question and newer approaches to the music/society problematic have emerged. These have made important claims about the nature of the sociological enterprise when confronted with the specificity of cultural works, as well as how social change impacts on our relations with musical forms. This paper takes stock of the impact of Bourdieu’s ideas on the sociology of music, the debates sparked in their wake and the attempt at something like a “post‐Bourdieusian” sociology more faithful to music’s material properties. It will ask to what extent Bourdieu’s claims about social stratification and music consumption are still relevant and whether they are sophisticated enough to deal with the specific ways that we interact with musical forms.     

Mapping Gender and Migration in Sociological Scholarship: Is It Segregation or Integration?

A review of the sociological research about gender and migration shows the substantial ways in which gender fundamentally organizes the social relations and structures influencing the causes and consequences of migration. Yet, although a significant sociological research has emerged on gender and migration in the last three decades, studies are not evenly distributed across the discipline. In this article, we map the recent intellectual history of gender and migration in the field of sociology and then systematically assess the extent to which studies on engendering migration have appeared in four widely read journals of sociology (American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Demography, and Social Forces). We follow with a discussion of these studies, and in our conclusions, we consider how future gender and migration scholarship in sociology might evolve more equitably.     

Immigrants,Immigration, and Sociology: Reflecting on the State of the Discipline*

The growth of the field of immigration in multiple directions and across disciplines and areas presents an opportune juncture to pause and reflect on the central role sociology has played in the study of immigrants and immigration, as well as to assess the contributions that immigration research has made to sociology. This essay discusses three subfields in sociology in which the sociological study of immigrants has contributed to bring new light to long‐standing questions: family, religion, and ethnic and racial studies. At the same time, it brings up areas – culture and arts, social movements and civic engagement, and citizenship, belonging and the state – in which immigration scholars in sociology could establish a more vibrant intellectual dialog with those subfields. Far from exhausting the discussion, these comments are intended to offer potential avenues for further research and discussion.     

Toward a Buddhist Sociology: Theories,Methods, and Possibilities

This article explores potential links between Buddhism and sociology, highlighting the many commonalities between sociology and Buddhism, with an emphasis on ways that Buddhist thought and practice may contribute to the field of sociology. What could Buddhism offer to our understanding of social institutions, social problems, and to the dynamics and possibilities for social change? The Four Noble Truths, central to Buddhist teachings, are explored in reference to their sociological theory applications. Finally, mindfulness practices that are endemic to Buddhism are explored as tools for sociologists to consider as they work reflexively, develop sociological insights, and pursue social justice.     

Moving beyond familism: Potential contributions of gerontological theory to studies of Chicano/Latino aging

Research on Chicano and Latino elders assumes that most Chicano/Latino elderly are primarily active within a family context. Familism is the most common feature of Chicano/Latino families that is used to explain the status of the elderly, how they cope with aging, and how gender dynamics among the elderly are constructed. Predictions about the future of the supportive nature of family for the elderly vary depending on how familism is conceptualized. This focus on familism is shown to be a limiting approach to Chicano/Latino aging. We illustrate how an explicit grounding in different gerontological theories directs the study of Chicano/Latino aging to include broader sociological issues. We also suggest reconceptualizing familism so that the existence of familism has theoretical as well as empirical importance. Placing research on Chicano/Latino aging into a broader sociological framework would move research away from a sociology in aging to a sociology of aging.     

Anticolonial thought,the sociological imagination,and social science: A reply to critics

Sociology was born in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a project in, of, and for empire. This essay excavates a tradition of social thought that grew alongside metropolitan sociology but has been marginalized by it: anticolonial thought. Emerging from anticolonial movements, writers and thinkers, anticolonial thought in 19th and 20th centuries emerged from a variety of thinkers (from indigenous activists in the Americas to educated elites in the American, Francophone and British colonies). I argue that this body of thought offers distinct visions of society, social relations, and social structure, along with generative analytic approaches to the social self, social solidarity and global relations—among other themes. Anticolonial thought offers the basis for an alternative canon and corpus of sociological thinking to which we might turn as we seek to revitalize and decolonize sociology.     

Patches of grief and rage: Visitor responses to the NAMES project AIDS Memorial Quilt

This paper presents an analysis of comments written on signature square panels of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt. In our paper we explore how collective memory regarding AIDS deaths emerges from conflict among members of vernacular, mainstream and official culture. The cultural contest waged over how individuals who have died from AIDS-related illnesses will be remembered in society fits within the realm of the sociology of collective memory. Visitor responses to the Quilt illustrate that as a form of commemoration the Quilt is interpreted as a therapeutic device and a political tool. Like other memorials, especially those for which there is social disdain or conflict (e.g., the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial), signature square comments provide an alternative conception of public memory. The fact that the Quilt is used to symbolically commemorate the dead, providing an outlet for collective grieving and inspiring social action, is what makes it an important sociological phenomenon. In our paper we put forward a conception of the politics of collective memory that extends previous work in this area. In doing so this paper contributes to an emerging understanding of public commemoration and to the debate over how different segments of society are to be remembered.     

Towards design sociology

In this review essay, I introduce and map the field of what I call “design sociology”. I argue that design research methods have relevance to a wide range of sociological research interests, and particularly for applied research that seeks to understand people's engagements with objects, systems and services, better engage publics and other stakeholders, work towards social change, and identify and intervene in futures. I discuss 3 main ways in which design sociology can be conducted: the sociology of design, sociology through design and sociology with design. I explain key terms in design and dominant approaches in social design research—participatory, critical, adversarial, speculative, and ludic design. Examples of how sociologists have already engaged with design research methods are outlined. The essay concludes with suggestions about what the future directions of design sociology might be.     

The musical composition of social reality? Music,action and reflexivity1

Developments in the sociology of music during the 1980s have brought the sub-field more firmly in to the center of sociological concerns, The ‘worlds’ concept, and the concern with music and social status have helped to ground and specify links between music and society. Meanwhile however, questions concerning music's social content have been sidelined. This paper explores music as an active ingredient in the constitution of lived experience. As with other cultural/technical forms, music provides a resource for the articulation of thought and activity. Bodily conduct and movement, the experience of time, and social character within opera are used to illustrate this point. Recent developments in feminist music analysis have been suggestive for the ways in which music metaphorizes social processes and categories of being. These developments can enrich the sociology of music. However, as with all attempts to ‘read’ music's social content, they should be conceived as claims made by analysts who are themselves engaged in social projects. Analytical readings of music have no a priori claim of privilege. A constructivist sociology of music should therefore be devoted to the question of how specific music users forge links between musical significance and social life. A sociology of the construction and deployment of musical realities is capable of avoiding the naive positivism otherwise implicit in attempts to ‘read’ music's social content.     

David R. Maines: Embedding Symbolic Interactionism at the Heart of Sociology

David R. Maines was a key founder of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, and a champion of symbolic interactionist sociology. Maines fought against characterizations of symbolic interactionism as astructural and “subjectivist.” He was adamant that symbolic interactionism offered vital perspectives on the study of social structure and organization, and that it was compatible with a variety of research methods. He played a vital role in developing narrative sociology and bringing narrative scholarship from communication studies to sociological audiences. In this retrospective on his life and career, I detail what Maines saw as the five central features of symbolic interactionism: (1) interpretation and meaning, (2) communication, (3) temporality and process, (4) agency, and (5) dialectical thinking. I then examine four interrelated themes of Maines' sociological contributions: (1) temporality, (2) debunking myths about interactionism, (3) mesostructure, and (4) narrative sociology. A video abstract is available at https://youtu.be/YodjvXbo51Q .