sociology

#454 Edward Westermann - Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany

Apr 9, 2021

Dr. Edward Westermann is Professor of History at Texas A&M University (USA), where he teaches courses related to Modern and Contemporary European History. Dr. Westermann is the recipient of various awards and fellowships. In 2016, Southern Methodist University awarded him with the Clements Center-DeGolyer Library Research Grant (USA). He has also been a Fulbright fellow at the Free University of Berlin in 1995 and a German Academic Exchange Service fellow on three occasions (Germany). His most recent book is Drunk on Genocide: Alcohol and Mass Murder in Nazi Germany. More»
#452 Christopher Bail - Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing

Apr 5, 2021

Dr. Christopher Bail is Professor of Sociology, Public Policy, and Data Science at Duke University, where he directs the Polarization Lab. A leader in the emerging field of computational social science, Dr. Bail’s research examines fundamental questions of social psychology, extremism, and political polarization using social media data, bots, and the latest advances in machine learning. Dr. Bail is the recipient of Guggenheim and Carnegie Fellowships. His research appears in top journals, such as Science, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Sociological Review. His book, Terrified: How Anti-Muslim Fringe Organizations Became Mainstream, received three awards and resulted in an invitation to address the 2016 Democratic National Convention. He is the author of the recent book, Breaking the Social Media Prism: How to Make Our Platforms Less Polarizing. More»
#449 Adaner Usmani: Mass Incarceration, Black Subordination, and Modern Democracies

Mar 29, 2021

Dr. Adaner Usmani is Assistant Professor of Sociology and Social Studies at Harvard University. His research is driven by two questions: Why do some people flourish while others suffer? And, what explains why, in some places but not others, movements or policies emerge to challenge or moderate this inequality? In one project, he explores when and why ordinary individuals manage to coordinate collective action, and how well these patterns explain the forward march of democracy and the extent of economic redistribution. More»
#448 Touré Reed - Toward Freedom: The Case Against Race Reductionism

Mar 26, 2021

Dr. Touré Reed is a professor in the History department at Illinois State University. Dr. Reed earned his BA in American Studies from Hampshire College (Amherst, MA), and his PhD in History from Columbia University (New York, NY). Dr. Reed's research interests center on race, class, and inequality. He’s the author of Toward Freedom: The Case Against Race Reductionism. More»
#439 Eric Kaufmann - Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities

Mar 5, 2021

Dr. Eric Kaufmann is Professor of Politics at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK. He is principally interested in cultural politics: ethnicity, national identity and religion. He’s the author of Whiteshift: Populism, Immigration, and the Future of White Majorities. More»
#437 Allan Horwitz: What's Normal? Reconciling Biology and Culture

Mar 1, 2021

Dr. Allan Horwitz is Board of Governors Professor in the Department of Sociology and Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research at Rutgers University. He has also chaired the Mental Health and Medical Sociology Sections of the American Sociological Association, as well as the Psychiatric Sociology Section of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. His research has focused on the sociology of mental health and illness. In 2006, he received the Leonard I. Pearlin Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Sociological Study of Mental Health from the American Sociological Association's Section on Sociology of Mental Health. In addition, he has published several books including What’s Normal? Reconciling Biology and Culture (Oxford University Press, 2016). More»
#428 Stanley Fish - There's No Such Thing as Free Speech

Feb 8, 2021

Dr. Stanley Fish is Professor of Law at Florida International University and Visiting Professor of Law at Cardoso Law School. In addition to being one of the country’s leading public intellectuals, Professor Fish is an extraordinarily prolific author whose works include He has authored over 200 scholarly publications and books. While his research covers a variety of fields, Professor Dr. Fish has written for many of the country’s leading law journals. including Stanford Law Review, Duke Law Journal, Yale Law Journal, University of Chicago Law Review, Columbia Law Review, and Texas Law Review. His books include Is there a Text in This Class? Interpretive Communities and the Sources of Authority (1980); There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It’s a Good Thing, Too (1994); Professional Correctness: Literary Studies and Political Change (1995); The Trouble with Principle (1999); How Milton Works (2001); and The First: How to Think About Hate Speech, Campus Speech, Religious Speech, Fake News, Post-Truth, and Donald Trump (2019). More»
#268 Stephen Sanderson: Gender Roles, Marriage, And Parenthood Across Societies

Dec 13, 2019

Dr. Stephen K. Sanderson is an American sociologist. He was a professor of sociology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Since 2007 he has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on World-Systems at the University of California, Riverside. His areas of focus include comparative sociology, historical sociology, sociological theory and sociocultural evolution. He is a specialist in sociological theory and comparative and historical sociology and is one of the leading sociologists to develop a Darwinian understanding of human society. He has written or edited ten books, including “The Evolution of Human Sociality: A Darwinian Conflict Perspective”, “Evolutionism and Its Critics”, “Human Nature and the Evolution of Society”, and “Religious Evolution and the Axial Age”. More»
#198 Stephen Sanderson: Sociology, Darwinian Conflict Theory, And Religion

Jul 4, 2019

Dr. Stephen K. Sanderson is an American sociologist. He was a professor of sociology at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Since 2007 he has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Research on World-Systems at the University of California, Riverside. His areas of focus include comparative sociology, historical sociology, sociological theory and sociocultural evolution. He is a specialist in sociological theory and comparative and historical sociology and is one of the leading sociologists to develop a Darwinian understanding of human society. He has written or edited ten books, including “The Evolution of Human Sociality: A Darwinian Conflict Perspective”, “Evolutionism and Its Critics”, “Human Nature and the Evolution of Society”, and “Religious Evolution and the Axial Age”. More»
#90 Jason Manning: Sociology of Suicide and Terrorism

Oct 25, 2018

Dr. Jason Manning is an Associate Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University. He’s a theoretical sociologist who seeks to develop general explanations of human behavior, his work focuses primarily on conflict and social control, including various means of expressing grievances, handling disputes, and punishing offenses. Within this area he specializes in violent conflict, particularly in self-destructive forms of violence such as protest suicide, homicide-suicide, and suicide terrorism. His other interests include the sociology of science, sociology of religion, and neoDarwinian theories of culture. More»