ASA Culture Sessions

Since "culture" has arguably become the central commonplace of sociology (and indeed of the social sciences and humanities more broadly), the sessions of the Culture Section at ASA 08 are designed to apply a "liberal arts" approach to its study.

I. Recovering Venerable Traditions in the Study of Culture (organizer: Andrew J. Perrin, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill).

Which scholarly traditions are most productively rediscovered or re-examined as contributions to the study of culture? What new relevance can be found in a Mannheim or a Rieff, a Mills or a Marcuse—or countless others?

Aura and Aesthetic Fields, Marshall Battani, Grand Valley
StateUniversity

Mills and the Comparative-Historical Study of Public Culture,
Andreas Koller, New York University

Recovering the Sociological Imagination: Critique and Judgment
in Cultural Sociology, Nancy Weiss Hanrahan, George Mason
Universitry; Sarah S. Amsler, Kingston University

Recovering Venerable Traditions--Finding Inspiration in
Tocqueville's Theory of Culture, Heinz-Dieter Meyer, SUNY Albany

II. New Lines of Inquiry into Culture (organizer: Chris Nippert-Eng, Illinois Institute of Technology)

Scholarly inventions transform the very traditions that guide them, both in their principles and methods of discovering problems and adducing evidence and warrant, and in their more fundamental perspectives. How is this new research extending and transforming old lines of inquiry?

From Omnivores to Electivores, Daniel Silver, University of Chicago; Jae-Mahn Shim, University of Chicago

Toward a Leisure Theory of Value: The Game of Bird-watching and
the Concern for Conservation in Great Britain, Stefan Bargheer,
University of Chicago

Family, Ethnic Group, Race, and Nation: On the Social
Organization of Genealogical Relatedness, Eviatar Zerubavel, Rutgers
University

Infighting and Ideology: How Conflict Informs the Local Culture of the Chicago Dyke March, Amin Ghaziani, Northwestern University; Gary
Alan Fine, Northwestern University

The Elements of Solitary Action, Ira J. Cohen, Rutgers University

Discussant: Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University

III. Issues of Evidence and Warrant in Analyzing Culture (organizer: Marion Fourcade. University of California-Berkeley)

The influence of an argument depends not only on the quality of its evidence, but also—what often remains only tacit—on the quality of the warrant which makes that evidence relevant to a set of claims and reasons. What principles of evidence and warrant are most salient—and most in need of articulation—in the analysis of culture?

Conditions for Progressive Research Programs in 'Qualitative' Sociology, Justin H.G. Lee, University of California-Los Angeles

Cultural Geography, Wendy Griswold, Northwestern University; Nina Angelique Johnson, Northwestern University

The Display of Evidence in Art History : Attribution as an Impossible Science?, Jean-Louis Fabiani, Ecole des Hautes études en Sciences

Making Cultural Distinctions: A Qualitative Comparison of Flemish Omnivore and Traditional Art Participants, Alexander Vander Stichele & Rudi Laermans, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium

IV. Bringing into Dialogue Divergent Perspectives about Culture (organizer: Susan Silbey)

The deepest transformation of a discipline’s methods and principles comes from forcing divergent perspectives into a single dialogic frame. What work is dramatically expanding the principles and methods of studying culture, by bringing divergent perspectives into dialogue?

Patty Masters, George Mason, Something Old, Something New: Play Theories in Sociology

Joelle Evans, MIT, What Do They Want to Protect Themselves From? Creating Certainty through Safety Practices

Jeffrey Goldfarb, New School, Then and Now: Vaclav Havel, Hannah Arendt and Erving Goffman on Culture and Politics

Marianaa Caciun, Michigan, Immigrant Identity Formation as a Boundary-Drawing Cultural Process: The Case of Romanian Immigrants

These sessions represent, respectively, the classical arts of grammar, rhetoric, logic, and dialectic (or recovery, invention, presentation, and systematics, in more contemporary terms). Individually and collectively, they aim to encourage a reflexive expansion of the sociology of culture, based on a rethinking of its principles and methods.

They will complement an invited session co-sposored by the Culture Section and the Theory Section:

V. Invited Session on "Global Differences in Conceptualizing Culture", co-sponsored with the Theory Section (co-organizers Mark D. Jacobs, George Mason University, Paul Lichterman, University of Southern California, and Ann Mische, Rutgers University)

Presider:
Paul Lichterman, University of Southern California

Presenters:
Thomas Eberle, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland
Daniel Cefai, University of Paris X-Nanterre, France
Evelina Dagnino, University of Campinas, Brazil
Eiko Ikegami, New School University

Discussant:
Michele Lamont, Harvard University

This panel explores how academic conceptions of culture differ, intersect, and travel across diverse national and regional contexts.  "Culture" has arguably become one of the central conceptual terms in U.S. sociology over the past two decades. Yet, the concept remains ambiguous, and it doesn't always "translate" well into other national and regional sociological traditions.  We aim to begin a conversation with these questions in mind: What accounts for these difficulties in translation? How can U.S. sociologists communicate our culture concepts to counterparts from other parts of the world? How can concepts that originate outside of American sociological conversations inform and deepen cultural sociology in the US? Which concepts work well, for which kinds of questions, across national boundaries? How do the different intellectual traditions and national histories behind different sociologies inform their embrace or avoidance of culture concepts today?  What do the sociologies of different countries see, or highlight, or not see so well, as a result of their relations to culture concepts?

In addition to section sessions, there are three regular sessions devoted to the study of culture:

Regular Session, Cultural Sociology: Language, Memory, and National Transformation
Saturday, Aug. 2 - 10:30am - 12:10pm, Boston Marriott Copley Place

Session Organizer and Presider: Anne Kane (University of Houston-Downtown)
Session Discussant: Jeffrey Olick (University of Virginia) 

1. Public Memory, Cultural Trauma and Reconciliation. Anna Lisa Tota (University Rome III)

2. The Presence of Absence as an Analytical Tool for Comparative Analysis of Local Social Change Yifat Gutman (The New School for Social Research)

3. Communism is the Youth of the World: Generational Rhetoric and the Politics of Memory in Postsocialist RussiaOlga Shevchenko (Williams College)

4. Language Collaborations and Reviving Potawatomi National Identity. Christopher Wetzel (University of California-Los Angeles)

Regular Session, Cultural Sociology: Strangers No More: Place, Discourse, and Identity Formation.
Sunday, Aug. 3, 2:30pm - 4:10pm, Boston Marriott Copley Place

Organizer: Anne Kane (University of Houston-Downtown)
Presider: Bethany Bryson (James Madison University)
Discussant: Craig S. Watkins (University of Texas, Austin)

1. Power, Ethnography, and Culture: The Case of Burning Man. *Eric P. Magnuson (Loyola Marymount University)

2. Discourse and Practice in a World of Strangers. Jason Mast (Yale)

3. Making a Place for Hip-Hop: The Globalization of Culture and the Varieties of Elite Valorization. Andrew Cheyne (University of California-San Diego), Amy J. Binder (University of California, San Diego)

4. "People like Us Need People Like You:" Individualism and Communitarianism in the Debate over Wal-Mart. Rebekah Peeples Massengill (Princeton University)

Regular Session. Sociology of Culture: Religious Foundations of Discursive Practice and Collective Action.
Monday, Aug. 4, 10:30am - 12:10pm,  Hilton Boston Back Bay

Session Organizer: Anne Kane (University of Houston- Downtown) 
Presider: Mustafa Emirbayer (University of Wisconsin at Madison) 
Discussant: Anne Kane (University of Houston-Downtown) 

1. How to Stop a Witch Hunt and Change a Culture: Towards a Theory of
Discursive Transformation. Isaac A. Reed (University of Colorado-Boulder)

2. Inner Revolutions and Other True Stories: Culture, Belief and Narrative. Andrew Junker (Yale University)

3. How Boundary Work Forges Unity Across Race, Class, and Religion in
Congregation-Based Community Organizing. Heidi Jean Swarts (Rutgers
University-Newark)

4. Silence as Invented Tradition and Source of Religious Capital: The Case of Christian Meditation. Jonathan Marc Mermis-Cava (University of California Davis)

SECTION ON SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE REFEREED ROUNDTABLE.
Session Organizer: Diane Grams, Tulane University

TABLE 01. CULTURE AND FAMILY
"Reality Television and Contemporary Family Life: Make Over Television and the Question of Parenting"
    Margaret Tally,
'You're not Believable as a Grandmother': Professional Actors and Age-Gender Type-Casting
    Jane Poulsen, Queensborough Community College
Cultural Representations of Work-Family Balance in the News Media
    Colleen Greer, Bemidji State University; Debra Peterson, Bemidji State University
Freneticism and Scheduled Orchestration: The Work of Coordinating Bodies in Middle Class Family Life
    Edson Rodriguez, University of Southern California
Debra Peterson, dpeterson@bemidjistate.edu, Bemidji State University, Table Presider

TABLE 02: SUBCULTURES AND COUNTER CULTURES
'Crews' In The Hardcore Music Subculture
    Jeffrey Purchla, The New School For Social Research
The Alternative Music Scene, Underground Hip Hop and the Politics of “Protest Music”
    Tanya Saunders, University of Michigan
Toward Life after Subculture: Rethinking Youth Subculture Theories with the Narrative Accounts of ex-Straightedge Adherents
    Jason Torkelson, Rutgers University-New Brunswick
Cultural Sociology and Inequality: Subcultures and consumption
    Michael Jindra, Spring Arbor University
Jeffrey Purchla, purcj096@newschool.edu, The New School For Social Research, Table Presider

TABLE 03: MEMORY, NARRATIVE AND OTHERNESS
Conflicting Narratives: African Americans, Tuskegee and a Preventive HIV/AIDS Vaccine
    Jacob Heller, SUNY-Old Westbury
In Survivors’ Eyes: Germans or Nazis? Cohort-specific Memories of Universal Evil
    Joachim Savelsberg, University of Minnesota; Amelia Corl, University of Minnesota
Just a Figure of Speech? Discursive Resources of Men's Pro-Feminist and Anti-Feminst Websites
    Cindy Cain, University of Arizona
Through the eyes of U. S. media: Taiwan's Independence
    Zhilin Tang, Purdue University
Stories as Cognitive Koans: Narrative, Theory, Pedagogy
    Elizabeth Long, Rice University
Jacob Heller, hellerj@oldwestbury.edu, SUNY-Old Westbury, Table Presider

TABLE 04: PRODUCTION OF CULTURE PERSPECTIVE
Creating a Cultural Icon: The Electric Guitar
    William Danaher, College of Charleston
‑­
Cultural Producers Occupying Multiple Positions in a Field: Evidence from a Local Art Market
    Kathleen O'Neil, University of Mississippi
Setting the Stage: Making Work Invisible in Art Worlds
    Gregory Kordsmeier, University of Wisconsin
The Trained Eye: A Microsociological View of Social Influences on Judging
    Keri Monahan,
Following the Rules: Quantification and the Transformation of Meaning and Interaction in Figure Skating
    Stacy Lom, Northwestern University
William Danaher, danaherw@cofc.edu, College of Charleston, Table Presider

TABLE 05: RELIGION AND CULTURE
Puzzling to Understand the Other: An Ethnography of Mission Trips across the U.S.-Mexico Border
    Gary Adler, University of Arizona; Jeffrey Sallaz, University of Arizona
Religion and Grief: Preserving and Resolving Ambivalence through Ritual and Sincerity
    Sarah MacMillen, Duquesne University
Out of God's Hands: Materiality and Salvation in The Transnational Sathya Sai Religion
    Tulasi Srinivas, Emerson College
The Belated Reputation of Giorgio Perlasca: The Reputational Trajectory of a Neglected Savior
    Andrea Cossu, Universita di Trento
Gary Adler, gadler@email.arizona.edu, University of Arizona, Table Presider

TABLE 06: CULTURE, LOGIC AND RATIONALITY
Exploring Theoretical Potentials of Ethnography through Pierce’s Abductive Reasoning
    Vida Bajc, University of Pennsylvania
Internalization and Motivation in Cultural Sociology
    Gabe Ignatow, University of North Texas
An Odd and Inseparable Couple: Emotion and Rationality in Partner Selection
    Eva Illouz, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Shoshannah Finkelman, Hebrew University
Why do Audiences read Reviews?
    Grant Blank, Applied Social Research Associates
Vida Bajc vbajc@ssc.upenn.edu, University of Pennsylvania, Table Presider

TABLE 07: CULTURE AND SOCIAL CHANGE
The Anti-Japanese Protest in China: A Case Study of Cultural Performance
    Rui Gao, Yale University
“Does Culture have Inertia?”: An Analysis of the Relationship Between Inertia of Sexual Conservatism and HIV/AIDS As A Social Episode
    Shyamal Das, Minot State University, North Dakota; Lisa Eargle, Francis Marion University; Ashraf Esmail, Delgado Community College
“Are you the evil ones?” On a Cultural Sociology of Deliberative Talk
    Tatiana Omeltchenko, University of Virginia
‑­
Gandhian Dialectics and the Paradox of Cultural Innovation
    Lester Kurtz, University of Texas
Lester Kurtz, lester.kurtz@austin.utexas.edu, University of Texas, Table Presider

TABLE 08: ICONS AND CULTURAL PRACTICE
Cooking High-End Food and Rhetorical Representations: The Social Logic of Creation in the Culinary Field
    Vanina Leschziner, University of Toronto
Cooking up a Chef's Career
    Black Hancock, DePaul University
“From popular to a proletarian culture?” Fasting practices of forty eight women in a metropolis city of India
    Jaita Talukdar, Temple University
Politicians Playing Actors Playing Politicians: The California Theatre-State
    Christian Ferney, Duke University; Elizabeth Essary, Duke University; Suzanne Shanahan, Duke University
Black Hancock bhancock@depaul.edu, DePaul University, Table Presider

TABLE 09: INSTITUTIONAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICE
Power shift and boundary erosion: Changing institutional logics in the U.S. and Dutch trade book field
    Kees Van Rees, Tilburg University
Keeping pace, losing space, and saving face
    Rachael Barlow, Indiana University
Relative Autonomy of Fields, Legitimation, and Part-Time Instruction: A Research Proposal
    Nicholas Pagnucco, University at Albany
A Dramatistic Approach on the Rhetoric of Total Quality Management
    Yuan Li, University of Southern California
The Role of Institutional Discourse in Framing Political Culture
    Philip McCarty, University of California Santa Barbara
Philip McCarty pmccarty1@gmail.com, University of California Santa Barbara, Table Presider

TABLE 10: TOURISM: IDENTITY AND ECONOMICS
Cultural Negotiation: A Case Study of Tourist and Local Interaction in Constructing "Irishness"
    Deborah Rapuano, Gettysburg College; Jessica Fernandez, Gettysburg College
Economic Development and the Cultural Wealth of Nations
    Nina Bandelj, University of California, Irvine; Frederick Wherry, University of Michigan
Seeing is Believing: Roadside Nature Spectacle & Narrative
    Elizabeth Bennett, University of California, Santa Cruz
Elizabeth Bennett, ebennett@ucsc.edu, University of California, Santa Cruz, Table Presider

TABLE 11: ASSIMILATION, RESISTANCE, DIVERSITY
‑­
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Cultural Structure & Determinism in the U.S.
    Jeniffer Herrera-Andujar, Herbert H. Lehman College of the City University of New York
Ethnicity and group identities in a 'sauce-scented neighborhood'
    Jon Smajda, University of Minnesota
Why do People Support Civil Unions but Not Same-Sex Marriage?
    Peter Brinson, University of Wisconsin-Madison
A Posthumous Dialogue with Norma Williams
    Karen Douglas, Sam Houston State University
Jon Smajda, smaj0002@umn.edu, University of Minnesota, Table Presider

TABLE 12: CULTURE AND THE BODY
Gender and Assessments of Cosmetic Surgery Outcomes.
    Josh Adams, Ohio State University
Recombinant Vintage: Digitizing Subjectivity
    Kim Cunningham, CUNY Graduate Center
FTQ: How Culture Makes Sense of Biology
    Bethany Bryson, James Madison University
(Un)learning all that “Stuff”: Creating Possibilities through Dance
    Meccasia Zabriskie, Northwestern University
Meccasia Zabriskie , q-zabriskie@northwestern.edu, Northwestern University, Table Presider

TABLE 13: CULTURE AND NATIONS
Exceptional Culture, Exceptional Violence: U.S. Imperialist Fields and "Benevolent Assimilation"
    Erin Murphy, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Cultures of Giving: Arts and Cultural Philanthropy in Australia
    Susan Kukucka, Griffith University
Inequality and Political Efficacy: Analysis of Social Consciousness and Network in Korea and Japan
    Yoichi Murase, Rikkyo University
Erin Murphy, murphymc@uiuc.edu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Table Presider

TABLE 14: TOPICS IN MODERNITY AND POST-MODERNITY
Field and Economy in the Rise of Postmodern Architecture
    W. Gartman, University of South Alabama
The Cultural Consequences of Modernity: Individualization, Rationalization, and Subjective Well-Being
    Andrew Payton, University of North Carolina: Chapel Hill; Stephen Vaisey, University of North Carolina
Karl Mannheim and Alois Riegl: from the History of Art to the Sociology of Culture
    Jeremy Tanner, University College London
Andrew Payton, arpayton@unc.edu, University of North Carolina: Chapel Hill, Table Presider

TABLE 15: TOPICS IN CULTURAL CONSUMPTION
‑­
Comedy and Hegemony: Television Buyers and the Import of American comedy in four European Countries
    Giselinde Kuipers, Uuniversity of Amsterdam
Home is Where the TouchSmart Is: Displaying Home and Domestic Life at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show
    Krista Paulsen, University of North Florida
Sold Out: A Socio-Historical Analysis of the Influence of Consumer Capitalism on Modern Gay Identities
    Michael Yaksich, University of Maryland - College Park
Object relations, the transitional object and consumption practice.
    Ian Woodward,
Making cultural distinctions: a qualitative comparison of Flemish omnivore and traditional art participants
    Alexander Vander Stichele, Catholic University of Leuven; Rudi Laermans, Catholic University of Leuven
Michael Yaksich, mjyaksich@gmail.com, University of Maryland – College Park, Table Presider

TABLE 16: FILM AND PRODUCTION OF CULTURE
Gender and quality in the Swedish film industry
    Jenny Lantz, Stockholm School of Economics
Horror in an Endless Loop: the Cultural Resonance of Terrorism in Recent Japanese Horror Films
    Isabel Pinedo, Hunter College, CUNY
International Film Festivals and Retrospective Cultural Consecration of British Films
    Joseph Lampel, Cass Business School; Shivasharan Nadavulakere, Cass Business School
The Effect of an Award or a Film Festival Showing for the Success of a Film or a Book
    Dorothee Verdaasdonk, Erasmus university Rotterdam
Watching Documentary: The Enablement of Critical Public Discourses in Contemporary Urban Chinese Film Clubs
    Seio Nakajima,
Isabel Pinedo, ipinedo@hunter.cuny, edu Hunter College, CUNY, Table Presider

TABLE 17: AUTHENTICY, ETHNCITY, AND CULTURAL PRODUCTION
Parading for Pleasure and Territory: Second Line Parades in New Orleans
    Diane Grams, Tulane University
The Construction of Blues Authenticity: The Case of Ground Zero Blues Club
    Liana Thompson, University of California, Santa Cruz
The Message or The Money: Listeners’ Perceptions of Hip Hop Music
    Melissa Weiner, Quinnipiac University
Marinera, the Dance of Courtship: Culture, Gender and the Construction of Peruvian-ness in the U.S.
    Erika Busse, University of Minnesota
Tradition, Modernity, and Authenticity in Riverdance
    Bridget Nolan, University of Pennsylvania
Liana Thompson, liana_thomp@yahoo.com, University of California, Santa Cruz, Table Presider

TABLE 18: CULTURE AND IDENTITY
Individualism in America: Are We Missing the Problem?
    Paul Lachelier, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Indigenous Consciousness and the Production of Knowingness
    Doreen Martinez, Northern Arizona University
Recasting the North American Social Imaginary: Outlines of an Alternative Continentalism
    Fuyuki Kurasawa, York University
Rethinking Religion and Globalization: Towards an Engaged Cosmopolitanism
    Tulasi Srinivas, Emerson College
Paul Lachelier, paul@paullachelier.com, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Table Presider

TABLE 19: CONSUMER STUDIES RESEARCH NETWORK
Daniel Cook , dtcook@camden.rutgers.edu, Rutgers University, Table Presider
Six Months in the Supermarket: An Analysis of Food Retailers, Work and Consumption
    Rachel Schwartz, Cornell University“
Politics of Swimsuits in Twenty-First Century Turkey: Herstory of Swimsuits in Turkish Modernization
Dilek Cindoglu,Bilkent University
The ‘Real’ Value of Fakes: Network-based Counterfeit Subcultures and the Implications for Consumer-Brand Relationships
Renée Ann Richardson, Harvard University
Imagining Future Lives through Goods
Janet Lorenzen, Rutgers University
‘Disneyland in Reverse’: Organizing Production and Consumption Experiences at Burning Man”
    Katherine Chen, William Paterson University
Daniel Cook , dtcook@camden.rutgers.edu, Rutgers University, Table Presider

TABLE 20: CULTURE AND RELIGION NETWORK
David Smilde, dsmilde@uga.edu, University of Georgia,Table Presider

TABLE 21: MATERIAL CULTURE NETWORK
Terence McDonnell, Northwestern University,  t-mcdonnell@northwestern.edu, Table Presider

TABLE 22: POLITICAL CULTURE NETWORK ROUND TABLE
“Ethnography and Cultural Politics”
Richard L. Wood, University of New Mexico
“Whom or What to Follow in Multi-Sited Ethnography,”
Paul Lichterman and Nina Eliasoph USC
"Activism Together, Online: The ‘Eat Local’ Challenge as Social Movement Activity"
Susan Munkres, Furman University
“Using Archival Data to Discover Group Styles of the Past”
C. Brady Potts
“Practices of global integration in large complex project teams”
‑­
Carol Xu
Presider: Nina Eliasoph, USC  Eliasoph@usc.edu

TABLE 23: SPACE & PLACE NETWORK ROUNDTABLE
Sustainable Creative Work and Community Well-being in Culture-led, Place-based Urban Regeneration Strategies
Jan Marontate, Simon Fraser University
Spatial Narratives and Experiential Learning: Walking Tourism as Culture Work
Jonathan Wynn, Smith College
Planning Spaces & Places: Washington, D.C. and America's Changing National Identities.
William G. Holt, University of Connecticut
Presider: William G. Holt, University of Connecticut, wholt@vermontlaw.edu

TABLE 24: SOCIOLOGY OF CULTURE STUDENT NETWORK
Carey Sargent, University of Virginia, cs2wq@virginia.edu, Table Presider

TABLE 25: VISUAL SOCIOLOGY NETWORK
Richard Williams, richwill@rci.rutgers.edu, Rutgers University, Table Presider