Education

• Ph.D. Sociology, New York University 2000
• M.A. Sociology, New York University 1994
• B.S. Sociology, Virginia Commonwealth University 1986
• Specialty Areas: Social Theory, Social Movements/Political Sociology, Sociology of Culture.

Courses Taught

• SOC 150H Honors Introduction to Sociology
• SOC 202 Sociological Analysis
• SOC 305 Culture and Personality
• SOC 312 American Society
• SOC 368 Classical Sociological Theory
• SOC 468 Contemporary Sociological Theory
• SOC 498 Field Study and Reports
• SOC 545 Social Psychology
• SOC 601 Sociological Theory in Historical Perspective
• SOC 670 Studies in Contemporary Sociology

Selected Publications and Presentations

"Cultural Sociology and the Meaning of Music." In Peter Kivisto (ed.) Illuminating Social Life. Pine Forge Press. Forthcoming.

Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory, 2nd Edition, with Laura Edles. Pine Forge Press. 2012

"Studies in the Suspension of the "Flow" of Social Life," with David Boyns. 2011. Sociological Spectrum, 31:193-223.

Sociological Theory in the Contemporary Era, 2nd Edition, with Laura Edles. Pine Forge Press. 2011

“Boundaries and Early Jazz:  Defining a New Music." 2011. Cultural Sociology, 5:225-242.

Sociological Theory in the Classical Era, 2nd Edition with Laura Edles.  Pine Forge Press.  2010

Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory, with Laura Edles.  Pine Forge Press.  2008

Sociological Theory in the Contemporary Era, with Laura Edles.  Pine Forge Press.  2007

“Body and Soul: Jazz and the 1920s.” 2005 American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 48:11 pp. 1496-1510.

Sociological Theory in the Classical Era, with Laura Edles.  Pine Forge Press.  2004

“Symbolic Boundaries and the Meaning of Early Jazz.”  2003 Poetics: Journal of Empirical Research on Literature, the Media, and the Arts, 31:117-131.

“Breathing Life into Texts: Using Interviews to Make Real World Connections.”  2001 College Teaching, 49:4.

“Shifting Frames and Rhetorics: A Case Study of The Christian Coalition of New York.”  1999.  Social Science Journal, 36:329-339. 

 

Selected Conference Activities:

“Early Jazz and ‘Fields’.”  Paper presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, New York, New York. August 2007.

“Who’s Your Daddy?:  Bush, Fear, and Freud.”  Paper presented at the Pacific Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Portland, Oregon. April 2005.

“Body and Soul: Jazz and the 1920s.”  Paper presented at a special conference in the sociology of music, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. August 2003.

Session Organizer: “Symbolic Boundaries and the Construction of Identity,” Pacific Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Vancouver, British Columbia. April 2002.

“The Discourse of Jazz: Art, Class, and the Body.”  Paper presented at the Pacific Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California. April 2001.

“Polluting Urban Bodies: The Discursive Framing of Early Jazz.”  Paper presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California. August 1998.

Research and Interests

Symbolic boundaries; tastes as cultural markers; intersection of religion, social movements, and politics.