2007 Theory Mini-Conference & Annual Meetings Events

The Theory Section organizes a Mini-Conference every year at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association. Since 2005, the Section has also organized a Junior Theorists Symposium. And since 2006, we have held a lecture and salon for the Coser Award winner.

• Mini-Conferences:x2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004 | 2003 |
• Lewis Coser Award Lecture and Salon: 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 |
• Junior Theorists Symposium:x2009 | 2008 | 2005 | 

"Thus there are ways of acting, thinking and feeling which possess the remarkable property of existing outside the consciousness of the individual. Not only are these types of behaviour and thinking external to the individual, but they are endued with a compelling and coercive power by virtue of which, whether he wishes it or not, they impose themselves upon him. Undoubtedly when I conform to them of my own free will, this coercion is not felt or felt hardly at all, since it is unnecessary... If I attempt to violate the rules of law they react against me so as to forestall my action, if there is still time."

-Emile Durkheim.

1. Extreme Culture Theory 
    Monday, August 13, 10:30am - 12:10pm in the Hilton New York

    Session Organizer: Karin D. Knorr Cetina (University of Chicago) 
    Presider: Karin D. Knorr Cetina (University of Chicago) 

    Iconic Consciousness: Meaning and Materiality in the Modern World
        Jeffrey C. Alexander (Yale University)

    Theorizing the Restlessness of Events
        Robin E. Wagner-Pacifici (Swarthmore College)

    Panic! A Sociological Theory of Extreme Behavior
        Alexandru Preda (University of Edinburgh)

    Discussant: Michele Lamont (Harvard University)

2. Extreme Systems Theory
    Monday, August 13, 2:30pm - 4:10pm in the Hilton New York

    Session Organizer: Karin D. Knorr Cetina (University of Chicago) 
    Presider: Karin D. Knorr Cetina (University of Chicago) 

    Sociological Systems Theory as a Network of Theories
        Rudolf Stichweh (University of Luzern)

    Snowboarding with Luhmann: The Extreme Sport of Observation
        William Rasch (Indiana University)

    A History of Difference
        Stephan Fuchs (University of Virginia)

    The Making of Extreme Theories: How extreme is the Deconstruction of Social Theory?
        Urs Staeheli (Institut fuer Soziologie)

    Discussant: Charles Smith (Queens College, CUNY)

3. The Future of Extreme Theory
    Tuesday, August 14, 8:30am - 10:10am in the Hilton New York

    Session Organizer: Karin D. Knorr Cetina (University of Chicago) 
    Presider: Karin D. Knorr Cetina (University of Chicago) 

    Order on the Edge of Chaos
        John Urry (University of Lancaster)

    Un-commonsensing Sociology
        Andreas Wimmer (UCLA)

    Towards a Social Aesthetics
        John L. Martin (University of Wisconsin, Madison)

    On the Need for, and Impediments, to Extreme Social Theory
        George Ritzer (University of Maryland), Craig D. Lair (University of Maryland)

    Discussant: Andrew Abbott (University of Chicago) 

4. Extreme Theory. Formal and Informal Conceptual Architectures in Theoretical Construction 
   Tuesday, August 14, 10:30am - 12:10pm  in the Hilton New York

    Session Organizer: Alexandru Preda (University of Edinburgh) 
    Presider: Alexandru Preda (University of Edinburgh) 

    Configurations
        Patrik Aspers (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies)

    Toward a Phenomenology of Modernity
        John R. Hall (University of Calfornia - Davis)

    The Unintended State
        Chandra Mukerji (University of California, San Diego)

    Theoretical Unification in Justice and Beyond
        Guillermina Jasso (New York University)

    Discussant: Michael Lynch (Cornell University) 

Monday, August 13, 8:30am - 9:30am
Organized by Neil Gross (Harvard University) 

Table 1

A General Theory of Institutional Autonomy
    Seth B. Abrutyn (University of California, Riverside)

A Theory of Open and Closed Ingroup Cues
    Michael Genkin (Cornell University)

Identity and Meaning in Organizational Networks: Evidence from Fashion Houses and Combat Units
    Victor Pablo Corona (Columbia University), Frederic Clement Godart (Columbia University)

Modeling Power In Exchange Research: From Dyads To Mixed Connections
    Blane DaSilva (University of South Carolina)

Table 2

Individualism as an Absence of Culture - Akiko Yoshida (University of Oklahoma), Brian Michael Bentel (East Central University)

Ontological Models in Sociology - Thomas Brante (University of Oreho)

The Emergent Sociological Temporalities: A Metatheoretical Examination - Akihiko Hirose (University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center)

Toward a Sociological Understanding of 'Quality of Life' - Leonard Nevarez (Vassar College)

Table 3

Intellectuals, Movements and the Academy: Building on Frickel and Gross - Neil G. McLaughlin

Parsons, Gouldner and the Sociology of Academic Consensus - Maxim Waldstein (University of Pennsylvania)

The Rational and Social Foundations of Electronic Dance Music
    Devin Patrick Kelly (University of Washington)

Table 4

Alienation and the Corporate Takeover of Culture: Guy Debord's Theory of the Spectacle
    Richard L. Kaplan (ABC-Clio Publishing)

Post-Societal Analysis: Structuration Theory and Time/Space catagories
    Daniel Gibson Chaffee (Flinders University)

The Heroism of Modern Life: Charles Baudelaire and the Roots of the Striving Self
    Daniel Silver (University of Chicago)

Solidarity and the New Intimacy: Individuation and togetherness in romantic relationships
    Daniel Mark Santore (University at Albany)

Table 5

Embodied Meaning and Social Theory
    Dmitri Shalin (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)

George Herbert Mead: Early Sociologist of Science?
    Antony J Puddephatt (Cornell University)

Chance and Social Change: Overcoming the Conservative Nature of Social Institutions
    Jerry L. Williams, Robert F. Szafran (Stephen F. Austin State University)

Table 6

Functional and Causal Analysis in Parsons' Theory of Action
    Helmut Staubmann (University of Innsbruck)

On the Concepts of Civil Society and Societal Community
    Victor Meyer Lidz (Drexel University College of Medicine)

The Theory Section Business Meeting will be held on Monday, August 13 at 9:30am in the Hilton. All section members are invited to attend! 

The section will host a joint reception with the sections Economic Sociology and Culture on Monday, August 13 at 6:30pm in the Hilton. 

The second Lewis A. Coser Lecture and Salon will be hosted on Monday, August 13, 2007, at 4:30pm in the Hilton, in honor of the winner of the 2006 Coser Award, George Steinmetz. More info can be found on the Coser Lecture & Salon page. 

Regular Session: Theory 
Tuesday, August 14 at 8:30am - 10:10am, Hilton New York

    Session Organizer: Kyriakos M. Kontopoulos (Temple University) 
    Presider: Douglas V. Porpora (Drexel University) 

    An Evolutionary Approach to Social Life: Toward Pragmatist Methodology of Social Sciences
    Osmo Kivinen (University of Turku), Tero Piiroinen (Research Unit for the Sociology of Education, University of Turku)

    Multilevel Analysis versus Doctrinal Individualism: The Use of the "Protestant Ethic Thesis" as Intellectual Ideology
    Ronald L. Jepperson, John W. Meyer (Stanford University)

    What is Institutional Analysis?
    Marc Garcelon (Middlebury College)

    Discussant: Kyriakos M. Kontopoulos (Temple University)  

Open Refereed Roundtables: Theory I
Saturday, August 11 at 2:30pm - 4:10pm, Hilton New York
    
    Session Organizer: Viviane Brachet-Marquez (El Colegio De Mexico) 

    Diversity and Postmaterialism as Rival Perspectives in Accounting for Social Solidarity: Evidence from Opinion Surveys
    Jan Germen Janmaat (Free University)

    Impure Utopia: Towards a Relational Conception of Civil Society and Counterhegemonic Mobilization
    Istvan Adorjan (Yale University)

    The Struggle for Recognition in the Scientific Field: With Special Reference to the Scientific Misconduct of Hwang Woo Suk
    Leo Kim (Goyang, South Korea)

    Unpacking Institutional Bricolage
    Guilhem Bascle (HEC (Paris))

    The Development
    Paddy Dolan (Dublin Institute of Technology)

Open Refereed Roundtables: Theory II
Saturday, August 11 at 2:30pm - 4:10pm, Hilton New York

    Session Organizer: Viviane Brachet-Marquez (El Colegio De Mexico) 

    Treating the Subject: Toward a Psycho-Interactionist Theory for Ethnography
    Christian J. Churchill (St. Thomas Aquinas College)

    Deleuze, Machines and Social Control
    William C. Bogard (Whitman College)

    Causation, Emergence, Level and the Importance of Theoretical Viewpoint
    Kevin Payne (Park University)

    Durkheim on Rationality
    Sandro Segre (State University of Genoa, Italy)

    A Theory of Spatial Hysteresis
    Elizabeth K. Thorn (University of Maryland)

    The Evolution of Bourdieu's Theory of Culture: From Relativism to Universalism
    W. David Gartman (University of South Alabama)

Click on the logo below for more information on this year's ASA Meeting.