Princeton Studies in Cultural Sociology⁴³

Clayton Childress, Angèle Christin, Paul DiMaggio, Michèle Lamont, Iddo Tavory, and Viviana A. Zelizer, Series Editors

This innovative series aims to present for a broad audience a select number of works by the most prominent and the most promising scholars in cultural sociology. These books offer theoretically and empirically sophisticated accounts of how culture works in diverse social and institutional settings, touching on subjects as varied as popular culture, avant-gardes, social movements, gender, race, religion, citizenship, identity, belonging, and equality. The series at all times highlights the crucial role that cultural phenomena play in the lives of individuals and the development of societies.

Revolution of Things: The Islamism and Post-Islamism of Objects in Tehran Kusha Sefat
An exploration of the ways that shifting relations between materiality and language bring about different forms of politics in Tehran
Resurrecting the Jew: Nationalism, Philosemitism, and Poland’s Jewish Revival Geneviève Zubrzycki
An in-depth look at why non-Jewish Poles are trying to bring Jewish culture back to life in Poland today
Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School Shamus Rahman Khan
An inside look at how one of the country’s most elite private schools prepares its students for success
Inside the Critics’ Circle: Book Reviewing in Uncertain Times Phillipa K. Chong
An inside look at the politics of book reviewing, from the assignment and writing of reviews to why critics think we should listen to what they have to say
Billionaire Wilderness: The Ultra-Wealthy and the Remaking of the American West Justin Farrell
A revealing look at the intersection of wealth, philanthropy, and conservation
How Civic Action Works: Fighting for Housing in Los Angeles Paul Lichterman
The ways that social advocates organize to fight unaffordable housing and homelessness in Los Angeles, illuminated by a new conceptual framework for studying collective action
Magazines and the Making of America: Modernization, Community, and Print Culture, 1741–1860 Heather A. Haveman
From the colonial era to the onset of the Civil War, Magazines and the Making of America looks at how magazines and the individuals, organizations, and circumstances they connected ushered America into the modern age. How did a magazine...
The University and the Global Knowledge Society David John Frank and John W. Meyer
How the university went global and became the heart of the information age
Seeing the World: How US Universities Make Knowledge in a Global Era Mitchell Stevens, Cynthia Miller-Idriss, and Seteney Shami
An in-depth look at why American universities continue to favor U.S.-focused social science research despite efforts to make scholarship more cosmopolitan
The Extreme Gone Mainstream: Commercialization and Far Right Youth Culture in Germany Cynthia Miller-Idriss
How clothing brands coded with racist and nationalist symbols are bringing extremism into the German mainstream
Under the Cover: The Creation, Production, and Reception of a Novel Clayton Childress
Under the Cover follows the life trajectory of a single work of fiction from its initial inspiration to its reception by reviewers and readers. The subject is Jarrettsville, a historical novel by Cornelia Nixon, which was published in...
A Fraught Embrace: The Romance and Reality of AIDS Altruism in Africa Ann Swidler and Susan Cotts Watkins In the wake of the AIDS pandemic, legions of organizations and compassionate individuals from faraway places descended on Africa to offer help and save lives. Ann Swidler and Susan Cotts Watkins vividly describe the often mismatched...
Contested Tastes: Foie Gras and the Politics of Food Michaela DeSoucey
An inside look at the complex and controversial debates surrounding foie gras
The Battle for Yellowstone: Morality and the Sacred Roots of Environmental Conflict Justin Farrell
Yellowstone holds a special place in America's heart. As the world's first national park, it is globally recognized as the crown jewel of modern environmental preservation. But the park and its surrounding regions have recently become a...
The Moral Background: An Inquiry into the History of Business Ethics Gabriel Abend
In recent years, many disciplines have become interested in the scientific study of morality. However, a conceptual framework for this work is still lacking. In The Moral Background, Gabriel Abend develops just such a framework and uses...
There Goes the Gayborhood? Amin Ghaziani
An in-depth look at America's changing gay neighborhoods
Impossible Engineering: Technology and Territoriality on the Canal du Midi Chandra Mukerji
The Canal du Midi, which threads through southwestern France and links the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, was an astonishing feat of seventeenth-century engineering--in fact, it was technically impossible according to the standards of...
Becoming Right: How Campuses Shape Young Conservatives Amy Binder and Kate Wood
How divergent campus cultures affect conservative college students
Reds, Whites, and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music, and Race in the United States William G. Roy
Music, and folk music in particular, is often embraced as a form of political expression, a vehicle for bridging or reinforcing social boundaries, and a valuable tool for movements reconfiguring the social landscape. Reds, Whites, and...
Disrupting Science: Social Movements, American Scientists, and the Politics of the Military, 1945-1975 Kelly Moore
In the decades following World War II, American scientists were celebrated for their contributions to social and technological progress. They were also widely criticized for their increasingly close ties to military and governmental...
Making Volunteers: Civic Life after Welfare's End Nina Eliasoph
An inside look at how community service organizations really work
Economists and Societies: Discipline and Profession in the United States, Britain, and France, 1890s to 1990s Marion Fourcade
Economists and Societies is the first book to systematically compare the profession of economics in the United States, Britain, and France, and to explain why economics, far from being a uniform science, differs in important ways among...
Framing Europe: Attitudes to European Integration in Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom Juan Díez Medrano
This book provides a major empirical analysis of differing attitudes to European integration in three of Europe's most important countries: Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom. From its beginnings, the European Union has resounded...
Partisan Publics: Communication and Contention across Brazilian Youth Activist Networks Ann Mische
During the 1980s and 1990s, Brazil struggled to rebuild its democracy after twenty years of military dictatorship, experiencing financial crises, corruption scandals, political protest, and intense electoral contention. In the midst of...
The Taylorized Beauty of the Mechanical: Scientific Management and the Rise of Modernist Architecture Mauro F. Guillén
The dream of scientific management was a rationalized machine world where life would approach the perfection of an assembly line. But since its early twentieth-century peak this dream has come to seem a dehumanizing nightmare. Henry...
Weaving Self-Evidence: A Sociology of Logic Claude Rosental
Translated by Catherine Porter
The development of theorems in logic is generally thought to be a solitary and purely cerebral activity, and therefore unobservable by sociologists. In Weaving Self-Evidence, French sociologist Claude Rosental challenges this notion by...
Hollywood Highbrow: From Entertainment to Art Shyon Baumann
Today's moviegoers and critics generally consider some Hollywood products--even some blockbusters--to be legitimate works of art. But during the first half century of motion pictures very few Americans would have thought to call an...
Talking Prices: Symbolic Meanings of Prices on the Market for Contemporary Art Olav Velthuis
How do dealers price contemporary art in a world where objective criteria seem absent? Talking Prices is the first book to examine this question from a sociological perspective. On the basis of a wide range of qualitative and...
On Justification: Economies of Worth Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thévenot
Translated by Catherine Porter
A vital and underappreciated dimension of social interaction is the way individuals justify their actions to others, instinctively drawing on their experience to appeal to principles they hope will command respect. Individuals, however...
The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances Alford A. Young Jr.
While we hear much about the "culture of poverty" that keeps poor black men poor, we know little about how such men understand their social position and relationship to the American dream. Moving beyond stereotypes, this book examines...
Religion and Family in a Changing Society Penny Edgell
The 1950s religious boom was organized around the male-breadwinner lifestyle in the burgeoning postwar suburbs. But since the 1950s, family life has been fundamentally reconfigured in the United States. How do religion and family fit...
Interaction Ritual Chains Randall Collins
Sex, smoking, and social stratification are three very different social phenomena. And yet, argues sociologist Randall Collins, they and much else in our social lives are driven by a common force: interaction rituals. Interaction Ritual...
Elusive Togetherness: Church Groups Trying to Bridge America's Divisions Paul Lichterman
Many scholars and citizens alike have counted on civic groups to create broad ties that bind society. Some hope that faith-based civic groups will spread their reach as government retreats. Yet few studies ask how, if at all, civic...
Community: Pursuing the Dream, Living the Reality Suzanne Keller
This book tells the story of how a human community comes to be and how aspirations for the good life confront the dilemmas and detours of real life. Suzanne Keller combines penetrating analysis of classic ideas about community with a...
Contentious Curricula: Afrocentrism and Creationism in American Public Schools Amy Binder
This book compares two challenges made to American public school curricula in the 1980s and 1990s. It identifies striking similarities between proponents of Afrocentrism and creationism, accounts for their differential outcomes, and...
Kingdom of Children: Culture and Controversy in the Homeschooling Movement Mitchell Stevens
More than one million American children are schooled by their parents. As their ranks grow, home schoolers are making headlines by winning national spelling bees and excelling at elite universities. The few studies conducted suggest...
Reinventing Justice: The American Drug Court Movement James L. Nolan Jr.
Drug courts offer radically new ways to deal with the legal and social problems presented by repeat drug offenders, often dismissing criminal charges as an incentive for participation in therapeutic programs. Since the first drug court...
Negotiating Identities: States and Immigrants in France and Germany Riva Kastoryano
Immigration is even more hotly debated in Europe than in the United States. In this pivotal work of action and discourse analysis, Riva Kastoryano draws on extensive fieldwork--including interviews with politicians, immigrant leaders...
Blessed Events: Religion and Home Birth in America Pamela E. Klassen
Blessed Events explores how women who give birth at home use religion to make sense of their births and in turn draw on their birthing experiences to bring meaning to their lives and families. Pamela Klassen introduces a surprisingly...
Gifted Tongues: High School Debate and Adolescent Culture Gary Alan Fine
Learning to argue and persuade in a highly competitive environment is only one aspect of life on a high-school debate team. Teenage debaters also participate in a distinct cultural world--complete with its own jargon and status...
Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism Andrei S. Markovits and Steven L. Hellerman
Soccer is the world's favorite pastime, a passion for billions around the globe. In the United States, however, the sport is a distant also-ran behind football, baseball, basketball, and hockey. Why is America an exception? And why...
Bearing Witness: Readers, Writers, and the Novel in Nigeria Wendy Griswold
Greed, frustrated love, traffic jams, infertility, politics, polygamy. These--together with depictions of traditional village life and the impact of colonialism made familiar to Western readers through Chinua Achebe's writing--are the...
Origins of Democratic Culture: Printing, Petitions, and the Public Sphere in Early-Modern England David Zaret
This innovative work of historical sociology locates the origins of modern democratic discourse in the emergent culture of printing in early modern England. For David Zaret, the key to the rise of a democratic public sphere was the...