This seminar focuses on selected research areas in cultural sociology and sociology more broadly that may be helpful for developing our understanding of the cultural processes in the production of social inequality. Topics include: microsociology, the production of social and symbolic boundaries, ethno-racial and class cultures, evaluation and more.

Throughout the semester we will pay special attention to how the authors we read mobilize and connect theory and data. We will also be reflective concerning how we can use their work to feed our own thinking about the topics at hand. Thus, the seminar will also be a context for explicit apprenticeship about the process of research and knowledge production in sociology. On most weeks, we include an article written by a recent PhD (often from our department) that builds on the literatures we are reading (as a demonstration of how to build on a literature).

The course is primarily oriented toward students who are planning to do research in cultural sociology and inequality, but will also be of interest to scholars working in fields such as race and ethnicity, education, organization, public policy, and other fields.