A “list” of what five sociologists and one sociologically-minded journalist are currently reading.
When we asked five sociologists, and a sociologically-minded journalist, to share what they’re reading at the moment, they told us the following:
Deborah Carr: A gentle skewering of academic pretentiousness,
The Marriage Plot
by Jeffrey Eugenides tracks the romantic, spiritual and professional adventures of three university students in the early 1980s, expertly capturing the ambivalence of smart young women.
97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement
by Jane Ziegelman. Part social history, part cookbook, part historical fiction, it tells the stories of five immigrant families—from Ireland, Germany, Russia, and Italy—and the foods they brought to the U.S. at the turn of the 20th century. Chock-full of fascinating facts about why we eat what we do, and how some “ethnic” dishes have become well-loved “American” foods. My fellow Rhode Island native Mary Cantwell writes in
Manhattan Memoir
about her idyllic childhood, her early years as a young fashion journalist, the pain and isolation that followed her divorce, and her ultimate triumph as an editor at the New York Times. It is a thoughtful glimpse at one woman’s life that speaks to the lives of all women.
Ted Conover:
A Safeway in Arizona: What the Gabrielle Giffords Shooting Tells Us About the Grand Canyon State and Life in America
by Tom Zoellner. A mix of memoir and reportage by a fine writer who grew up in Arizona, covered its politics for the Arizona Republic, and is a close friend of Gabby Giffords. Through unexpected topics like real estate development, Zoellner subtly paints a context for the state’s violence and discord.
The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life
by Erving Goffman. I suspected that the ideas in this book might help students in my narrative nonfiction classes to draw characters. And it’s working.
Rough Honey
by Melissa Stein. I heard Stein read from this first book of poetry at Bread Loaf. It was one of those readings that remind me of how much more language can do for us than we usually ask of it. I wasn’t surprised to see that the book was selected for a prize by Mark Doty—it’s a standout.
Avery F. Gordon: Right now, I’m reading Khalil Gibran Muhammad’s 2010 book,
The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.
This is a rich and important book on the role of social science and crime statistics in the making of the enduring association of blackness and criminality. I’m finishing reading
Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the USA
by Mumia Abu-Jamal. I’m also re-reading Michel Foucault’s
The Archeology of Knowledge.
I’m collaborating with an artist, Ines Schaber, on a project that’s centered on Breitenau, a former monastery, prison and workhouse that now houses a memorial/research center. This early work of Foucault distinguishes between documents and monuments. It turns out that I remembered it completely backwards and now think Foucault is all wrong—on this point at least.
Mary Pattillo: To keep my course “Cities and Society” fresh, I’ve been filling my book bag with visual materials to show in class. Here are three things I’m watching (and showing) that bring to life the topics we are discussing in class.
Home
(Jeffrey Togman) portrays the “dream” of homeownership in this ethnographic documentary about Sheree Farmer, a single mom living in Newark public housing who is being helped into a home of her own by a local non-profit organization. And then she wakes up…. I’ve also watched
Grown in Detroit
(Mascha & Manfred Poppenk). “Listen here, goat, let’s get one thing straight. You don’t squirt your breast milk on me, I won’t squirt my breast milk on you.” There’s lots of humor like this, along with struggle and triumph, in this documentary about Catherine Ferguson Academy, a high school for pregnant teens and young moms in Detroit with a focus on turning the city’s vacant lots into a profitable agribusiness. And
The Wire
(David Simon): better late than never. I definitely get why sociologists find this show so fascinating. It pulsates with human and social complexity, totally throws into disarray any notion of bad guys and good guys (of all genders), and offers an organized cinematic syllabus for any urban studies class.
Jeffrey Prager: In
Thinking the Twentieth Century,
Tony Judt (with Timothy Snyder) discusses key intellectual players and their relation to 20th century history—emphasizing the role played by the ideas of intellectuals and their political engagement in shaping major developments. Martha Nussbaum describes her on-going collaboration with the economist Amartya Sen in
Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach.
This “capability approach” to development underscores basic psychoanalytic insights that individuals, when provided with basic emotional and material nutrients, have the capacity not simply to survive but to creatively contribute to a more equal and just society. In
Like Wind, Like Wave: Fables from the Land of the Repressed
by Stefano Bolognini, a psychoanalyst, shares stories from his life to comment on quintessentially human themes—including the nature of passion, role of illusion and disillusion, and heroism.
Erik Olin Wright: I avidly listen to audiobooks while exercising.
The Regeneration Trilogy
by Pat Barker is an extraordinary look at the lives and poetry of the British WWI poets, read brilliantly by Steven Crossley.
Cutting for Stone
by Abraham Verghase, read by Sunhil Malhotra, is another fantastically well-read audiobook (the reader is just as important as the writer). I am told by a surgeon friend that it contains among the best literary descriptions of surgery.
Beatrice and Virgil
by Yann Martel, read by Mark Bramhall, is an allegory about genocide, revolving around a play about a donkey named Virgil and a monkey named Beatrice. The book was very controversial—critics hated it or loved it. I found the audiobook totally engrossing.
