CCS Spring Conference ~ 2012
Friday, April 27 & Saturday, April 28
The conference will be held at the The New Haven Lawn Club at 193 Whitney Avenue, New Haven, Connecticut
Overview
The 2012 CCS Spring Conference, Possibility and Imagination: Journeys in Cultural Sociology, includes contributions from CCS Junior Fellows, as well as from Faculty Fellows Anne Kane, Lynette Spillman, Dmitry Kurakin, and Anna Lund. Also participating are Marita Flisbäck, Julia Rozanova, Nicole Doerr and Ori Schwarz. We are pleased to welcome as participants graduate students from the State University of New York at Albany and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Also on the program this year is a special session to be held on Friday afternoon, April 27th:
This session will be moderated by Jeffrey Alexander. Papers will be given by CCS Fellows Kenneth Thompson, Mats Trondman, Gordon Lynch, Elizabeth Breese and Philip Smith.
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life Centennial
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life represents the inauguration of a new intellectual program, proposing a new theory of culture, and it stands as the last major statement of Emile Durkheim’s prolific career. As the beginning of an unfinished project and as a text containing a wealth of empirical, conceptual, thematic, and theoretical contributions and suggestions, the Elementary Forms demands interpretation. The exegesis of the Elementary Forms has proven singularly generative for the cultural turn in sociology and for the strong program in cultural sociology.
To mark the one hundredth anniversary of the publication of Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, we will gather as Durkheim’s cultural interpreters at the CCS Spring Conference to revisit the text’s main concepts and themes and to explore how they can, and should, serve cultural sociologists in the next century. What is the status of the Elementary Forms at 100? How is it most profitably interpreted and used in the English-speaking world and beyond, by cultural sociologists and by our colleagues in the discipline of sociology, and by undergraduates, junior academics, and master scholars? What do the concept of the sacred and the relationship between the sacred and the profane offer social analysts in the twenty-first century? Are there debates that we can, at the centennial of the book, put to rest? And what intellectual disputes, incompatible readings, and open questions suggested by the book should we pursue in the coming years? What does it mean to read and to use the Elementary Forms in 2012? What themes, passages, and ideas found in its pages should we plumb for insights into our time?
(A special thank you goes to CCS graduate student Elisabeth Breese for organizing this session)
Contact Information
For information about the conference please contact the CCS Administrator Nadine Amalfi by e-mail (cultural dot sociology at yale dot edu) or phone, (203) 432-9855.
The banquet for conference participants will be at The Kitchen Table restaurant on Saturday, April 28
Conference Program
| Time | Friday, April 27th ~ The New Haven Lawn Club |
|---|---|
| 8:30 ~ 9:00 | Continental Breakfast |
| 9:00 ~ 9:15 | Opening Remarks Philip Smith Yale University, CCS Director |
| 9:15 ~ 10:25 | Session I ~ Theoretical Challenges from Cultural Sociology to the Mainstream
Chair:Philip Smith Charting the Causal Role of Culture in Historical SociologyAnne Kane Totems and Alibis:
|
| 10:25 ~ 10:45 | Coffee Break |
| 10:45 ~ 11:45 | Session II ~ Complex Trajectories of Culture
Chair:Isabel Jijon Disagreement and Equality:
|
| 11:45 ~ 12:45 | Lunch |
| 12:45 ~ 2:00 | SPECIAL SESSION ~ The Elementary Forms of Religious Life Centennial ~ Part I
Chair & Opening Remarks:Jeffrey Alexander Expression versus Regulation:
|
| 2:00 ~ 2:30 | Coffee Break |
| 2:30 ~ 5:00 | SPECIAL SESSION ~ The Elementary Forms of Religious Life Centennial ~ Part II
Where is the Sacred in the Modern World?
|
| 5:30 ~ 7:00 | Reception ~ Center for Cultural Sociology,
210 Prospect Street |
| Time | Saturday, April 28th ~ The New Haven Lawn Club |
| 8:30 ~ 9:00 | Coffee |
| 9:00 ~ 10:30 | Session III ~ Identities and Actions Chair: Shai Dromi Yale University, CCS Junior Fellow Learning the Rules of Art.
|
| 10:30 ~ 11:00 | Coffee Break |
| 11:00 ~ 12:15 | Session IV ~ Media and Cultural Flows Chair: Elisabeth Becker Yale University, CCS Junior Fellow Saints, Super Heroes, and Stories Lost in Translation:
|
| 12:15 ~ 1:15 | Lunch |
| 1:15 ~ 2:30 | Session V ~ Place and Narrative Chair: Radim Marada Masaryk University, CCS Faculty Fellow Hook and Ladder: Examining a System Under StressCarolyn Ly Global Cities:
|
| 2:30 ~ 3:00 | Coffee Break |
| 3:00 ~ 4:00 | Session VI ~ Noise, Sound, Silence Chair: Sorcha Alexandrina Brophy Yale University, CCS Junior Fellow The Sound of Stigmatization:
|
| 6:30 ~ 9:00 | Banquet The Kitchen Table Conference participants only |