It has been a busy season for professors who have the nerve to engage in the public as Nick Kristof once intoned my tribe to do. Of course, as I said at the time he wrote that tripe, Kristof did not mean professors like me. He did not mean social scientists and artists and humanitiesRead More “Academic Outrage: When The Culture Wars Go Digital”
Category Archives: Essays
Ah, Summer
Today, Robert Kelchen posted about how he will be spending his summer. He closed his post with an invitation to other professors to describe their summers, especially for those who think we have summers “off”. I responded: To answer @rkelchen's question: What my summer looks like…for about three days pic.twitter.com/T1w7kFs7z6 — Tressie Mc (@tressiemcphd) MayRead More “Ah, Summer”
Graduating Into A Terrible World: A Commencement Address
This year it was my turn to deliver the commencement address to VCU Sociology’s graduating class. It is one of our largest classes ever. We graduated over 90 sociologists last night at our departmental ceremony. I have no idea what to tell graduates. It seems like it should be wise and weighty, neither of whichRead More “Graduating Into A Terrible World: A Commencement Address”
Methods for Financialized Oppression
This week I’ve taken some time to write about issues stemming from the release of “Lower Ed”. I’ve discussed critiques of generalizability and thesis selection; methods; and, theoretical tensions in public sociology. I want to spend some time on questions that emerged from my methods in this project. I spent a lot of time beingRead More “Methods for Financialized Oppression”
The #LowerEd “So What?”
This week I’ve been writing about questions that emerged from “Lower Ed”, starting with some critiques of the book. I discussed how I chose my case study, how I triangulated data, how I think about “public sociology“, and how contemporary social problems require some innovative methodological approaches. Next, I’d like to discuss the “so what”Read More “The #LowerEd “So What?””
Triangulate That Ish
The last couple of days I have taken the opportunity of “Lower Ed” critiques to talk more about how this project came about, plus a few other tangential issues. Today, I thought it would be useful to talk about something I hinted at on Twitter in my discussion of generalizability given Carrie Wofford’s critique thatRead More “Triangulate That Ish”
Doing Public Sociology
Yesterday, I responded to critiques of “Lower Ed” with an explanation of what sociology is, how my sociological methods work, and what the research process is. Today, I thought I’d expound some more on related issues. People ask me a lot about “public sociology”. I put this in quotes because what people mean by itRead More “Doing Public Sociology”
How I Write
This week on the blog, I used the occasion of Carrie Wofford’s critique of Lower Ed’s weaknesses to expound on some of the process of making that book. It’s nothing personal. The timing just worked. A post is scheduled every day this week: I am closing out that week of reflection with a much more personalRead More “How I Write”
What #LowerEd Is and Is Not
When I was working on the study that would inform my new book “Lower Ed”, I had a set of questions. Given some recent critiques of the book, it is worth reviewing them. This is also a really great moment to peel back some layers on how the research process goes. First, a summary ofRead More “What #LowerEd Is and Is Not”
DuBois, Digitality and The Color Line in the 21st Century
Here’s where I’m going this weekend: The Sociology Department at the University of Massachusetts Boston is excited to host a two-day conference March 24-25th, 2017. The theme of the 12th Social Theory Forum will center on interdisciplinary scholarship on race and the legacy of American sociologist W.E.B. Du Bois. During his long and productive life as a scholarRead More “DuBois, Digitality and The Color Line in the 21st Century”