Michael D Kennedy
Brown University, Sociology, Faculty Member
- Political Sociology, Critical Theory, Sociology, Globalizing Knowledge and Global Transformations; Comparative Cultural Politics;, Cultural Studies, Globalization, and 14 moreSocial Movements, Intellectual History, European Union, Area Studies, Democratic Theory, Civil Society and the Public Sphere, Nation-State, Afghanistan, Poland, Transformation of University Systems, Post-Socialism, Intellectuals, Russian Energy Policy, and Social Theoryedit
- Michael D. Kennedy (@Prof_Kennedy) is professor of sociology and international and public affairs at Brown University... moreMichael D. Kennedy (@Prof_Kennedy) is professor of sociology and international and public affairs at Brown University where he explores the relationship between knowledge practices and global transformations.
Throughout his career, Kennedy has addressed East European social movements, national identifications, and systemic change. For the last 15 years, he also has worked in the sociology of public knowledge, global transformations, and cultural politics, focusing most recently on energy security, universities, and solidarity. His book, Globalizing Knowledge: Intellectuals, Universities and Publics in Transformation addresses those themes. In the coming decade, he will also research projections of identity and transformations of human and social capacity.
Kennedy was the University of Michigan's first vice provost for international affairs in addition to being director of an institute and five centers and programs at UM; he also served as the Howard R. Swearer Director of Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies.
Beyond those administrative duties, Kennedy has been recognized for his student engagement. Most recently, he was awarded the The Barrett Hazeltine Citation for Excellence in Teaching, Guidance and Support in 2014. He is the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Sociology Department and Director of Graduate Studies for Master's of Public Affairs students in the Public Policy Program.
Beyond his association with the Department of Sociology and the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Kennedy is also an affiliate of the Contemplative Studies Initiative.
Kennedy just concluded 9 years of service on the Executive Committee and Board of Directors at the Social Science Research Council and recently joined the Open Society Foundations' Higher Education Support Program Advisory Board and the International Academic Advisers Panel for the School of Social Sciences at Singapore Management University. Poland's President, Aleksander Kwasniewski, presented Kennedy with the Gold Cross of Merit to recognize the contributions he made to scholarship and education about Poland.
Follow Michael Kennedy on Twitter @Prof_Kennedy.edit
My review of Magyar, Bálint and Bálint Madlovics.The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes: A Conceptual Framework Slavic Review 80:4(2022):934-35.
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A Lecture Considering how my 2015 Book, Globalizing Knowledge, might be rearticulated in light of the Epoch End 2022 initiated, and 2024 seals.
For the Department of Sociology and Institute for Social Sciences at Warsaw University
For the Department of Sociology and Institute for Social Sciences at Warsaw University
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A brief account of the value to be found in thinking about public intellectuals, especially to the extent they lead with intellectual responsibility and are embedded in a culture of critical discourse. I also reflect on the challenge of... more
A brief account of the value to be found in thinking about public intellectuals, especially to the extent they lead with intellectual responsibility and are embedded in a culture of critical discourse. I also reflect on the challenge of engaging publics beyond the English vernacular
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Beginning on October 7, 2023, I began to Xtweet about the contest in Israel/Palestine. The slides that follow are not exhaustive, but they reflect major themes in those comments. They are organized, too, in roughly chronological order.
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Concerns for social justice in and commitments to globalizing universities are rarely part of the same portfolio among academic managers, or even among students, but these articulations of transformation in higher education increasingly... more
Concerns for social justice in and commitments to globalizing universities are rarely part of the same portfolio among academic managers, or even among students, but these articulations of transformation in higher education increasingly intersect in both decolonizing theory and practice. Following an elaboration of various meanings of solidarity, diversity, and globalizing knowledge, we consider various connotations of the decolonizing mobilization in universities. We then consider in more detail the challenge of linking struggles over diversity to the practices of globalizing knowledge in the usa, especially at Brown University. We conclude by considering particular forms of transformational solidarity in direct and categorical associations, in contests defining equivalent oppressions, and in efforts to deepen awareness of racisms beyond more familiar contests in societies and global extensions most associated with US power.
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When we consider the solidarities that matter most in shaping global social change we rightly begin with the most proximate and deepest. Sociologists will, for example, point to the solidarities organized in military units on the... more
When we consider the solidarities that matter most in shaping global social change we rightly begin with the most proximate and deepest. Sociologists will, for example, point to the solidarities organized in military units on the battlefield as among the most powerful, where soldiers will lay down their lives not only to defend but rescue their fallen brothers and sisters.
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A Knowledge Cultural Sociology of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine contrasting narratives organized around Ukrainian solidarity and the Escalation Debate. I elaborate the foci of each and the knowledge claims elevated by the different... more
A Knowledge Cultural Sociology of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine contrasting narratives organized around Ukrainian solidarity and the Escalation Debate. I elaborate the foci of each and the knowledge claims elevated by the different narratives.
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Outline: Global Scholars in Poland’s 1980s Penumbra – Where was Podgórecki? Adam Podgórecki and the Sociology of Law and Human Rights Human Rights and the Meanings of Solidarit Human Rights in Russia’s War on Ukraine Human rights in... more
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Global Scholars in Poland’s 1980s Penumbra – Where was Podgórecki?
Adam Podgórecki and the Sociology of Law and Human Rights
Human Rights and the Meanings of Solidarit
Human Rights in Russia’s War on Ukraine
Human rights in the War in Israel Palestine
Can Podgórecki’s sociology improve the questions we imagine?
Global Scholars in Poland’s 1980s Penumbra – Where was Podgórecki?
Adam Podgórecki and the Sociology of Law and Human Rights
Human Rights and the Meanings of Solidarit
Human Rights in Russia’s War on Ukraine
Human rights in the War in Israel Palestine
Can Podgórecki’s sociology improve the questions we imagine?
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Notes toward a panel discussion on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the history of the Soviet Union. My conclusion: "When we think about Ukraine and the failed Soviet experiment, let us be mindful of how that history shapes this... more
Notes toward a panel discussion on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the history of the Soviet Union. My conclusion: "When we think about Ukraine and the failed Soviet experiment, let us be mindful of how that history shapes this present in which Ukraine finds itself. But let us also ask which history shapes this Ukrainian trajectory. Are we thinking in terms of strategic actors’ conscious or unconscious embrace of different historical lessons? Are we thinking about the contradictions of the Soviet experiment, and its own variable consequences across different national trajectories? Or are we thinking about the international and inter-imperial context in which this and past struggles have been waged, and over which Ukraine has limited influence as the emerging global, and not just European/Eurasian catastrophe, consumes us all. These are different histories with different mechanisms shaping alternative futures."
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The Polish Solidarity movement of 1980-81 inaugurated the decade ending communist rule in Europe. We can't know the global consequence of Ukrainian solidarity since 2022, but it has been presented in similarly definitive fashion, as a... more
The Polish Solidarity movement of 1980-81 inaugurated the decade ending communist rule in Europe. We can't know the global consequence of Ukrainian solidarity since 2022, but it has been presented in similarly definitive fashion, as a struggle to end Russian imperialism – now reinforced with рашизм/rashism -- in defense of principles, as in Poland 1980-81, of sovereignty, democracy, and civil society. In this epoch end, and despite Putin’s efforts, there is no global polarization as in the Cold War, but universal platitudes about freedom and peace, and even planetary survival, seem to crash on the contradictions of the multiple catastrophes through which we live. I propose an alternative method for engaging our world’s cataclysms by seeking how solidarities within crises can be rearticulated with emergent global transformations, beginning with the relationship between Poland and Ukraine in these times, and concluding with the contradictions and possibilities of more global solidarities in defense of peace and justice. In the end, I focus on the most recent efforts to develop a transformational solidarity with regard to Israel/Palestine focusing especially on most recent developments in Brown University's public culture.
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In these times, discourses of epoch ends are plentiful, leading with climate catastrophe and more recently invoked with the war on Ukraine and the effects of pandemic. Following a brief review of the variety of narratives defining epoch... more
In these times, discourses of epoch ends are plentiful, leading with climate catastrophe and more recently invoked with the war on Ukraine and the effects of pandemic.
Following a brief review of the variety of narratives defining epoch ends, in past, present, and future tenses, I present a schematic allowing for more systematic comparisons.
To illustrate, I contrast qualities of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. With this graphic, one might in particular consider the magnitudes and concentrations of loss, on the one hand, and on the other, the variable ways in which claims to expertise and truthfulness are mobilized in order to address uncertain futures.
I organize this comparison to facilitate efforts to connect catastrophes beyond their most proximate damages, so that we might develop a different discourse of global solidarity, one that emerges from within catastrophes and their networks of engagement rather than superimposed on top of them by schema generated in other conjunctures and for different purposes.
For my data, I draw on the notes I have assembled over these last years on Twitter with hashtags like these: #PandemicSociology #Covid19 #UKRSolidarity #UKRSovereignty #TransformationalSolidarity
I seek your help in fleshing out this comparison, as my colleague in Finland, Juho Korhonen, and I are working toward a larger collaborative grant application organized around this kind of comparative study of epoch ends. Today I focus more on solidarity, but we have broader ambitions.
Following a brief review of the variety of narratives defining epoch ends, in past, present, and future tenses, I present a schematic allowing for more systematic comparisons.
To illustrate, I contrast qualities of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. With this graphic, one might in particular consider the magnitudes and concentrations of loss, on the one hand, and on the other, the variable ways in which claims to expertise and truthfulness are mobilized in order to address uncertain futures.
I organize this comparison to facilitate efforts to connect catastrophes beyond their most proximate damages, so that we might develop a different discourse of global solidarity, one that emerges from within catastrophes and their networks of engagement rather than superimposed on top of them by schema generated in other conjunctures and for different purposes.
For my data, I draw on the notes I have assembled over these last years on Twitter with hashtags like these: #PandemicSociology #Covid19 #UKRSolidarity #UKRSovereignty #TransformationalSolidarity
I seek your help in fleshing out this comparison, as my colleague in Finland, Juho Korhonen, and I are working toward a larger collaborative grant application organized around this kind of comparative study of epoch ends. Today I focus more on solidarity, but we have broader ambitions.
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I propose that we recast our concern over scales of reference—global versus national—in recognizing university distinctions and dangers to consider what theories, methods, and practices enable universities to join concerns for academic... more
I propose that we recast our concern over scales of reference—global versus national—in recognizing university distinctions and dangers to consider what theories, methods, and practices enable universities to join concerns for academic freedom and seeking justice in knowledge activism.
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In these times, discourses of epoch ends are plentiful, leading with climate catastrophe and more recently invoked with the war on Ukraine and the effects of pandemic. Following a brief review of the variety of narratives defining epoch... more
In these times, discourses of epoch ends are plentiful, leading with climate catastrophe and more recently invoked with the war on Ukraine and the effects of pandemic. Following a brief review of the variety of narratives defining epoch ends, in past, present, and future tenses, I present a schematic allowing for more systematic comparisons. To illustrate, I contrast qualities of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. With this graphic, one might in particular consider the magnitudes and concentrations of loss, on the one hand, and on the other, the variable ways in which claims to expertise and truthfulness are mobilized in order to address uncertain futures. I organize this comparison to facilitate efforts to connect catastrophes beyond their most proximate damages, so that we might develop a different discourse of global solidarity, one that emerges from within catastrophes in the making rather than superimposed on top of them by schema generated in other conjunctures and for different purposes.
For my data, I draw on the notes I have assembled over these last years on Twitter with hashtags like these: #PandemicSociology #Covid19 #UKRSolidarity #UKRSovereignty #TransformationalSolidarity. I seek your help in fleshing out this comparison, as my colleague in Finland, Juho Korhonen, and I are working toward a larger collaborative grant application organized around this kind of comparative study of epoch ends. Today I focus more on solidarity, but we have broader ambitions.
For my data, I draw on the notes I have assembled over these last years on Twitter with hashtags like these: #PandemicSociology #Covid19 #UKRSolidarity #UKRSovereignty #TransformationalSolidarity. I seek your help in fleshing out this comparison, as my colleague in Finland, Juho Korhonen, and I are working toward a larger collaborative grant application organized around this kind of comparative study of epoch ends. Today I focus more on solidarity, but we have broader ambitions.
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a powerpoint presentation made for Brown University MPA students around policy, sociology & contextual expertise with special reference to Kosova, Ukraine & the surrounding region.
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This knowledge cultural sociology about the end of an epoch in 2022 explores cultural logics and practices, eventful sociology, and the significance of articulation and rearticulation in shaping narratives of global transformations.... more
This knowledge cultural sociology about the end of an epoch in 2022 explores cultural logics and practices, eventful sociology, and the significance of articulation and rearticulation in shaping narratives of global transformations. Exploring cultural politics from within the narratives organizing our sense of the Covid-19 pandemic, on the one hand, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, on the other, I conclude by reflecting on the ways in which they can be rearticulated in order to develop a more global solidarity in epoch end's policy and practice. The end of an epoch is upon us, but its meaning is not entirely clear. Its manifestations, depending on one's location in the world are, however, obvious.
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In this document, I provide some of the slides I have used in graduate seminars and undergraduate lectures to introduce #KnowledgeCulturalSociology as an approach. Following those, I share selected #KCS references I have offered on... more
In this document, I provide some of the slides I have used in graduate seminars and undergraduate lectures to introduce #KnowledgeCulturalSociology as an approach.
Following those, I share selected #KCS references I have offered on twitter to illustrate its range and applicability.
They focus on
its frame and expressions around knowledge institutions
Public sociology and #TrumpSociology
#GlobalizingKnowledge & some of its particular places
#TransformationalSolidarity
Its place in my course on Power, Knowledge and Justice in Global Social Change #PKJ
Its contribution to #MartialArts #Sociology and #YogaSociology, #SuperheroSociology, AcademicFreedom/ScienceDenialism, ReproductiveRights/Justice, #PandemicSociology, #EpistemicSecurity and #GunViolenceSociology
Following those, I share selected #KCS references I have offered on twitter to illustrate its range and applicability.
They focus on
its frame and expressions around knowledge institutions
Public sociology and #TrumpSociology
#GlobalizingKnowledge & some of its particular places
#TransformationalSolidarity
Its place in my course on Power, Knowledge and Justice in Global Social Change #PKJ
Its contribution to #MartialArts #Sociology and #YogaSociology, #SuperheroSociology, AcademicFreedom/ScienceDenialism, ReproductiveRights/Justice, #PandemicSociology, #EpistemicSecurity and #GunViolenceSociology
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Incorporated into my course on Power, Knowledge, and Justice in Global Social Change in 2022, as well as for public engagement, these tweets about the war's trajectory and its brutalities and technologies, alongside information warfare,... more
Incorporated into my course on Power, Knowledge, and Justice in Global Social Change in 2022, as well as for public engagement, these tweets about the war's trajectory and its brutalities and technologies, alongside information warfare, solidarities, refugees, and other themes, are framed within a political and knowledge cultural sociology. They are intended to shape discussions as well as to offer one map to how English-language public discourse has changed over the course of war.
I focused previously on Ukraine between 1994 and 2015. For publications from that time period, see https://www.academia.edu/6496606/Publications_Engaging_Ukraine
I focused previously on Ukraine between 1994 and 2015. For publications from that time period, see https://www.academia.edu/6496606/Publications_Engaging_Ukraine
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Summary of the 2016 course on Solidarity and Social Change I led with Syeda Masood. In this summary various sociological takes on solidarity, its association with religious community, and its connotations and antagonisms are considered.... more
Summary of the 2016 course on Solidarity and Social Change I led with Syeda Masood. In this summary various sociological takes on solidarity, its association with religious community, and its connotations and antagonisms are considered. I add on June 27, 2021 a coda on Love, the Eucharist, and Solidarity on p. 11
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In this presentation to the Brown University community, I explore how Authoritarianisms’ Rise & Its Cultural Politics shape Forms of Resistance to Emergent and Abiding Oppressions, The Significance of Repertoire’s Innovation and... more
In this presentation to the Brown University community, I explore how Authoritarianisms’ Rise & Its Cultural Politics shape Forms of Resistance to Emergent and Abiding Oppressions, The Significance of Repertoire’s Innovation and Solidarity within Movements, Forms of Connection and Solidarity across Movements, as well as Emergent Global Processes of Resistance/Transformation in shaping Knowledge Activism’s Contribution to More Just Futures. Struggles in Belarus, Hong Kong, the USA, and elsewhere are engaged.
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(2015) Substantial Revision to (2001) “Eastern European Studies: Culture” in James D. Wright (editor in chief) International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, second edition. Volume 6. Oxford: Elsevier (pp. 805-809).
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The Global and Transnational Sociology section https://asaglobalandtransn.wixsite.com/asa-gts of the American Sociological Association (ASA) is one of the association’s newer sections. I’ve now had the pleasure of serving as its chair in... more
The Global and Transnational Sociology section https://asaglobalandtransn.wixsite.com/asa-gts
of the American Sociological Association (ASA) is one of the association’s newer sections. I’ve now had the pleasure of serving as its chair in 2019-20, and approaching that advisory role as past chair in 2020-21. While I thought that writing about globalizing knowledge and global sociology for some years would have prepared me well, working to organize a section with a marvelous team of colleagues on its advisory council and various committees has been both a joy and terrific learning experience, one on which I hope to build.
Although minutes and memories will serve me well in my future work, there are five more public documents on which I shall build that reflect my efforts to articulate #GATSociology:
Links and a brief description of two ASA sessions
1. “Global and Transnational Sociology Beyond English” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsgPj4cFNT4&feature=youtu.be
and
2. “Articulations of Globalizing Knowledge Cultures in Sociology” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWmmK1ZbnHA
and two essays for the Newsletter, reprinted below
3. (2020) “Engaging Covid-19 and other Pandemics in Global and Transnational Sociology”
4. (2019) “Globalizing #GATSociology”
and finally,
5. notes guiding my comments on the 2019 book, Global Borderlands, by Victoria Reyes delivered at the Eastern Sociological Society meeting in 2020.
of the American Sociological Association (ASA) is one of the association’s newer sections. I’ve now had the pleasure of serving as its chair in 2019-20, and approaching that advisory role as past chair in 2020-21. While I thought that writing about globalizing knowledge and global sociology for some years would have prepared me well, working to organize a section with a marvelous team of colleagues on its advisory council and various committees has been both a joy and terrific learning experience, one on which I hope to build.
Although minutes and memories will serve me well in my future work, there are five more public documents on which I shall build that reflect my efforts to articulate #GATSociology:
Links and a brief description of two ASA sessions
1. “Global and Transnational Sociology Beyond English” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsgPj4cFNT4&feature=youtu.be
and
2. “Articulations of Globalizing Knowledge Cultures in Sociology” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWmmK1ZbnHA
and two essays for the Newsletter, reprinted below
3. (2020) “Engaging Covid-19 and other Pandemics in Global and Transnational Sociology”
4. (2019) “Globalizing #GATSociology”
and finally,
5. notes guiding my comments on the 2019 book, Global Borderlands, by Victoria Reyes delivered at the Eastern Sociological Society meeting in 2020.
I drew up these notes in anticipation of an interview resulting in this publication... more
I drew up these notes in anticipation of an interview resulting in this publication https://www.providencejournal.com/in-depth/news/local/2021/09/01/covid-pandemic-9-11-attacks-cultural-change-generations-disparities-distorted-narratives/5378530001/ These notes could be the beginning of a more extended reflection. I share them now in hopes that others carry forward the comparisons anticipated here.
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Three months ago I marked the looming legitimation crisis in Trump's America. I subsequently argued that not all contradictions accompanying President Trump's governance magnified that crisis. In the succeeding months, those conflicts... more
Three months ago I marked the looming legitimation crisis in Trump's America. I subsequently argued that not all contradictions accompanying President Trump's governance magnified that crisis. In the succeeding months, those conflicts that reinforced cultural authority among Trump's base have not changed much, if at all. However, his Russian Achilles Heel has grown much more vulnerable while the health care crisis functions to make him even more unstable. I have been able to extend these points around Trump's legitimation crisis on various television programs but I consolidate those observations here. In what follows, I elaborate some of my original argument from the second article in this series, one that was animated by my crude sketch. An anonymous artist has transformed that image to accompany this third essay on the legitimation crisis in Trump's America. But before I elaborate, I clarify the meaning of "legitimation crisis".
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We seek to refine our understandings of the variations in engaged scholarship's ethics, conceptions of justice, and practices of transformation. In this seminar we shall work with a variety of experienced scholars and practitioners to to... more
We seek to refine our understandings of the variations in engaged scholarship's ethics, conceptions of justice, and practices of transformation. In this seminar we shall work with a variety of experienced scholars and practitioners to to enhance our capacities for articulating problem-driven research, to deepen our normative grounding in those choices, and to address and extend transformational solidarities within and beyond the academy. In particular, we shall identify best practices, recognize recurring and distinctive challenges, and identify the conditions of consequential social change that can emerge from this kind of knowledge activism. The syllabus and reflections on knowledge activists -- Jennifer Wood, prabh kehal, and Katie Cohen -- follow.
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Even for Poland, 1989 was a surprise, but not in the same way as for other parts of the region or of the world. And that was due to the existence of a profound opposition, a mutable communist authority, and an influential and diverse set... more
Even for Poland, 1989 was a surprise, but not in the same way as for other parts of the region or of the world. And that was due to the existence of a profound opposition, a mutable communist authority, and an influential and diverse set of Catholic authorities. Poles knew that transformations were likely, for struggles abided. But what kind of change was not at all clear. Communist-made contradictions of the private sphere, productively channeled by roundtable negotiations into a public good, were critical to the peaceful changes of those early months of 1989. And these should inspire 2009.
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After reviewing Burawoy’s presentation of public sociology, I propose an approach to deprovincialize American sociology that draws on the postcommunist sociological imagination. In particular, I suggest that a postcommunist public... more
After reviewing Burawoy’s presentation of public sociology, I propose an approach to deprovincialize American sociology that draws on the postcommunist sociological imagination. In particular, I suggest that a postcommunist public sociology should strive toward professional autonomy from political forces, develop a translation of public that emphasizes the voluntary and civic dimensions of association, and elaborate a contribution to global public sociology that recognizes the challenge of the left’s meaning in an environment informed by communism’s legacy. In addition, I propose that one might think beyond conventional traditions of critical sociology, looking especially to various humanist traditions, including one of Sorokin’s revision.
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Transition culture offered scholars a terrific way to engage the central policy problems of postcommunist societies, but did not offer sociologists a good vehicle for exploring ways in which scholarship could enhance public opinion and... more
Transition culture offered scholars a terrific way to engage the central policy problems of postcommunist societies, but did not offer sociologists a good vehicle for exploring ways in which scholarship could enhance public opinion and efficacy. By exploring the degree to which political relations between the state and its citizens feature broad, equal, protected, and mutually binding consultation, and working to figure ways in which those qualities of democracy might be enhanced, sociologists can engage non-academic audiences in ways that remain independent of political obligation albeit grounded in democracy’s norms. While such a postcommunist public sociology might most readily be applied to social movements pressing for democratic change, it also can be considered in other domains, from gender equality to energy security. By exploring the articulation of these and other issues within the terms of post-communism’s emerging democracies, sociologists also can refine and broaden the normative foundations and analytical questions of a more global public sociology.
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The relationship between the religious blogosphere and other publics is mostly not distinctive. Academic reputations are equally damaged by blog foolishness in politics as in religion. Not just churches, but all organizations blog to... more
The relationship between the religious blogosphere and other publics is mostly not distinctive. Academic reputations are equally damaged by blog foolishness in politics as in religion. Not just churches, but all organizations blog to build identities. New media’s less centralized means of communication can undermine all dictatorships, and not just religious ones. The religious blogosphere is intrinsically no less artificial than those organized around martial arts or music. But religion’s place is different when it comes to publicity, pluralism, and power.
Religion’s privatization is extended to the extent that blogs reinforce author culture; new media can reproduce religious views in their own niche space. Blogs designed to constitute public discussion about religion’s place, like The Immanent Frame, work more among scholarly communities. This report creates two new possibilities.
It helps to extend and consolidate the religious blogosphere, but I would expect that sphere to develop in more conventional religious directions, even as the community of participants could be diversified. That is good. The second is to consider how new media are useful for driving particularly central discussions around religion, democracy, and geopolitics. That is harder.
Religion’s privatization is extended to the extent that blogs reinforce author culture; new media can reproduce religious views in their own niche space. Blogs designed to constitute public discussion about religion’s place, like The Immanent Frame, work more among scholarly communities. This report creates two new possibilities.
It helps to extend and consolidate the religious blogosphere, but I would expect that sphere to develop in more conventional religious directions, even as the community of participants could be diversified. That is good. The second is to consider how new media are useful for driving particularly central discussions around religion, democracy, and geopolitics. That is harder.
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Written during the early days of 2011, Shiva Balaghi and I proposed that those making history in Egypt consider what those who made history in Poland in 1988-89 accomplished, where jailers and jailed sat at a round table to figure an... more
Written during the early days of 2011, Shiva Balaghi and I proposed that those making history in Egypt consider what those who made history in Poland in 1988-89 accomplished, where jailers and jailed sat at a round table to figure an exit from crisis. Compromise rarely wins adulation, but it denied the regret & remorse in 1989 that we feel today in Egypt, for Egypt.
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Mobilizations over the last year – especially those supporting internet freedom and those challenging inequality -- invite change in the electorally engaged left’s articulation of the world’s transformations. By conceiving the Next Left... more
Mobilizations over the last year – especially those supporting internet freedom and those challenging inequality -- invite change in the electorally engaged left’s articulation of the world’s transformations. By conceiving the Next Left as a field of affinities rather than exclusively through the lens of particular political parties, mobilizations in opposition to ACTA across Europe in 2012 alongside Occupy Wall Street and its movement kin become critical allies in both policy and politics. These and other movements help to channel the politics of affect in progressive fashion, by refashioning a proper sense of property and accountability for the 21st century on the one hand, and by elevating the importance of publics in politics, on the other.
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The left enjoys many connotations, but it is hard to imagine a left worthy of the name that does not take worldly obligation seriously. Internationalism historically has been the word used to frame that commitment, but cosmopolitanism is... more
The left enjoys many connotations, but it is hard to imagine a left worthy of the name that does not take worldly obligation seriously. Internationalism historically has been the word used to frame that commitment, but cosmopolitanism is rapidly taking its place for good reason. This outlook accompanies globalization as a new frame with which to articulate a worldly sensibility based on emergent networks and publics engaging world issues. The solidarities that develop out of such new global articulation vary in a number of ways, but are usefully distinguished by the different ways in which resemblance and recognition function to generate not only symbolic but consequential solidarity. Mobilizations over the last year – especially those supporting internet freedom and those challenging inequality -- promise a change in the worldly left’s articulation of solidarity.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yiIJVgpc0S0 Following introductions, Michael Burawoy begins with discussing the definition, and especially the dilemmas, of public sociology. He uses his then ongoing course,... more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=yiIJVgpc0S0
Following introductions, Michael Burawoy begins with discussing the definition, and especially the dilemmas, of public sociology. He uses his then ongoing course, Public Sociology Live http://www.isa-sociology.org/public-sociology-live/, and http://isapublicsociology.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/week-1-michael-burawoy/ to illustrate some of its potentials. In classes across the world – in Teheran, Barcelona, Johannesburg, Kyiv, Sao Paulo, Oslo, Berkeley – sociologists watch the course and then summarize each class’s discussion on the group facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/259654060772916/ which in turn moves discussion across them. Around 21:50, Burawoy turns to dilemmas using this course, and drawing on some of that course’s guest speakers, for his illustrations. Around 33 minutes, the seminar opens up for discussion, where publics and their scholars from Europe and Eurasia, organized by the Academic Fellowship Program of the Open Society Foundations, move the discussion around variations in sociology, the discipline’s relationship to anthropology, and its relationship to activism as such.
Following introductions, Michael Burawoy begins with discussing the definition, and especially the dilemmas, of public sociology. He uses his then ongoing course, Public Sociology Live http://www.isa-sociology.org/public-sociology-live/, and http://isapublicsociology.wordpress.com/2012/01/25/week-1-michael-burawoy/ to illustrate some of its potentials. In classes across the world – in Teheran, Barcelona, Johannesburg, Kyiv, Sao Paulo, Oslo, Berkeley – sociologists watch the course and then summarize each class’s discussion on the group facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/259654060772916/ which in turn moves discussion across them. Around 21:50, Burawoy turns to dilemmas using this course, and drawing on some of that course’s guest speakers, for his illustrations. Around 33 minutes, the seminar opens up for discussion, where publics and their scholars from Europe and Eurasia, organized by the Academic Fellowship Program of the Open Society Foundations, move the discussion around variations in sociology, the discipline’s relationship to anthropology, and its relationship to activism as such.
Research Interests:
Ethnography crosses disciplinary domains – anthropology is most obviously associated, but sociologists and political scientists, among others, also claim its methodology. Engaged ethnography is a subset. I understand it to refer to... more
Ethnography crosses disciplinary domains – anthropology is most obviously associated, but sociologists and political scientists, among others, also claim its methodology. Engaged ethnography is a subset. I understand it to refer to research that seeks through its study and elaboration of vernaculars greater clarity of the ways in which power relations work so as to facilitate greater claims to justice and normative goods among those engaged as well as among those informed by those actions and its study. It is, therefore, a vital complement to critical social theory and critical sociology. At the time I would not have characterized my research on Solidarność as engaged ethnography, but in retrospect, I should so as to consider more substantially the implications of this particular kind of ethnography under various systemic and social conditions.
In what follows, I elaborate the distinctions of engaged ethnography, and consider the possibilities of its expression under communist rule. I suggest that the network qualities of engaged citizens and scholars enabled my work; that research was facilitated additionally by the deep theoretical and disciplinary distinction of the idea motivating my study. Nevertheless, the project was constantly at political risk, and was insulated by the qualities of the era’s communicative relations. In conclusion, I question whether the distinction of “engaged” ethnography is meaningful under communist rule given the systemic qualities of Soviet-type society.
In what follows, I elaborate the distinctions of engaged ethnography, and consider the possibilities of its expression under communist rule. I suggest that the network qualities of engaged citizens and scholars enabled my work; that research was facilitated additionally by the deep theoretical and disciplinary distinction of the idea motivating my study. Nevertheless, the project was constantly at political risk, and was insulated by the qualities of the era’s communicative relations. In conclusion, I question whether the distinction of “engaged” ethnography is meaningful under communist rule given the systemic qualities of Soviet-type society.
Research Interests:
Solidarity is about both principle and passion. It is about identifying injustice but also recognizing one’s fellow. In what follows, I explore some of solidarity’s conceptual foundations and emergent political expressions, along with... more
Solidarity is about both principle and passion. It is about identifying injustice but also recognizing one’s fellow. In what follows, I explore some of solidarity’s conceptual foundations and emergent political expressions, along with its new means and antagonisms. I don’t manage here to provide that alternative narrative that the next left seeks, but I do think I pose questions that the next left should not avoid in that narrative’s making. Hactivism as means of direct action and corruption as pervasive condition not just in others’ societies but in our own are vital questions to consider, especially as we move beyond an affirming to critical solidarity.
Research Interests:
“Prioritizing People and Planet: An New Agenda for Global Progress” is a document prepared under the guidance of Pascal Lamy, with the critical support of Ania Skrzypek and Ernst Stetter, alongside a number of other progressive academics... more
“Prioritizing People and Planet: An New Agenda for Global Progress” is a document prepared under the guidance of Pascal Lamy, with the critical support of Ania Skrzypek and Ernst Stetter, alongside a number of other progressive academics and political figures from around the world. We met 3 times over the last year -- in Genval, Capetown, and Toronto to prepare this document. The Foundation for European Progressive Studies (FEPS) is now rolling out this document in a number of ways, including a volume assembling individual contributions. My paper here is one of those chapters, of necessity brief. It draws on my work in the sociology of Trump times, especially around its communities of resistance and practices of transformational solidarity. I will finish this paper's revision in the next week, and would appreciate any comments that might help me to improve it. Please write to me michael_kennedy@brown.edu.
Research Interests:
Original Texts Below the List of Publications/Interviews Television Interviews Story in the Public Square on the Sociological Imagination, Globalizing Knowledge, and the Time of Trump, March 22, 2017... more
Original Texts Below the List of Publications/Interviews
Television Interviews
Story in the Public Square on the Sociological Imagination, Globalizing Knowledge, and the Time of Trump, March 22, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5P88I4YuD0
WPRI Newsmakers Political Roundtable on Donald Trump, February 17, 2017
http://wpri.com/2017/02/17/newsmakers-2172016-political-roundtable-on-president-trump/
State of Mind with Dan Yorke
1. July 18, 2017 “Questioning Democracy in Crisis” http://foxprovidence.com/2017/07/19/718-questioning-democracy-in-crisis-on-state-of-mind/ (with Dan Cammarano)
2. June 16, 2017 “Dissecting Law vs. Loyalty in the Time of Trump” http://foxprovidence.com/2017/06/16/616-dissecting-law-versus-loyalty-in-the-trump-era-on-state-of-mind/ (with Tim Edgar)
3. March 21, 2017 “Brown University Sociologist Questions the Moment of President Trump’s Downfall” http://foxprovidence.com/2017/03/22/321-brown-university-sociologist-questions-the-moment-of-president-trumps-downfall-on-state-of-mind/
4. February 7, 2017 “Probing Comments on Putin’s State of Mind” http://foxprovidence.com/2017/02/07/27-probing-trumps-comments-on-putin-on-state-of-mind/
5. January 3, 2017 “Twitter Policy Transformations and Russian Hacking Analysis” http://foxprovidence.com/2017/01/03/13-twitter-policy-transformations-and-russian-hacking-analysis-on-state-of-mind/
6. March 12, 2014 on Ukraine http://wpri.com/2014/03/12/312-brown-univ-professors-on-state-of-mind/ (with Anna Lysyanskaya)
Recent Print/Blog:
(August 15, 2017) “Beyond the Streets in America’s Postmodern Civil War”
Riot Material
(July 19, 2017) “Not Even the Art of the Fool: Trump’s the Tsar’s Dupe” Riot Material
(June 15, 2017) “On the Rule of Law and the Rule of Loyalty: The Political Epistemics of Trump and Communism” Riot Material
(May 27, 2017) “Norm Eisen, the Indictment of Trump, and the Resilience of America” RIFuture http://www.rifuture.org/78143-2/
(May 26, 2017) “Culture, Power and Social Change in the Time of Trump” (an introduction to a series of student papers on the sociological imagination after Trump) RIFuture http://www.rifuture.org/sociology-trump1/
(May 25, 2017) “The Impending Legitimation Crisis in Trump’s America” http://www.rifuture.org/the-impending-legitimation-crisis-in-trumps-america/
(April 7, 2017) Interviewed in G. Wayne Miller, “Foreign-policy experts assess impact of missile strike against Syria” Providence Journal with additional thoughts below
(March 30, 2017) “Attacking Higher Education Kills More than Academic Freedom”
http://www.ehu.lt/en/news/show/prof-michael-kennedy-attacking-higher-education-kills-more-than-academic-freedom
(March 2, 2017) “Trump’s Articulation of the Nation” http://www.rifuture.org/trumps-articulation-of-the-nation/ (I published a shorter version of this essay on March 1, 2017 at the invitation of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs)
(February 21, 2017) “The Conflicts and Contradictions Shaping Trump’s Legitimation Crisis” RIFuture http://www.rifuture.org/conflicts-contradictions-trump-legitimation-crisis/
(February 15, 2017) “The Looming Legitimation Crisis in Trump’s America” RIFuture http://www.rifuture.org/legitimation-crisis-in-trumps-america/
(February 3, 2017) “On Explaining Trump in the World: In Response to Maria Eugenia Plano and Paula Lugones” portions of this response can be found in Spanish in this interview: http://www.clarin.com/mundo/comportamiento-erratico-magnate-domesticado_0_SyovmDCdx.html
(January 30, 2017) “Love, Solidarity and the #MuslimBan in Providence Rhode Island” http://www.publicseminar.org/2017/01/love-solidarity-the-muslimban/#.WJUw2rYrK8o
(January 22, 2017) “Love, Solidarity and the #WomensMarch in Providence, Rhode Island” http://www.publicseminar.org/2017/01/love-solidarity-and-the-womensmarch/#.WJUwnLYrK8o
(December 29, 2016) “On Democracy in Poland 2016: In Response to Dario Mizrahi” portions of this response are found in http://www.infobae.com/america/mundo/2016/12/31/crece-la-alarma-en-europa-por-un-pais-que-se-desliza-hacia-al-autoritarismo/
(November 22, 2016) “Recurrent and Resurgent Whiteness in the Time of Trump”
http://www.rifuture.org/recurrent-and-resurgent-whiteness-in-the-time-of-trump/
(November 11, 2016) “Transformational Solidarity in the Time of Trump”
http://policytrajectories.asa-comparative-historical.org/2016/11/transformational-solidarity-in-the-time-of-trump/#more-546
an extended version: http://www.rifuture.org/transformational-solidarity-in-the-time-of-trump/
(November 9, 2016) “Call It By Its Name” (on the Trump Victory) in http://watson.brown.edu/news/explore/2016/CommentaryNewPresident
(November 8, 2016) “Solidarity in America”
(October 10, 2016) “The Failure, and Abiding Danger, of Trump” RI Future
(July 28, 2016) “The Politics of Progressive Identification and the DNC” RI Future
http://www.rifuture.org/politics-of-progressive-identification-dnc.html
(July 21, 2016) “Ideology in the Time of Trump Is Fantasy” (http://www.rifuture.org/ideology-in-the-time-of-trump.html; an abbreviated version of which can be found here: http://watson.brown.edu/news/explore/2016/FantasyofTrump)
(June 24, 2016) “On Brexit: Breaking a System Does Not Fix the Problems” http://watson.brown.edu/news/explore/2016/FacultyCommentaryBrexit
(April 25, 2016) “Why People Feel the Bern: The Movement for Democracy Beyond Elections” reentitled “Bernie Sanders for Rhode Island” RI Future http://www.rifuture.org/bernie-sanders-for-rhode-island.html
(March 10, 2016) “Solidarity or Escapism”
(September 25, 2015) “Mr. Trump, Secretary Clinton, Who Is Your Favorite Superhero and Why?
(September 5, 2015) “Brexit, Übermensch Escapism, and Anglo-American-European Solidarity” http://www.queries-feps.eu/brexit-ubermensch-escapism-and-anglo-american-european-solidarity/
(August 1, 2015) “Bernie Sanders is Captain America” Michael D. Kennedy, Jane Goodman and Steven Goodman
Television Interviews
Story in the Public Square on the Sociological Imagination, Globalizing Knowledge, and the Time of Trump, March 22, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5P88I4YuD0
WPRI Newsmakers Political Roundtable on Donald Trump, February 17, 2017
http://wpri.com/2017/02/17/newsmakers-2172016-political-roundtable-on-president-trump/
State of Mind with Dan Yorke
1. July 18, 2017 “Questioning Democracy in Crisis” http://foxprovidence.com/2017/07/19/718-questioning-democracy-in-crisis-on-state-of-mind/ (with Dan Cammarano)
2. June 16, 2017 “Dissecting Law vs. Loyalty in the Time of Trump” http://foxprovidence.com/2017/06/16/616-dissecting-law-versus-loyalty-in-the-trump-era-on-state-of-mind/ (with Tim Edgar)
3. March 21, 2017 “Brown University Sociologist Questions the Moment of President Trump’s Downfall” http://foxprovidence.com/2017/03/22/321-brown-university-sociologist-questions-the-moment-of-president-trumps-downfall-on-state-of-mind/
4. February 7, 2017 “Probing Comments on Putin’s State of Mind” http://foxprovidence.com/2017/02/07/27-probing-trumps-comments-on-putin-on-state-of-mind/
5. January 3, 2017 “Twitter Policy Transformations and Russian Hacking Analysis” http://foxprovidence.com/2017/01/03/13-twitter-policy-transformations-and-russian-hacking-analysis-on-state-of-mind/
6. March 12, 2014 on Ukraine http://wpri.com/2014/03/12/312-brown-univ-professors-on-state-of-mind/ (with Anna Lysyanskaya)
Recent Print/Blog:
(August 15, 2017) “Beyond the Streets in America’s Postmodern Civil War”
Riot Material
(July 19, 2017) “Not Even the Art of the Fool: Trump’s the Tsar’s Dupe” Riot Material
(June 15, 2017) “On the Rule of Law and the Rule of Loyalty: The Political Epistemics of Trump and Communism” Riot Material
(May 27, 2017) “Norm Eisen, the Indictment of Trump, and the Resilience of America” RIFuture http://www.rifuture.org/78143-2/
(May 26, 2017) “Culture, Power and Social Change in the Time of Trump” (an introduction to a series of student papers on the sociological imagination after Trump) RIFuture http://www.rifuture.org/sociology-trump1/
(May 25, 2017) “The Impending Legitimation Crisis in Trump’s America” http://www.rifuture.org/the-impending-legitimation-crisis-in-trumps-america/
(April 7, 2017) Interviewed in G. Wayne Miller, “Foreign-policy experts assess impact of missile strike against Syria” Providence Journal with additional thoughts below
(March 30, 2017) “Attacking Higher Education Kills More than Academic Freedom”
http://www.ehu.lt/en/news/show/prof-michael-kennedy-attacking-higher-education-kills-more-than-academic-freedom
(March 2, 2017) “Trump’s Articulation of the Nation” http://www.rifuture.org/trumps-articulation-of-the-nation/ (I published a shorter version of this essay on March 1, 2017 at the invitation of the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs)
(February 21, 2017) “The Conflicts and Contradictions Shaping Trump’s Legitimation Crisis” RIFuture http://www.rifuture.org/conflicts-contradictions-trump-legitimation-crisis/
(February 15, 2017) “The Looming Legitimation Crisis in Trump’s America” RIFuture http://www.rifuture.org/legitimation-crisis-in-trumps-america/
(February 3, 2017) “On Explaining Trump in the World: In Response to Maria Eugenia Plano and Paula Lugones” portions of this response can be found in Spanish in this interview: http://www.clarin.com/mundo/comportamiento-erratico-magnate-domesticado_0_SyovmDCdx.html
(January 30, 2017) “Love, Solidarity and the #MuslimBan in Providence Rhode Island” http://www.publicseminar.org/2017/01/love-solidarity-the-muslimban/#.WJUw2rYrK8o
(January 22, 2017) “Love, Solidarity and the #WomensMarch in Providence, Rhode Island” http://www.publicseminar.org/2017/01/love-solidarity-and-the-womensmarch/#.WJUwnLYrK8o
(December 29, 2016) “On Democracy in Poland 2016: In Response to Dario Mizrahi” portions of this response are found in http://www.infobae.com/america/mundo/2016/12/31/crece-la-alarma-en-europa-por-un-pais-que-se-desliza-hacia-al-autoritarismo/
(November 22, 2016) “Recurrent and Resurgent Whiteness in the Time of Trump”
http://www.rifuture.org/recurrent-and-resurgent-whiteness-in-the-time-of-trump/
(November 11, 2016) “Transformational Solidarity in the Time of Trump”
http://policytrajectories.asa-comparative-historical.org/2016/11/transformational-solidarity-in-the-time-of-trump/#more-546
an extended version: http://www.rifuture.org/transformational-solidarity-in-the-time-of-trump/
(November 9, 2016) “Call It By Its Name” (on the Trump Victory) in http://watson.brown.edu/news/explore/2016/CommentaryNewPresident
(November 8, 2016) “Solidarity in America”
(October 10, 2016) “The Failure, and Abiding Danger, of Trump” RI Future
(July 28, 2016) “The Politics of Progressive Identification and the DNC” RI Future
http://www.rifuture.org/politics-of-progressive-identification-dnc.html
(July 21, 2016) “Ideology in the Time of Trump Is Fantasy” (http://www.rifuture.org/ideology-in-the-time-of-trump.html; an abbreviated version of which can be found here: http://watson.brown.edu/news/explore/2016/FantasyofTrump)
(June 24, 2016) “On Brexit: Breaking a System Does Not Fix the Problems” http://watson.brown.edu/news/explore/2016/FacultyCommentaryBrexit
(April 25, 2016) “Why People Feel the Bern: The Movement for Democracy Beyond Elections” reentitled “Bernie Sanders for Rhode Island” RI Future http://www.rifuture.org/bernie-sanders-for-rhode-island.html
(March 10, 2016) “Solidarity or Escapism”
(September 25, 2015) “Mr. Trump, Secretary Clinton, Who Is Your Favorite Superhero and Why?
(September 5, 2015) “Brexit, Übermensch Escapism, and Anglo-American-European Solidarity” http://www.queries-feps.eu/brexit-ubermensch-escapism-and-anglo-american-european-solidarity/
(August 1, 2015) “Bernie Sanders is Captain America” Michael D. Kennedy, Jane Goodman and Steven Goodman
Notes in anticipation of and following an introductory lesson in sociology
for a class with Yang Gao, School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University
for a class with Yang Gao, School of Social Sciences, Singapore Management University
Research Interests:
Building on the previous version of Extensions of Globalizing Knowledge (2015-20), I add Comments on the ASA 2021 panel entitled Theorizing Liberation and Emancipation, “Mobilizations, Pandemic and Authoritarianisms in the Last... more
Building on the previous version of Extensions of Globalizing Knowledge (2015-20), I add
Comments on the ASA 2021 panel entitled
Theorizing Liberation and Emancipation,
“Mobilizations, Pandemic and Authoritarianisms in the
Last Year’s Transformation of Knowledge Activism”
“Articulations of #GATSociology 2020”
Comments on the ASA 2021 panel entitled
Theorizing Liberation and Emancipation,
“Mobilizations, Pandemic and Authoritarianisms in the
Last Year’s Transformation of Knowledge Activism”
“Articulations of #GATSociology 2020”
Research Interests:
My sociological imagination has been stimulated like never before over the course of these last 5 years with the political rise of Donald Trump and similar leaders and political developments across the world. That is evident in the number... more
My sociological imagination has been stimulated like never before over the course of these last 5 years with the political rise of Donald Trump and similar leaders and political developments across the world. That is evident in the number of contributions I have made to the public sphere about the sociology of Trump. It is also evident in the way I taught sociology over the last four years. I first taught together with Maria Ortega (https://www.brown.edu/academics/gradschool/about/newsletter/meet-maria-ortega-flicenter-graduate-student-coordinator), the introduction to sociology for Brown University in the spring of 2017. In the spring of 2018, I taught a first year seminar entitled “Democracy, Dictatorship, and Trump”. In the springs of 2019 and 2020, I returned to the large introduction to sociology in which I feature the sociology of Trump, now made more comparative given my collaborations in teaching with Anindita Adhikari https://www.brown.edu/academics/sociology/people/anindita-adhikari,. and Karolina Dos Santos. Following a list of my recent public sociological interventions about sociology in the Time of Trump I share four teaching aides: a) the syllabus for the 2019 introductory sociology course; b) the outline Ani and I used for that course; c) the syllabus for the 2018 first year seminar; and d) the outline Maria and I used in our introductory sociology course.
Research Interests:
Heralding a push for higher education to adopt a more global perspective, the term “globalizing knowledge” is today a popular catchphrase among academics and their circles. The complications and consequences of this desire for greater... more
Heralding a push for higher education to adopt a more global perspective, the term “globalizing knowledge” is today a popular catchphrase among academics and their circles. The complications and consequences of this desire for greater worldliness, however, are rarely considered critically. In this groundbreaking cultural-political sociology of knowledge and change, Michael D. Kennedy rearticulates questions, approaches, and case studies to clarify intellectuals’ and institutions’ responsibilities in a world defined by transformation and crisis.
The product of extensive research, university teaching and administrative experience, and social activism, Globalizing Knowledge introduces the stakes of globalizing knowledge before examining how intellectuals and their institutions and networks shape and are shaped by globalization and world-historical events from 2001 through the uprisings of 2011–13. But Kennedy is not only concerned with elaborating how wisdom is maintained and transmitted, he also asks how we can recognize both interconnectedness and inequalities, and possibilities for more knowledgeable change within and beyond academic circles. Subsequent chapters are devoted to issues of public engagement, the importance of recognizing the local’s implication in the global, and the specific ways in which knowledge, images, and symbols are shared globally. Kennedy considers numerous case studies, from historical happenings in Poland, Kosova, Ukraine, and Afghanistan, to today’s energy crisis, Pussy Riot, the Occupy Movement, and beyond, to illuminate how knowledge functions and might be used to affect good in the world.
The product of extensive research, university teaching and administrative experience, and social activism, Globalizing Knowledge introduces the stakes of globalizing knowledge before examining how intellectuals and their institutions and networks shape and are shaped by globalization and world-historical events from 2001 through the uprisings of 2011–13. But Kennedy is not only concerned with elaborating how wisdom is maintained and transmitted, he also asks how we can recognize both interconnectedness and inequalities, and possibilities for more knowledgeable change within and beyond academic circles. Subsequent chapters are devoted to issues of public engagement, the importance of recognizing the local’s implication in the global, and the specific ways in which knowledge, images, and symbols are shared globally. Kennedy considers numerous case studies, from historical happenings in Poland, Kosova, Ukraine, and Afghanistan, to today’s energy crisis, Pussy Riot, the Occupy Movement, and beyond, to illuminate how knowledge functions and might be used to affect good in the world.
Research Interests:
Thanks to the interest of colleagues, I enjoy the opportunity to discuss Globalizing Knowledge: Intellectuals, Universities and Publics in Transformation and to develop its extensions in a number of circumstances. In this posting, I... more
Thanks to the interest of colleagues, I enjoy the opportunity to discuss Globalizing Knowledge: Intellectuals, Universities and Publics in Transformation and to develop its extensions in a number of circumstances. In this posting, I provide some of the references and resources that develop in anticipation of, and following, those engagements. This posting is updated as encounters multiply.
Although of course I enjoy the attention my book wins in these conversations, it is far more important to me that it helps to stimulate a more reflexive and consequential approach to globalizing knowledge than what individual intellectuals, universities, or even knowledge networks now practice.
In what follows are
1) links to my subsequent publications extending themes of Globalizing Knowledge (Some of their penultimate drafts can be found beginning on p. 10)
2) links to other publications discussing Globalizing Knowledge (p. 3)
3) events associated with Globalizing Knowledge (p. 4)
4) notes anticipating public discussions on p. 52
Although of course I enjoy the attention my book wins in these conversations, it is far more important to me that it helps to stimulate a more reflexive and consequential approach to globalizing knowledge than what individual intellectuals, universities, or even knowledge networks now practice.
In what follows are
1) links to my subsequent publications extending themes of Globalizing Knowledge (Some of their penultimate drafts can be found beginning on p. 10)
2) links to other publications discussing Globalizing Knowledge (p. 3)
3) events associated with Globalizing Knowledge (p. 4)
4) notes anticipating public discussions on p. 52
"In June 2000, the Luce Foundation announced a $30 million initiative in the environment, designed to enhance the quality of academic training and research on the environment at small liberal arts colleges and large research universities,... more
"In June 2000, the Luce Foundation announced a $30 million initiative in the environment, designed to enhance the quality of academic training and research on the environment at small liberal arts colleges and large research universities, and to support ground-breaking projects of environmental organizations that held promise for solving specific problems.
In order to take stock of that initiative, the Luce Foundation sponsored a gathering of grant recipients; Michael D. Kennedy, Nancy Jacobs and J. Timmons Roberts, through the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, organized that gathering not only to share ideas on site, but to extend the fruits of that learning digitally. The Pecha-Kuchas available on this site are very brief introductions to each of the various projects undertaken with Luce support at more than 30 schools. The Watson Institute’s Lindsay Richardson made videos about three of those projects — at the College of the Atlantic, Bard College, and University of California Berkeley’s College of Engineering — to illustrate the principles mobilizing innovation in environmental learning.
Finally, Michael D. Kennedy, J. Timmons Roberts, Alissa Cordner and Adam Kotin drew upon all these materials and more to write an overall assessment of the initiative entitled “Environmental Knowledge Matters: Assessing Impacts of the Luce Foundation Initiative on Higher Education and Sustainability”. Not only retrospective in assessment, the authors seek to extend the learning that has taken place across these schools and the foundation about how to make philanthropy and higher education more consequential in their work together."
In order to take stock of that initiative, the Luce Foundation sponsored a gathering of grant recipients; Michael D. Kennedy, Nancy Jacobs and J. Timmons Roberts, through the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University, organized that gathering not only to share ideas on site, but to extend the fruits of that learning digitally. The Pecha-Kuchas available on this site are very brief introductions to each of the various projects undertaken with Luce support at more than 30 schools. The Watson Institute’s Lindsay Richardson made videos about three of those projects — at the College of the Atlantic, Bard College, and University of California Berkeley’s College of Engineering — to illustrate the principles mobilizing innovation in environmental learning.
Finally, Michael D. Kennedy, J. Timmons Roberts, Alissa Cordner and Adam Kotin drew upon all these materials and more to write an overall assessment of the initiative entitled “Environmental Knowledge Matters: Assessing Impacts of the Luce Foundation Initiative on Higher Education and Sustainability”. Not only retrospective in assessment, the authors seek to extend the learning that has taken place across these schools and the foundation about how to make philanthropy and higher education more consequential in their work together."
Research Interests:
The essays and videos on this website result from Engaging Afghanistan, a project directed by Shiva Balaghi and Michael Kennedy at Brown University from fall 2009 through spring 2011. Funded by the Social Science Research Council’s... more
The essays and videos on this website result from Engaging Afghanistan, a project directed by Shiva Balaghi and Michael Kennedy at Brown University from fall 2009 through spring 2011. Funded by the Social Science Research Council’s “Academia in the Public Sphere” grant program, the project organized a working group of faculty and students at Brown and beyond with expertise on key themes critical to engagement with Afghanistan. The working group organized a lecture series, a film series for students, a major conference, and an art exhibition.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
" "Transition" is the name typically given to the time of radical change following the fall of communism, connoting a shift from planned to market economy, from dictatorship to democracy. Transition is also, in Michael Kennedy's... more
"
"Transition" is the name typically given to the time of radical change following the fall of communism, connoting a shift from planned to market economy, from dictatorship to democracy. Transition is also, in Michael Kennedy's analysis, a culture in its own right-with its own contentions, repressions, and unrealized potentials. By elaborating transition as a culture of power and viewing it in its complex relation to emancipation, nationalism, and war, Kennedy's book clarifies the transformations of postcommunism as well as, more generally, the ways in which culture articulates social change. This ambitious work is, in effect, a nuanced critical-cultural sociology of change. Kennedy examines transition culture's historical foundation by looking at the relationship among perestroika, Poland, and Hungary, and considers its structure and practice in the following decade across fields and nations. His wide-ranging analysis-of the artifacts of transition culture's proponents, of interviews with providers and recipients of technical assistance in business across Eastern Europe, and of focus groups assessing the successes and failures of social change in Estonia and Ukraine-suggests a transition culture deeply implicated in nationalism. But this association, Kennedy contends, is not necessarily antithetical to transition's emancipation. By reconsidering transition culture's relationship to the Wars of Yugoslav Succession and communism's negotiated collapse in Poland and Hungary, he shows how transition might be reconceived in terms of solidarity, freedom, and peace.
Distinguished by its focus on culture, not only within particular nations but in the transnational community organized around transition, this book will help reframe the debate about postcommunist social change.
"
"Transition" is the name typically given to the time of radical change following the fall of communism, connoting a shift from planned to market economy, from dictatorship to democracy. Transition is also, in Michael Kennedy's analysis, a culture in its own right-with its own contentions, repressions, and unrealized potentials. By elaborating transition as a culture of power and viewing it in its complex relation to emancipation, nationalism, and war, Kennedy's book clarifies the transformations of postcommunism as well as, more generally, the ways in which culture articulates social change. This ambitious work is, in effect, a nuanced critical-cultural sociology of change. Kennedy examines transition culture's historical foundation by looking at the relationship among perestroika, Poland, and Hungary, and considers its structure and practice in the following decade across fields and nations. His wide-ranging analysis-of the artifacts of transition culture's proponents, of interviews with providers and recipients of technical assistance in business across Eastern Europe, and of focus groups assessing the successes and failures of social change in Estonia and Ukraine-suggests a transition culture deeply implicated in nationalism. But this association, Kennedy contends, is not necessarily antithetical to transition's emancipation. By reconsidering transition culture's relationship to the Wars of Yugoslav Succession and communism's negotiated collapse in Poland and Hungary, he shows how transition might be reconceived in terms of solidarity, freedom, and peace.
Distinguished by its focus on culture, not only within particular nations but in the transnational community organized around transition, this book will help reframe the debate about postcommunist social change.
"
Research Interests:
Building on a Sawyer Seminar supported by the Mellon Foundation, my coeditors and I sought to meld Mayer Zald's leadership on social movements with a global cultural politics and critical theory that John Guidry and I also found... more
Building on a Sawyer Seminar supported by the Mellon Foundation, my coeditors and I sought to meld Mayer Zald's leadership on social movements with a global cultural politics and critical theory that John Guidry and I also found interesting to produce a volume putting the diversity of the world's movements into dialogue with the presumptions of theory animated by work on the public sphere. One of the outcomes I appreciate most from this collection is the idea of "normative penumbrae" surrounding movements, illustrating the brilliance of Mayer Zald, especially in dialogue with others.
What follows is the formal description:
Globalization is a set of processes that are weakening national boundaries. Both transnational and local social movements develop to resist the processes of globalization—migration, economic interdependence, global media coverage of events and issues, and intergovernmental relations. Globalization not only spurs the creation of social movements, but affects the way many social movements are structured and work. The essays in this volume illuminate how globalization is caught up in social movement processes and question the boundaries of social movement theory.
The book builds on the modern theory of social movements that focuses upon political process and opportunity, resource mobilization and mobilization structure, and the cultural framing of grievances, utopias, ideologies, and options. Some of the essays deal with the structure of international campaigns, while others are focused upon conflicts and movements in less developed countries that have strong international components. The fourteen essays are written by both well established senior scholars and younger scholars in anthropology, political science, sociology, and history. The essays cover a range of time periods and regions of the world.
This book is relevant for anyone interested in the politics and social change processes related to globalization as well as social-movement theory.
What follows is the formal description:
Globalization is a set of processes that are weakening national boundaries. Both transnational and local social movements develop to resist the processes of globalization—migration, economic interdependence, global media coverage of events and issues, and intergovernmental relations. Globalization not only spurs the creation of social movements, but affects the way many social movements are structured and work. The essays in this volume illuminate how globalization is caught up in social movement processes and question the boundaries of social movement theory.
The book builds on the modern theory of social movements that focuses upon political process and opportunity, resource mobilization and mobilization structure, and the cultural framing of grievances, utopias, ideologies, and options. Some of the essays deal with the structure of international campaigns, while others are focused upon conflicts and movements in less developed countries that have strong international components. The fourteen essays are written by both well established senior scholars and younger scholars in anthropology, political science, sociology, and history. The essays cover a range of time periods and regions of the world.
This book is relevant for anyone interested in the politics and social change processes related to globalization as well as social-movement theory.
Research Interests:
Preface Introduction BRIAN PORTER Introduction MICHAEL D. KENNEDY The Fall of Communism in Poland: A Chronology Selections from the Conference, "Communism's Negotiated Collapse: The Polish Round Table Ten Years Later" Panel... more
Preface
Introduction
BRIAN PORTER
Introduction
MICHAEL D. KENNEDY
The Fall of Communism in Poland: A Chronology
Selections from the Conference, "Communism's Negotiated Collapse: The Polish Round Table Ten Years Later"
Panel One: The Significance of the Polish Round Table
Panel Two: The Political Contest, 1986-89
Panel Three: Everyday Life and the Political Contest
Panel Four: Political and Ethical Responsibility
Panel Five: Capacities to Negotiate
Panel Six: Constituencies of Negotiation
Panel Seven: Global Change and the Round Table
Panel Eight: The Polish Round Table Revisited — The Art of Negotiation
Making History and Silencing Memory
BRIAN PORTER
Power, Privilege and Ideology in Communism's Negotiated Collapse
MICHAEL D. KENNEDY
The Polish Round Table of 1989: The Cultural Dimenson(s) of the Negotiated Regime Change
JAN KUBIK
Dancing on the Mine-Field
LÁSZLÓ BRUSZT
Meaning, Memory, and Movements: 1989 and the Collapse of Socialism
STEPHANIE PLATZ
Negotiating New Legal Orders: Poland's Roundtable and South Africa's Negotiated Revolution
HEINZ KLUG
Conflict Resolution and the Polish Round Table: Negotiating Systemic Change?
MARK CHESLER
Stepping Back: Around the Round Table
GAY W. SEIDMAN
Introduction
BRIAN PORTER
Introduction
MICHAEL D. KENNEDY
The Fall of Communism in Poland: A Chronology
Selections from the Conference, "Communism's Negotiated Collapse: The Polish Round Table Ten Years Later"
Panel One: The Significance of the Polish Round Table
Panel Two: The Political Contest, 1986-89
Panel Three: Everyday Life and the Political Contest
Panel Four: Political and Ethical Responsibility
Panel Five: Capacities to Negotiate
Panel Six: Constituencies of Negotiation
Panel Seven: Global Change and the Round Table
Panel Eight: The Polish Round Table Revisited — The Art of Negotiation
Making History and Silencing Memory
BRIAN PORTER
Power, Privilege and Ideology in Communism's Negotiated Collapse
MICHAEL D. KENNEDY
The Polish Round Table of 1989: The Cultural Dimenson(s) of the Negotiated Regime Change
JAN KUBIK
Dancing on the Mine-Field
LÁSZLÓ BRUSZT
Meaning, Memory, and Movements: 1989 and the Collapse of Socialism
STEPHANIE PLATZ
Negotiating New Legal Orders: Poland's Roundtable and South Africa's Negotiated Revolution
HEINZ KLUG
Conflict Resolution and the Polish Round Table: Negotiating Systemic Change?
MARK CHESLER
Stepping Back: Around the Round Table
GAY W. SEIDMAN
Research Interests: Post-Socialism and Poland
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Can you refine your understanding of global social change, both in terms of its trajectory and especially in anticipation of its alternative futures? How can you not? Through this sociology course and gateway for the concentration in... more
Can you refine your understanding of global social change, both in terms of its trajectory and especially in anticipation of its alternative futures? How can you not? Through this sociology course and gateway for the concentration in International and Public Affairs we consider a range of issues across the world that can inspire seeking justice and a deeper reflexivity in that quest.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
How bad is climate change, and how much worse it will get? How are global inequalities’ changing? What are their consequences? How is white supremacy implicated here? What is our responsibility in analyzing/engaging these questions? You... more
How bad is climate change, and how much worse it will get? How are global inequalities’ changing? What are their consequences? How is white supremacy implicated here? What is our responsibility in analyzing/engaging these questions? You have at least an implicit response to these questions and others addressing global transformations. This course will help refine your understandings by inviting you to consider the actors, structures, norms and powers shaping how change works and why we judge its expressions as we do. Across some 20 areas of global change, we compare conceptions of power and justice in their various articulations.
Research Interests:
A few slides to guide a discussion about my trajectory in sociology, from my early work on professionals, power and Solidarnosc in Poland through Cultural Formations of PostCommunism and Globalizing Knowledge and my current emphasis on... more
A few slides to guide a discussion about my trajectory in sociology, from my early work on professionals, power and Solidarnosc in Poland through Cultural Formations of PostCommunism and Globalizing Knowledge and my current emphasis on knowledge cultural sociology in both public sociology and martial arts sociology.
Research Interests:
How do refined knowledge and the social relations that organize and distribute it influence changes in the institutions, inequalities and cultural systems and practices that define particular world regions and global formations? And how... more
How do refined knowledge and the social relations that organize and distribute it influence changes in the institutions, inequalities and cultural systems and practices that define particular world regions and global formations? And how do global transformations influence the trajectories of knowledge production themselves?
Building on those general questions, the issues that follow are some of the things that have moved some of my more specific inquiries over the last five years.
The Arab Uprisings of 2011 not only challenged political power, but influenced how democracy is conceived, geopolitical power is exercised, and intellectual recognition is distributed in ways far different than the 1989 end of communist rule in Europe. Wars surrounding that transformational wave have increased the instability of the region, and the need for rethinking the qualities of power, identity, and religion in the Middle East.
That region’s transformations also demand that we rethink how global flows shape change. Consider in particular the ways in which refugees from these wars are transforming more distant regions, most obviously in recent weeks the European Union. But consider, too, where refugees do not transform distant regions.
In 2013/14, the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine moved the spirit of Europe further east. The 2014 and ongoing Russian invasion of Crimea and other parts of Ukraine has moved a new security agenda for the world where borders no longer appear fixed and nuclear weapons seem more and more important as a security guarantee. The effects of war refugees and veterans from these unconventional wars remain to be seen.
Transformations are not only made with violence. Occupy Wall Street put inequality on the public knowledge agenda, and not only the sociological one. Its implications are typically understated. Without that movement, we would not have seen a democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders, compete so successfully with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party’s nomination to be the US president.
The mobilization around ACTA and its successors has raised in public awareness the significance of intellectual property’s regulation even as the meaning of that property winds up becoming ever more important in trade negotiations from the Trans Pacific Partnership to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
At the same time, each of these moments not only mobilized resources in times of political opportunity with the right cultural frames, but significant knowledge work was undertaken in anticipation of those movements and transformations. Sometimes you can trace that directly, as in the intellectual articulation of the 1% vs. 99%, while in others, the knowledge transformations are more removed, as in the relationship between distributed knowledge production and anti-ACTA mobilization. And this is just a start.
What articulations of knowledge and social change inspire you to ask about the contours of a knowledge/change relationship, its causes, and its implications?
To move you, we will examine in common particular knowledge-identified agents, including intellectuals, universities, and knowledge networks, to consider why they approach global transformations in the ways that they do. And we will consider how particular kinds of global transformations, from social movements to the rise of social entrepreneurship, affect knowledge production itself. By exploring intersections between global complexity and reflexivity in this fashion, we hope to increase our own capacities for seeing the world not only as it is, but to understand how knowledge might be used in making better global futures.
In short, how might we mobilize sociology and our own particular learning for the futures we want? http://futureswewant.net/
This last sentence might be read as defining the principal goal for this course, but I hope you take it as a lifelong ambition as well. This course will extend your preparation for that long term by helping you understand some of the principal variations in the organization of knowledge production and how they relate to various kinds of global transformations both historical and emergent.
Building on those general questions, the issues that follow are some of the things that have moved some of my more specific inquiries over the last five years.
The Arab Uprisings of 2011 not only challenged political power, but influenced how democracy is conceived, geopolitical power is exercised, and intellectual recognition is distributed in ways far different than the 1989 end of communist rule in Europe. Wars surrounding that transformational wave have increased the instability of the region, and the need for rethinking the qualities of power, identity, and religion in the Middle East.
That region’s transformations also demand that we rethink how global flows shape change. Consider in particular the ways in which refugees from these wars are transforming more distant regions, most obviously in recent weeks the European Union. But consider, too, where refugees do not transform distant regions.
In 2013/14, the Euromaidan protests in Ukraine moved the spirit of Europe further east. The 2014 and ongoing Russian invasion of Crimea and other parts of Ukraine has moved a new security agenda for the world where borders no longer appear fixed and nuclear weapons seem more and more important as a security guarantee. The effects of war refugees and veterans from these unconventional wars remain to be seen.
Transformations are not only made with violence. Occupy Wall Street put inequality on the public knowledge agenda, and not only the sociological one. Its implications are typically understated. Without that movement, we would not have seen a democratic socialist, Bernie Sanders, compete so successfully with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party’s nomination to be the US president.
The mobilization around ACTA and its successors has raised in public awareness the significance of intellectual property’s regulation even as the meaning of that property winds up becoming ever more important in trade negotiations from the Trans Pacific Partnership to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.
At the same time, each of these moments not only mobilized resources in times of political opportunity with the right cultural frames, but significant knowledge work was undertaken in anticipation of those movements and transformations. Sometimes you can trace that directly, as in the intellectual articulation of the 1% vs. 99%, while in others, the knowledge transformations are more removed, as in the relationship between distributed knowledge production and anti-ACTA mobilization. And this is just a start.
What articulations of knowledge and social change inspire you to ask about the contours of a knowledge/change relationship, its causes, and its implications?
To move you, we will examine in common particular knowledge-identified agents, including intellectuals, universities, and knowledge networks, to consider why they approach global transformations in the ways that they do. And we will consider how particular kinds of global transformations, from social movements to the rise of social entrepreneurship, affect knowledge production itself. By exploring intersections between global complexity and reflexivity in this fashion, we hope to increase our own capacities for seeing the world not only as it is, but to understand how knowledge might be used in making better global futures.
In short, how might we mobilize sociology and our own particular learning for the futures we want? http://futureswewant.net/
This last sentence might be read as defining the principal goal for this course, but I hope you take it as a lifelong ambition as well. This course will extend your preparation for that long term by helping you understand some of the principal variations in the organization of knowledge production and how they relate to various kinds of global transformations both historical and emergent.
Research Interests:
This is both a course in sociology and designed as a gateway course for the course in the new International and Public Affairs concentration. It begins with this question. Can you refine your understanding of global social change, both in... more
This is both a course in sociology and designed as a gateway course for the course in the new International and Public Affairs concentration. It begins with this question. Can you refine your understanding of global social change, both in terms of its trajectory and especially in anticipation of its alternative futures? How can you not? Who in your generation has not wondered how bad climate change is already, and how much worse it will get? Who among you has not wondered why the US was so poorly prepared for Covid-19? How many of you are aware of inequalities' transformations and their consequences? How is white supremacy implicated in these questions? What is your, and Brown University's, responsibility in their analysis and intellectual, policy, and public engagement? And what lies beyond and behind these questions? Whether you recognize it or not, you have some implicit sense of how global social change works, but we rarely make that common sense explicit and subject to others', or even our own, review. This is your chance. And there's no better time than when you are working to figure out your subsequent learning and setting up your life trajectories. Throughout this course, we consider key subjects articulating global social change. Each subject is likely a course in and of itself, at the least, but we manage this encyclopedic tour by asking the same kinds of questions across each area. Who are the principal actors featured in each story? What questions and justifications move their centering in different social change narratives? What are the principal alternatives challenging those claims? What conceptions of power and justice underlie these competing frameworks? What kinds of theory and practice are available to adjudicate questions of judgement and engagement? Among the areas we address within this framework are the following:
Research Interests:
Knowledge Cultural Sociology (KCS) addresses how social relations shape the articulations and validations of knowledge as well as how knowledge itself becomes a resource and medium through which power is exercised and change is realized.... more
Knowledge Cultural Sociology (KCS) addresses how social relations shape the articulations and validations of knowledge as well as how knowledge itself becomes a resource and medium through which power is exercised and change is realized. What symbols, schemas, institutions and networks enable certain understandings to be valued more than others. For example, how does articulating "white supremacy" change research and policy? Whose experiences shape alternative narratives about global change? Whose expertise about Covid-19 inflects policies undertaken by states, businesses, and universities? What knowledge practices extend solidarity and love, which hate and division? Those are all examples of the kinds of questions you might pose in KCS, but of course there are many more.
When I see scholarly publications or public interventions which invite KCS, I may tweet the reference with #KnowledgeCulturalSociology to assemble. One of the greatest illustrations of this in academic life today is the burgeoning scholarship around Covid-19. I invite you to review #PandemicSociology to see how our colleagues around the world are figuring how to mobilize sociology to address the pandemic. Indeed, that very issue will be one foundation for our collective contribution to KCS and the public good. We are together working to constitute this as a scholarly field.
When I see scholarly publications or public interventions which invite KCS, I may tweet the reference with #KnowledgeCulturalSociology to assemble. One of the greatest illustrations of this in academic life today is the burgeoning scholarship around Covid-19. I invite you to review #PandemicSociology to see how our colleagues around the world are figuring how to mobilize sociology to address the pandemic. Indeed, that very issue will be one foundation for our collective contribution to KCS and the public good. We are together working to constitute this as a scholarly field.
Research Interests:
How do refined knowledge and the social relations that organize and distribute it influence changes in the institutions, inequalities and cultural systems and practices that define particular world regions and global formations? And how... more
How do refined knowledge and the social relations that organize and distribute it influence changes in the institutions, inequalities and cultural systems and practices that define particular world regions and global formations? And how do global transformations influence the trajectories of knowledge production themselves? We will examine particular knowledge-identified agents, including universities, research institutes, think tanks, and professional associations, to consider why they approach global transformations in the way that they do. And we will consider how particular kinds of global transformations, from the end of the cold war and the transformation of information/communication technology to the last financial crisis, affect knowledge production itself. By exploring intersections between global complexity and reflexivity in this fashion, we hope to increase our own capacities for seeing the world not only as it is, but how knowledge might be used in making better alternatives for the future. Enrollment limited to 20 juniors and seniors. So it was written in the course guide, but this course engages its present. Both the knowledge networks and global transformations KNGT engages have changed over this last year in profound ways. In particular, we need to attend to the increasingly overt conflict over white supremacy and the pandemic that is transforming this world. In order to do that, we are going to figure how sociology, and the knowledge networks extending from it, might engage the world as it is becoming. In order to do that, we are going to go both deep into scholarship and out in public engagement. In terms of scholarship, we shall develop a more refined sense of what culture is, and how to articulate knowledge, and ignorance, in its terms. We'll dwell on what intellectuals are, what universities should be, and what intellectual and institutional responsibility looks like. In particular, we shall consider how to identify an intellectually rigorous critical and public sociology that identifies the limits and possibilities of expertise in public affairs, the value of implicit knowledge from and with the body, and how to recognize knowledge networks that might be transformative both for emancipatory hopes, and dystopian nightmares. By drawing on the alumni of this class at Brown University, I hope to connect you with others of similar critical and public sociological disposition to develop knowledge activism with consequence. Of course developing your own critical and public sociological capacities, and building our own collective work across generations of learners, can only happen if we take care of ourselves and one another. Please know that I recognize the challenge of the times in which we live, and value your well-being first. I then support you in your learning. And here are things Brown University encourages in every syllabus.
Research Interests:
How do refined knowledge and the social relations that organize and distribute it influence changes in the institutions, inequalities and cultural systems and practices that define particular world regions and global formations? And how... more
How do refined knowledge and the social relations that organize and distribute it influence changes in the institutions, inequalities and cultural systems and practices that define particular world regions and global formations? And how do global transformations influence the trajectories of knowledge production themselves? Building on those general questions, the issues that follow are some of the things that have moved some of my more specific inquiries over the last five years. Much of my work between 1999 and 2014 is synthesized in Globalizing Knowledge. In that volume I reflect on the distinctions among knowledge, understanding, and culture, on intellectual and knowledge institutional responsibility, on public engagements and knowledge networks, on the geographical distribution of knowledge and the constitution of knowledge through flows of various sorts from Pussy Riot to energy, and on how we need develop transformational knowledge practices in historical time. Since that time I have refined my ideas around imagination and solidarity, and have come to appreciate more the different modalities of knowledge and the ways in which race and empire configure authority and resistance. These concerns combine to rethink the significance of knowledge in the time of Trump. https://www.academia.edu/31707745/ Trump_and_the_Sociological_Imagination To move you, we will examine in common particular knowledge-identified agents, including intellectuals, universities, and knowledge networks, to consider why they approach global transformations in the ways that they do. And we will consider how particular kinds of global transformations affect knowledge production itself. By exploring intersections between global complexity and reflexivity in this fashion, we hope to increase our own capacities for seeing the world not only as it is, but to understand how knowledge might be used in making better global futures. This last sentence might be read as defining the principal goal for this course, but I hope you take it as a lifelong ambition as well. This course will extend your preparation for that long term by helping you understand some of the principal variations in the organization of knowledge production and how they relate to various kinds of global transformations both historical and emergent.
Research Interests:
Over the course of the past ten years, I have on more than one occasion suggested that my current students look at some of the work of my past students. This made sense for a number of reasons, given overlapping interests and more than... more
Over the course of the past ten years, I have on more than one occasion suggested that my current students look at some of the work of my past students. This made sense for a number of reasons, given overlapping interests and more than occasional overlapping pieces of advice. But what delighted me far more than recognizing enduring patterns was the kindness past students showed present students. And then some of these current students asked me – isn’t this something like the knowledge networks we have been analyzing in class?
Well, yes and no. Knowledge networks can be more and less explicit. They can be identified in a number of ways too – around regional, thematic, or other interests. They can be more or less goal driven. But most of all, knowledge networks can be helpful in finding colleagues with similar interests or perspectives not just one, but two steps removed. That’s one thing Linked In does in a much more distributed fashion (and that’s why I provide a Linked In homepage when I can). The following list is a bit more traditional, but like looking for books in a library and finding the unexpected on a shelf below, this list might prompt surprising associations and productive connections.
Thinking about that value, and frankly celebrating all that I have learned from so many students over the years, I thought I might share that knowledge network wealth with all who have given me so much in their own dissertations and theses. I might have added others below – like students with whom I have written, or junior colleagues with whom I have worked in various knowledge networks from the Social Science Research Council to the Open Society Foundations. But for now, I thought I might begin this endeavor just with those students whose dissertations or theses I have advised or read. As you can see, that may be more than enough.
Well, yes and no. Knowledge networks can be more and less explicit. They can be identified in a number of ways too – around regional, thematic, or other interests. They can be more or less goal driven. But most of all, knowledge networks can be helpful in finding colleagues with similar interests or perspectives not just one, but two steps removed. That’s one thing Linked In does in a much more distributed fashion (and that’s why I provide a Linked In homepage when I can). The following list is a bit more traditional, but like looking for books in a library and finding the unexpected on a shelf below, this list might prompt surprising associations and productive connections.
Thinking about that value, and frankly celebrating all that I have learned from so many students over the years, I thought I might share that knowledge network wealth with all who have given me so much in their own dissertations and theses. I might have added others below – like students with whom I have written, or junior colleagues with whom I have worked in various knowledge networks from the Social Science Research Council to the Open Society Foundations. But for now, I thought I might begin this endeavor just with those students whose dissertations or theses I have advised or read. As you can see, that may be more than enough.
Research Interests:
A syllabus in revision across this term in which it is being taught. What is solidarity and what enables its expression in the making of social change and cohesion? How does the analysis of contradictions help us understand the... more
A syllabus in revision across this term in which it is being taught.
What is solidarity and what enables its expression in the making of social change and cohesion? How does the analysis of contradictions help us understand the conditions of social reproduction and transformation? What contradictions, and what solidarities, exist without the other? And how does their articulation extend sociology’s contribution to more knowledgeable social change, and to the reflexivity with which we engage transformational praxis in scholarship and life?
What is solidarity and what enables its expression in the making of social change and cohesion? How does the analysis of contradictions help us understand the conditions of social reproduction and transformation? What contradictions, and what solidarities, exist without the other? And how does their articulation extend sociology’s contribution to more knowledgeable social change, and to the reflexivity with which we engage transformational praxis in scholarship and life?
Research Interests:
We focus in this course on a few of the most important theoretical and empirical works in comparative political sociology developing over the last two decades. Its principal aim is to ground all of us in the most important discussions... more
We focus in this course on a few of the most important theoretical and empirical works in comparative political sociology developing over the last two decades. Its principal aim is to ground all of us in the most important discussions occurring in the field, as indicated by recent awards by the American Sociological Association, by publications in the discipline's leading journals, and by my judgment. This will be a remarkably disciplined discussion. We are jumping into the beating heart of political sociology. And it's alive.
Research Interests:
We focus in this course on a few of the important theoretical and empirical developments in knowledge cultural sociology (#KCS) in this century. In particular, we address ways in which culture is conceived and researched and how the... more
We focus in this course on a few of the important theoretical and empirical developments in knowledge cultural sociology (#KCS) in this century. In particular, we address ways in which culture is conceived and researched and how the sociology of knowledge and understanding underlies this address. We also consider the forms in which such a cultural sociology can inform a wide range of sociological questions, with a special emphasis on how knowledge reflects, and shapes, social and global transformations.
Research Interests:
an unpublished essay from 2015 by my cousins and me about why we might recognize Bernie Sanders as a real world Captain America.
my 2015 paper on what the candidates for Democratic and GOP presidential nominations might identify as their favorite superhero.
I wish I had published it.
I wish I had published it.
The Occupy Movement, along with Anonymous as one of its midwives, has drawn on visual politics developed through sequential art, or comic books and graphic novels. And now that genre returns the favor by reflecting and channeling the... more
The Occupy Movement, along with Anonymous as one of its midwives, has drawn on visual politics developed through sequential art, or comic books and graphic novels. And now that genre returns the favor by reflecting and channeling the Occupy Movement in its pages. But comics carry many different messages, not only for the wildly varying political dispositions of its creators but also for the alternative political economies underlying their publishers. In particular, DC Comics’ The Movement and Black Mask’s Occupy Comics suggest the radical alternatives associated with the art form and the media and publishing sources that make it possible.
In what follows, I briefly consider the historical trajectory of comics cultural politics and its various scholarly engagements in anticipation of a much more extensive elaboration over the next couple years. But given the contemporary significance of recently issued comics articulating the cultural politics of Occupy, I develop a presentation and argument in order to generate both more public engagement and scholarly attention. "
In what follows, I briefly consider the historical trajectory of comics cultural politics and its various scholarly engagements in anticipation of a much more extensive elaboration over the next couple years. But given the contemporary significance of recently issued comics articulating the cultural politics of Occupy, I develop a presentation and argument in order to generate both more public engagement and scholarly attention. "
Research Interests:
Superman is too powerful to be as dark a knight as Batman, both in the world of comics and in American popular culture. With his super strength and speed, invulnerability and xray and heat vision, he must be that all good redemptive... more
Superman is too powerful to be as dark a knight as Batman, both in the world of comics and in American popular culture. With his super strength and speed, invulnerability and xray and heat vision, he must be that all good redemptive figure, or else we might fear rather than adore him. But we can adore him in many different ways, and this national mythology we know to be pure fantasy can be read in many different fashions. We might also fear him in new ways for the light it shines on the US in an age of targeted assassinations rather than nuclear holocaust.
Research Interests:
Wolverine should be the (anti-) hero of our times, the finest expression of those early 1970s' super heroes struggling to find ethical ground in struggles against militarism, racism, and corruption. While "The Wolverine" certainly doesn't... more
Wolverine should be the (anti-) hero of our times, the finest expression of those early 1970s' super heroes struggling to find ethical ground in struggles against militarism, racism, and corruption. While "The Wolverine" certainly doesn't put anarchism on the cultural political table, the public can use the deep symbolism embodied in the character's sensibility to figure the place of direct action in these times when authorities so abuse the public trust.
Research Interests:
A reflection on Avengers: The Age of Ultron and Daredevil's Netflix series -- revised and with images.
Research Interests:
A bit of superhero sociology for an edited collection Sandra Eckard (ed.) Comic Connections: Reflecting on Women in Popular Culture” Rowman and Littlefield.... more
A bit of superhero sociology for an edited collection Sandra Eckard (ed.) Comic Connections: Reflecting on Women in Popular Culture” Rowman and Littlefield. https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781475828061/Comic-Connections-Reflecting-on-Women-in-Popular-Culture
Syllabus for Martial Arts and Yoga Sociology Spring 2024
Research Interests:
In this upper level undergraduate course for which there are no prerequisites, we will consider how sociology, and other social sciences, can help us understand martial arts and mindfulness and how they might inform the social sciences.... more
In this upper level undergraduate course for which there are no prerequisites, we will consider how sociology, and other social sciences, can help us understand martial arts and mindfulness and how they might inform the social sciences. For the second time in this course’s history, we also shall consider yoga, especially as its comparison can help us consider the abiding questions of #MartialArts #Sociology (check that pair of #s on Twitter to get more than your fill before this course even begins). We consider how various bodymindful practices, their organizations, and their cultures shape, and are shaped by, different structures of power constituting various social relations. You might have your own question threading this course together. This is mine: “Whose knowledge of bodymindful practices, from MMA to Yoga, is legitimated in what circumstances and how? What are the forms of evidence used to assess learnedness?”
Research Interests:
To reinvent liberal learning… will require a search for techniques and new curricular structures to bring bodily functioning and its attendant feelings into greater consciousness…. The converse inquiries would concern how mental processes... more
To reinvent liberal learning… will require a search for techniques and new curricular structures to bring bodily functioning and its attendant feelings into greater consciousness…. The converse inquiries would concern how mental processes affect bodily functions. For example, since energy follows attention, attending to various parts of the body can direct energy in ways that produce feelings of relaxation, strength, stability, or harmony. And then, combining these two interactive paths, bodymindfulness curricula could address what have hitherto been treated as purely intellectual problems…. From them and from future explorations, one can identify numerous bodymind practices that can promote personal well-being, right action, and enhanced social participation. 1 In this upper level undergraduate course for which there are no prerequisites, we will consider how sociology, and other social sciences, can help us understand martial arts and mindfulness and how they might inform the social sciences. For the first time in this course's history, we also shall consider yoga, especially as its comparison can help us consider the abiding questions of #MartialArts #Sociology (check that pair of #s on Twitter to get more than your fill before this course even begins). We consider how various bodymindful martial practices, their organizations, and their cultures shape, and are shaped by, different structures of power constituting different various social relations.
Research Interests:
Attached is the zoom presentation I used for teaching introductory sociology students about the value of the dialogue between sociology and contemplative studies. It was also in anticipation of the lecture sociology Professor Hiro Saito... more
Attached is the zoom presentation I used for teaching introductory sociology students about the value of the dialogue between sociology and contemplative studies. It was also in anticipation of the lecture sociology Professor Hiro Saito gave to the Brown University Contemplative Studies community on that dialogue available here https://www.brown.edu/academics/contemplative-studies/videos? It was given on October 24, 2022.
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In this upper level undergraduate course for which there are no prerequisites, we will consider how sociology, and other social sciences, can help us understand martial arts and mindfulness and how they might inform the social sciences.... more
In this upper level undergraduate course for which there are no prerequisites, we will consider how sociology, and other social sciences, can help us understand martial arts and mindfulness and how they might inform the social sciences. For the second time in this course’s history, we also shall consider yoga, especially as its comparison can help us consider the abiding questions of #MartialArts #Sociology (check that pair of #s on Twitter to get more than your fill before this course even begins). We consider how various bodymindful practices, their organizations, and their cultures shape, and are shaped by, different structures of power constituting various social relations. You might have your own question threading this course together. This is mine: “Whose knowledge of bodymindful practices, from MMA to Yoga, is legitimated in what circumstances and how? What are the forms of evidence used to assess learnedness?”
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In this upper level undergraduate course for which there are no prerequisites, we will consider how sociology, and other social sciences, can help us understand martial arts and how martial arts might inform the social sciences. We shall... more
In this upper level undergraduate course for which there are no prerequisites, we will consider how sociology, and other social sciences, can help us understand martial arts and how martial arts might inform the social sciences. We shall consider how various bodymindful martial practices, their organizations, and their cultures shape, and are shaped by, different structures of power and social relations at various levels of society.
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This bibliography curates scholarship around understandings people identify as knowledges—their production and legitimating institutions and their experiences and embodiments, with an emphasis on those excluded from the canonizations of... more
This bibliography curates scholarship around understandings people identify as knowledges—their production and legitimating institutions and their experiences and embodiments, with an emphasis on those excluded from the canonizations of knowledge. This “knowledge cultural sociology” (KCS) recognizes the importance of the Mannheimian tradition, and its extensions, that explains how social relations and positions shape the articulations and validations of knowledge. However, KCS also situates knowledge within systems beyond those who produce and consume it. KCS views knowledge as itself necessarily contested, as struggles over its qualities reflect social locations and articulate social practices. KCS works to understand how knowledges’ symbols, schemas, institutions, and networks shape the terms of social reproduction and transformations; as such, it demands consideration of different kinds of knowledge cultural products and modes of communication. KCS is thus necessarily grounded in...
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For our grandparents who were born in the Habsburg and Ottoman empires and lived most of their lives after empire All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America, No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted... more
For our grandparents who were born in the Habsburg and Ottoman empires and lived most of their lives after empire All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America, No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic ...
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In 2004 the European Union and NATO will each add ten new member states, most from the post-communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe. In order to prepare for membership, these countries had to make many thousands of institutional... more
In 2004 the European Union and NATO will each add ten new member states, most from the post-communist countries of Eastern and Central Europe. In order to prepare for membership, these countries had to make many thousands of institutional and legal ...
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ABSTRACT
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theory. Motyl seeks a logically pure theory, one without.fkzy concepts and retaining only the precise ones. For example, although he never defines elites, their action must be conscious (and not habitual), for their contribution to nation... more
theory. Motyl seeks a logically pure theory, one without.fkzy concepts and retaining only the precise ones. For example, although he never defines elites, their action must be conscious (and not habitual), for their contribution to nation making to be "constructivist." Also, elites must visibly construct nations with aiguments. To enforce . those arguments with resource laden penalizing rules turns intellectuals into bureaucrats. In this sense, he shares much with positivists, who treat concept fonnation as only the means to the explanatory end. By contrast, we seek not only to explain the relationship among phenomena, but also to problematize the concepts themselves which . I.; purport to illuminate the social processes we seek to explain. ~ e n c k , in contrast to treating elites as self-evident, or resolved by operationalization, we are trying to elaborate how intellectuality is itself expressed in the nation's articulation and where it is located. Also, instead of...
One of the most powerful ways in which we can globalize knowledge, and sociology, is to figure ways in which leading intellectual figures within insufficiently articulated knowledge cultures might inform readings of the other’s work. With... more
One of the most powerful ways in which we can globalize knowledge, and sociology, is to figure ways in which leading intellectual figures within insufficiently articulated knowledge cultures might inform readings of the other’s work. With the recent revivals of Antonina Kłoskowska and W.E.B. Du Bois in Polish and US sociology respectively, it is a propitious time to figure the ways in which their scholarship aligns, contrasts, and can mutually transform. In particular, the two are both concerned for how marginalized communities with their associated subjectivities engage dominant cultures, but Kłoskowska works within a national/regional frame and Du Bois a global and racial one. Too, Du Bois theorizes from within that marginalized community, with political pointedness, not from outside it or with any attempt to refrain from value judgements. Finally, while Du Bois blends Marxist accounts with a culturally rich account of Blackness and its others, Kłoskowska offers a more semiotic an...
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What place does Poland occupy in the American sociological imagination? Building on a more general theory of American sociological internationalism, I offer a historical sketch of Poland's presence in American sociology. I suggest... more
What place does Poland occupy in the American sociological imagination? Building on a more general theory of American sociological internationalism, I offer a historical sketch of Poland's presence in American sociology. I suggest that its enduring presence, albeit with shifting thematic emphasis, can be explained by attending to the ways in which global transformations, path effects, and international networks shape knowledge production. I conclude with some reflections on how the analysis of the cultural politics of globalization and community, especially around military alliances and war, might contribute to the broadening of American sociology's engagement with Poland.
Drawing on 56 in-depth interviews with American business advisors and East Europe-an managers, entrepreneurs and consultants, I argue that homosocial reproduction -- the promotion of management according to social identification with... more
Drawing on 56 in-depth interviews with American business advisors and East Europe-an managers, entrepreneurs and consultants, I argue that homosocial reproduction -- the promotion of management according to social identification with those above them -- is based on a new cultural formation called 'transition culture". This formation is based on the assimilation of local cultural elements into a conglomeration of global business practices, on the one hand, and the identification of a l@ socialist culture to be expunged, on the other. The relationship of East European cultures to transition culture is, however, unstable. Within this formation, East Europeans must demonstrate their membership with the acquisition of specific skill sets associated with the emergent culture, and treat Fast European differences, like language, as a minor hurdle easily transcended. Sometimes, however, East European distinctions are elevated. This occurs, for instance, when the promise of transitio...
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Book Review
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Pre-Publication Version of this Book Review. (2022) Magyar, Bálint and Bálint Madlovics. "The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes: A Conceptual Framework" in Slavic Review 80:4:934-35. "The authors offer an encyclopedic account, with... more
Pre-Publication Version of this Book Review. (2022) Magyar, Bálint and Bálint Madlovics. "The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes: A Conceptual Framework" in Slavic Review 80:4:934-35. "The authors offer an encyclopedic account, with powerful supplementary materials, of the internal logics of post-communist regimes, with comparisons to other ideal types of liberal democracies and communist dictatorships. They refine analysis further with comparisons to other patronal regimes. Their model-dependent realism moves extraordinary attention to conceptual refinement, refusing to allow past language to trap them into misrecognizing realities. For example, rather than treat informal ties as deviant, as they may be in liberal democracies, they treat them as....
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How does one deal with the promise of being outdated by events? I considered that challenge in this review of David Lane and his account of Gorbachev's perestroika. We should develop, in our analysis of contemporary events, a more... more
How does one deal with the promise of being outdated by events? I considered that challenge in this review of David Lane and his account of Gorbachev's perestroika. We should develop, in our analysis of contemporary events, a more powerful historical sense of sociology that considers not only the past but also the present as history, something sociology's rhetoric often does not acknowledge.
a review essay of Andreas Glaeser's Political Epistemics: The Secret Police, the Opposition, and the End of East German Socialism.
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Reflections on
Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy, by Saskia Sassen.
Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy, by Saskia Sassen.
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ABSTRACT Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts. By David C. Engerman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 480p. $34.95.Know Your Enemy is a sociology of knowledge of the rise of post–World War II... more
ABSTRACT Know Your Enemy: The Rise and Fall of America's Soviet Experts. By David C. Engerman. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. 480p. $34.95.Know Your Enemy is a sociology of knowledge of the rise of post–World War II Russian and Soviet Studies, written by intellectual historian David C. Engerman. While it is not a work of political science, it offers an important historical analysis of a foundational episode in the history of the political science discipline. It is an account of the evolution of a specific field—Soviet Studies—but it is more than this, because this particular field was at the heart of the development of post–World War II area studies in general, and the intellectual and political engagements linked to the evolution of area studies were crucial to the development of modern political and social science. This symposium thus brings together scholars of Soviet Studies, contemporary post-Soviet Russian politics, comparative politics and international relations more generally, and the history of the discipline, to reflect on this book. While participants were asked to critically evaluate the book's analysis, they were also asked to comment more generally on the rise (and fall?) of area studies, and the history of political science more broadly. The issues raised by the book relate to the history and evolution of the current discipline, but also bear upon its future. For in response to post–Cold War crises (many connected to the discourse of the “war on terror”), there have been new calls for security-related area research made by such institutions as the Department of Defense (the Minerva Program, administered by the National Science Foundation), the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Education (in connection with Title VI funding of area studies). What does the history of Soviet Studies tell us about these recent developments, and about how individual political scientists and indeed the institutions of professional political science should respond to them?—Jeffrey C. Isaac, Editor
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An academic directory and search engine.
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ABSTRACT Peer Reviewed http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/68246/2/10.1177_089692059201900207.pdf
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a subsequent version of what is attached can be found in Contemporary Sociology 43:5:738-39
A subsequent version of this review appeared in for International Journal of Comparative Sociology 56(2015):303-305. "Beyond the editors’ fine introduction and conclusion, Valerie Bunce, Sharon Wolchik, Joseph Fewsmith, Katherine... more
A subsequent version of this review appeared in for International Journal of Comparative Sociology 56(2015):303-305. "Beyond the editors’ fine introduction and conclusion, Valerie Bunce, Sharon Wolchik, Joseph Fewsmith, Katherine Verdery, Robert Weller, József Böröcz, Barry Naughton, Akos Rona-Tas, Yasheng Huang, Theodore Gerber, Wang Feng and Yang Su have contributed chapters across five sections: Reinstitutionalizing Politics, Recasting State-Society Relations, Reforming Economic Systems, Transforming Economic Behavior, and Reshaping Social Institutions... This volume inspires just that kind of global and comparative/historical imagination. It not only moves us to restore comparative communist and post-communist studies to our global sense of sociology and other social sciences, but it gets at least me to think more about what has happened to socialism, to capitalism’s counter-culture. "
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An earlier version of my review of this book in Contemporary Sociology 45:3:334-336.
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“Prioritizing People and Planet: An New Agenda for Global Progress” is a document synthesizing the vision of a number of progressive academics and public figures from across the world. We met in Genval, Capetown, and Toronto over the last... more
“Prioritizing People and Planet: An New Agenda for Global Progress” is a document synthesizing the vision of a number of progressive academics and public figures from across the world. We met in Genval, Capetown, and Toronto over the last year. This brief statement, developed under the leadership of Pascal Lamy, with the critical support of Ania Skrzypek and Ernst Stetter among others, is being rolled out now by the Foundation for European Progressive Studies in a variety of ways. That document will also anchor a volume FEPS will produce, in which a subsequent version of this paper will appear. Here, I synthesize my various writings on the sociology of resistance and transformative practice in the time of Trump, and draw on the decades of research, writing, teaching, and reflection I have undertaken around solidarity. This essay must be brief, but I would appreciate any comments people could have. Please write to me at michael_kennedy@brown.edu.
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In Cultural Formations of Postcommunism: Emancipation, Transition, Nation and War (2002), I introduced the term “transition culture” to refer to that mobilizing culture shaping the move from dictatorship to democracy and from plan to... more
In Cultural Formations of Postcommunism: Emancipation, Transition, Nation and War (2002), I introduced the term “transition culture” to refer to that mobilizing culture shaping the move from dictatorship to democracy and from plan to market. In what follows, I assemble portions of subsequent publications to elaborate the concept.
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Introducing #PandemicSociology, I move through these steps: a) consider Covid-19 as eventful in the Sewellian sense; b) in light of the organizational and legitimation challenges associated with managing the pandemic; c) elevating the... more
Introducing #PandemicSociology, I move through these steps: a) consider Covid-19 as eventful in the Sewellian sense; b) in light of the organizational and legitimation challenges associated with managing the pandemic; c) elevating the importance of public engagement around Covid-19, both in terms of critical and sympathetic public scholarship, with Zeynep Tufekci and Ashish Jha as exemplars; d) marking the importance of research on what enables pandemic management, on the one hand, and Covid-19 denialism on the other; e) whether the tensions between capitalist privilege and public health, on a global scale, are themselves manifestations of denialism; and f) reflections on what kind of global scholarship need be cultivated to exercise intellectual responsibility.
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Knowledge and learning do not function in the same ways in stable democracies and when cast in opposition to political authorities. But they also function differently when cast in opposition to communist rule and in opposition to populist... more
Knowledge and learning do not function in the same ways in stable democracies and when cast in opposition to political authorities. But they also function differently when cast in opposition to communist rule and in opposition to populist illiberal rule. I synthesize various accounts of the forms of domination characterized by each of these anti-democratic governmentalities. In particular, I emphasize their modes of truth telling and knowledge denigrations. I also elaborate forms of learned resistance. With these practices in mind, I propose a set of cultural rules and resources animating each epoch’s contradictions and conflicts around knowledge and learning. I am especially interested with this ideal typical contrast to refine knowledge activism’s quest to realize a more consequential culture of critical discourse animating public life.
Communist rule depended on, among other things, a kind of social schizophrenia in which publics knew socialism’s radiance was but an occasionally good paint job, and certainly not based on good engineering, much less one with the sense of an open and critical social science grounded in intellectual and moral integrity. Nonetheless, intellectuals and their institutions and networks could delight in their influence; in speaking truth to power, or accommodating power with compromised if not captive minds, knowledge and learning could also be painted as consequential. Furthermore, in resistance to communism’s systemic lie, pluralism, legality, and publicity could animate an inclusive opposition with intellectuals leading in that civil society’s definition, with flying universities as one of its best expressions. The limits of this hegemonic counter-hegemony only become evident when knowledge and learning is expected to defend democracy after democratic transition was thought realized. Populist illiberalism denigrates the refined understanding communist rule unintentionally elevated, and threatens most intellectuals and their institutions and networks as potentially alien to the soul of the people privileged by a nation’s cultural presumption. In this circumstance, new strategies for managing public relations, most notably around diminishing perceived gaps between intellectuals and the common sense and cultural soul of a nation’s anxious, need be found. I review several ideas for that knowledge activism in conclusion.
Communist rule depended on, among other things, a kind of social schizophrenia in which publics knew socialism’s radiance was but an occasionally good paint job, and certainly not based on good engineering, much less one with the sense of an open and critical social science grounded in intellectual and moral integrity. Nonetheless, intellectuals and their institutions and networks could delight in their influence; in speaking truth to power, or accommodating power with compromised if not captive minds, knowledge and learning could also be painted as consequential. Furthermore, in resistance to communism’s systemic lie, pluralism, legality, and publicity could animate an inclusive opposition with intellectuals leading in that civil society’s definition, with flying universities as one of its best expressions. The limits of this hegemonic counter-hegemony only become evident when knowledge and learning is expected to defend democracy after democratic transition was thought realized. Populist illiberalism denigrates the refined understanding communist rule unintentionally elevated, and threatens most intellectuals and their institutions and networks as potentially alien to the soul of the people privileged by a nation’s cultural presumption. In this circumstance, new strategies for managing public relations, most notably around diminishing perceived gaps between intellectuals and the common sense and cultural soul of a nation’s anxious, need be found. I review several ideas for that knowledge activism in conclusion.
This knowledge cultural sociology about the end of an epoch in 2022 explores cultural logics and practices, eventful sociology, and the significance of articulation and rearticulation in shaping narratives of global transformations.... more
This knowledge cultural sociology about the end of an epoch in 2022 explores cultural logics and practices, eventful sociology, and the significance of articulation and rearticulation in shaping narratives of global transformations. Exploring cultural politics from within the narratives organizing our sense of the Covid-19 pandemic, on the one hand, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, on the other, I conclude by reflecting on the ways in which they can be rearticulated in order to develop a more global solidarity in epoch end’s policy and practice.
In 2009, Dario Gaggio, Mary Gallagher, Douglas Northrop and I organized a conference in which we invited colleagues from across the University of Michigan and elsewhere to reflect on how ends of decades, from 1789 through 2009, moved... more
In 2009, Dario Gaggio, Mary Gallagher, Douglas Northrop and I organized a conference in which we invited colleagues from across the University of Michigan and elsewhere to reflect on how ends of decades, from 1789 through 2009, moved terms like Brinks, Cusps, and Perceptions of Possibility. This wasn't "numerological", but rather inspirational for extending our imagination of anniversaries guiding reflection. We didn't organize this beyond the event, but so many of the conversations we had during that conference still inspire me today.