ASA 2016 Schedule: Theory Sessions

Click below to see the intellectual abundance of the theory section at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Seattle. Save time skimming the giant program, we've got all you need to know about Theory Section sponsored events, including:

• sessions on theorizing perception, directions in relational sociology, abduction and the craft of theorizing
• an invited session on visualization and social theory
• the Coser Memorial Lecture by Isaac Ariail Reed
• an Author Meets Critics Session on Big Data/Big Theory
  
• section roundtables, business meeting, and reception

Theory Section Paper Session: Theorizing Perception
Monday, August 22, 8:30-10:10AM
Session Organizer: Joseph Klett (University of California, Santa Cruz)
 
Panelists

• Daniel A. Winchester (Purdue): “A Pedagogy in the Passions: The Effects of Embodiment on Discursive Consciousness and Abstract Knowledge Acquisition”
• Dustin S. Stoltz and Marshall Allen Taylor (University of Notre Dame): “Affording Contention with Objects: Cognition, Materiality, and the Purposeful Enunciation of Material Culture”
• Lindsey A. Freeman (SUNY-Buffalo): “Atomic Mnemonic Assemblages: Towards a Sociological Poetry”
• Fiona Rose-Greenland (University of Chicago): “The Art of Destruction: Cultural Violence and Perception in the Islamic State”

 
Theory Section Paper Session: Directions in Relational Sociology: Theory, Method, and Practice
Monday, August 22, 10:30AM-12:10PM
Session Organizer: Emily Anne Erikson (Yale University)
 
Presider: Vanina Leschziner (Toronto)
 
Panelists

• Jacob Habinek (University of California, Berkeley): “How Organizational Fields Evolve: The Case of Subprime Mortgage Finance, 1998-2008”
• Nina Bandelj (University of California, Irvine): “Rethinking Relationality in Economic Sociology: Relational Work in Circuits of Commerce”
• Marc Garcelon (University of Missouri, Kansas City): “Signs of the Body: What Language Tells Us about Institutions”
• Bernd Wurpts (University of Washington): “Testing Simmel’s Theory of Group Persistence: Elite Networks and Institutional Development in the Medieval Hansa, 1356-1516”
• Carolin Fischer (University of Neuchâtel): “Who Acts for What Change? A Relational Approach to Transnational Engagements of Afghan Diaspora Groups”

 
Theory Section Paper Session: Abduction and the Craft of Theorizing
Monday, August 22, 2:30-4:10PM
Session Organizer and Presider: Iddo Tavory (New York University)
 
Panelists

• Anna S. Mueller (University of Chicago) and Seth Abrutyn (University of Memphis): “Abduction and the Reimagining of Durkheim’s Suicide: A Case Study of a Suicide-Prone Cohesive Community”
• Stefan Timmermans (University of California, Los Angeles): “The Everyday Work of Abduction: Modes of Generality and Symbolic Power”
• Judith Gerson (Rutgers): “Narratives of Displacement and Loss: An Abductive Rereading of Holocaust Memoirs”

 
Discussant: Richard Swedberg (Cornell University)

Theory Section Reception
Monday, August 22, 6:30-8:30PM
 
Theory Section Invited Session: Visualization and Social Theory
Tuesday, August 23, 8:30-10:10AM
Session Organizers: Raka Ray and Marion Fourcade (University of California, Berkeley)
 
Session Presider: Raka Ray (University of California, Berkeley)
 
Panelists

• Kieran Healy and James Moody (Duke University): “Visual Thinking in the Social Sciences”
• Janet Vertesi (Princeton University): “Picturing Space, Picturing Teams: Visualization and Social Practice at NASA”
• Etienne Ollion (Université de Strasbourg): “How to (Quantitatively) Represent the Social World? Geometric Data Analysis Meets the Machine Learning Revolution”
• Marion Fourcade and Thomas Krendl Gilbert (University of California, Berkeley): “Visualizing Concepts”
• Daniel Silver (University of Toronto): “Visual Social Thought”

 
 
Theory Section Invited Session: Lewis A. Coser Memorial Lecture and Salon
Tuesday, August 23, 10:30AM-12:10PM
Session Organizer and Presider: Neil Gross (Colby College)
 
Panelist: Isaac Ariail Reed (University of Virginia)
 
Theory Section Roundtables
Tuesday, August 23, 12:30-1:30PM
Organizer: Achim Edelmann (University of Bern)
 
 
Theory Section Business Meeting
Tuesday, August 23, 1:30-2:10PM
 
 
Theory Section Author Meets Critics Session: Big Data/Big Theory
Tuesday, August 23, 2:30-4:10PM
Session Organizer: John W. Mohr (University of California, Santa Barbara)
 
Presiders: John W. Mohr (University of California, Santa Barbara) and Robin E. Wagner-Pacifici (New School for Social Research)
 
Authors

• Julia Potter Adams (Yale University)
• Hannah Brueckner (New York University, Abu Dhabi)
• Amir Goldberg (Stanford University)
• Timothy Hannigan (University of Alberta)
• Monica Lee (Facebook, Inc.)
• Kevin Lewis (University of California, San Diego)
• Daniel A. McFarland (Stanford University)
• John Levi Martin (University of Chicago)

 
Critics

• Bart Bonikowski (Harvard University)
• Jacob Gates Foster (University of California, Los Angeles)
• Laura K. Nelson (Northwestern University)