Jeffrey Alexander is the Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor Emeritus of Sociology at Yale University, founder and Director Emeritus of Yale’s Center for Cultural Sociology, and co-editor of The American Journal of Cultural Sociology. A social theorist whose early work challenged the anti-cultural reductionism of classical and modern sociology, Alexander has worked with generations of students and colleagues to create a “strong program” in cultural sociology. Synthesizing late Durkheim with semiotics, poststructuralism, and cultural anthropology, he has conceptualized, not only models of deep cultural structure, but theories of cultural trauma, social performance, and material iconicity. Alexander has also developed ”civil sphere theory,” a macro-sociological model of democracy and the forces that can undermine it. He is currently organizing a series of conference/edited book projects: The Civil Sphere in Latin America (Cambridge University Press 2018), The Civil Sphere in East Asia (CUP, forthcoming 2019), Breaching the Civil Order: Radicalism and the Civil Sphere (CUP, forthcoming 2018), and The Nordic Civil Sphere (Polity, 2019). The Civil Sphere and Populism (Polity 2020), The Canadian Civil Sphere (forthcoming, UBC Press), and The Civil Sphere in India (Polity, forthcoming). His most recent book is What Makes a Social Crisis: The Societalization of Social Problems (Polity 2020). Press. His most recent article is “Office Obligation as Civil Virtue: The Crisis of America Democracy, November 3, 2020 - January 6, 2021, and After” (Society, forthcoming).
