The Yale Center for Cultural Sociology is hosting the conference, “Working towards Meaning Together: Jeffrey Alexander’s Legacy for Sociology,” marking the retirement of CCS Founding Director Jeffrey Alexander on October 25 & 26, 2024. For over half a century, Jeff has been prolific, making multiple contributions as a leading figure in social theory and cultural sociology. Motifs, agendas, discoveries and fields that are inescapably associated with him include the Strong Program, iconic power, the binary codes of civil society, neofunctionalism, social performance, theoretical logic, the civil sphere, and Durkheimian cultural sociology.
The Conference will host a selected pool of invited scholars from around the world as they assess and explain this legacy. Importantly, this is not merely a party or celebration. It is a working event organized around a festschrift-in-the making, edited by Celso Villegas (Kenyon College) and Galen Watts (Waterloo University). Contributors to this book, along with other invited scholars, have all worked closely with Jeff, have made independent use of his ideas, or have been his most engaged critics. The conference will give particular emphasis to the relationship between frontstage and backstage in the origin of paradigms. In addition to discussion of established themes related to theory and intellectual history, it will also look at personal ties, global flows, intergenerational baton-passing, and the peculiar role of institutions and places.
Speakers:
Nelson Arteaga Botello, Peter Beilharz, Paul Colomy, Jean-Francois Cote, Mustafa Emirbayer, Ron Eyerman, Ron Jacobs, Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky, Anne Kane, Peter Kivisto, Agnes Ku, Maria Luengo Cruz, Anna Lund, Jason Mast, Lisa McCormick, Isaac Reed, Giuseppe Sciortino, Philip Smith, Lynette Spillman, Anne Taylor, Carlo Tognato, Frederic Vandenberghe, Celso Villegas, Robin Wagner-Pacifici, Galen Watts, Eric Taylor Woods
There will be a reception on Friday, October 25 from 4:30 to 7:00 PM.
Space is limited.
PLEASE RSVP TO: cultural.sociology@yale.edu by June 15, 2024 and indicate if you will join us at:
Friday Conference sessions
Friday Evening Reception
Saturday Conference sessions