Critical Sociology podcast series

Labor Activism and Music Series

Jessica Payette and Graham Cassano discuss their joint project, with Rima Lunin Schultz, Eleanor Smith’s Hull House Songs: The Music of Protest and Hope in Jane Addams’ Chicago (Brill, forthcoming). Smith was the head of the Hull House Music School during Jane Addams' tenure as head resident. In addition to being a pedagogical theorist, an administrator, and a teacher, Smith was a composer trained in the formal German and American music traditions. In this podcast, we discuss the origin of Smith's work, her goals, and the song "The Sweat Shop". Posted January 2016.

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Jessica Payette and Graham Cassano discuss their joint project, with Rima Lunin Schultz, Eleanor Smith’s Hull House Songs: The Music of Protest and Hope in Jane Addams’ Chicago (Brill, forthcoming). Smith was the head of the Hull House Music School during Jane Addams' tenure as head resident. In addition to being a pedagogical theorist, an administrator, and a teacher, Smith was a composer trained in the formal German and American music traditions. In this second podcast, we discuss Smith's relationship to social activism and her songs "The Shadow Child" and "Land of the Noonday Night". Posted January 2016.

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Read the associated articles here and here.

Tony Paris discusses the work of the Sugarlaw Center in Detroit. Sugarlaw is a non-profit workers rights advocacy organization. Tony discusses Michigan’s Emergency Manager law, and the Sugarlaw Center’s attempt to overturn that law. He also talks about labor lawyer Maurice Sugar, inspiration for the Center’s work. Sugar was involved in the Ford Hunger March, the rise of the UAW, and the local Socialist Party. In later years, Walter Reuther broke with Sugar over the latter’s supposed ties to the Communist Party. Posted January 2016.

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This is the second part of my conversation with Tony Paris, lead attorney at the Sugarlaw Center for Economic and Social Justice, in Detroit Michigan. We discuss the legacy of civil right and labor lawyer Maurice Sugar as an activist and song-writer and play his well-known labor anthem, “Sit-Down.” Afterward we discuss Tony Paris’ new project, putting music to lost lyrics by Maurice Sugar, and play the Sugar/Paris song “We are the Ones.” Posted January 2016.

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Critical Scholars series

In this podcast episode, Professor Rodney Coates and David Fasenfest discuss how sociology can draw on both poetry and creative pursuits more broadly to engage people. Then Professor Coates discusses the role of religion in his development as a sociologist before turning to a discussion on Black Lives Matter and the ongoing need to eradicate racism in society. This is the first in a multi-part conversation with Professor Coates. Posted January 2016.

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In this podcast episode, Martha Gimenez discusses the state of Marxist feminism in sociological scholarship. Drawing on theories of intersectionality she elaborates on the ongoing need for social movements to move beyond identity politics to create solidarity networks that transcend class, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality. Posted January 2016.

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In this podcast episode, Sam Binkley of Emerson College discusses his book Happiness as Enterprise: An Essay on Neoliberal Life (2015, SUNY Press). Here he elaborates on the ways individuals are encouraged to become entrepreneurs of themselves in order to achieve happiness within an ideology that emphasizes individual agency while concealing the significance of social structure in shaping people’s lives. Posted January 2016.

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William Tabb explains the ways the Regulation School has influenced his Structures of Accumulation approach, and discusses the important ways politics, culture, technology, and debt come together to impact the current forms of austerity and inequality evident in the US and elsewhere. Posted December 2014.

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William Tabb discusses the challenges of the mobilization of social movements such as Occupy Wall Street, and explains the problematic nature of non-hierarchical forms of resistance to contemporary, corporate capitalism before concluding with a description of his current work. Posted December 2014.

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David Fasenfest discusses his role as the editor of an evolving and rapidly growing, international journal - Critical Sociology. Posted December 2014.

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Rick Wolff of the New School University discusses the postmodern Marxian theory of class as process that he developed with Professor Stephen Resnick. Posted July 2014.

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Rick Wolff of the New School University discusses the Marxian and Neoclassical theories of profit and the Marxian theory of exploitation. Posted July 2014.

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Rick Wolff of the New School University discusses the theory of overdetermination that he developed with Stephen A. Resnick, the concept of theoretical entry points, and the relative merit of different forms of economic analysis (Marxian, Keynesian, Neoclassical). Posted July 2014.

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Rick Wolff of the New School University discusses his last book with the late Stephen A. Resnick, Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian (2012, MIT Press) as well as the postmodern critique of social scientific determinism that he developed during his long collaboration with Professor Resnick. Posted July 2014.

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Labor Scholar series

Troy Rondinone of Southern Connecticut State University, and Graham Cassano of Oakland University, discuss their work on labor republicanism in U.S. history. Posted September 2012.

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Ruth Milkman, Professor of Sociology at CUNY Graduate Center, discusses the current state of organized labor in the United States and some possible paths labor organizing might take in the future. Posted September 2012.

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Ruth Milkman, Professor of Sociology at CUNY Graduate Center, discusses the sociological study of the Occupy movement. Posted September 2012.

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Jennifer Klein, Professor of History at Yale University, discusses her new book, written with Eileen Boris, 'Caring for America: Home Health Care Workers in the Shadow of the Welfare State. Posted September 2012.

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Fran Shor, Professor of History at Wayne State University, discusses the racialized social system in the United States. Posted September 2012.

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Dan Clark from Oakland University discusses the struggles Detroit autoworkers faced in the 1950s. Posted September 2012.

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Chris Rhomberg of Fordham University discusses the Detroit Newspaper Strike of the late 1990s and material from his book about the strike, 'The Broken Table'. Posted September 2012.

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