Comparative Sociology
Coordinator:
Meyer Kestnbaum |
301.405.6431 |
mkestn@umd.edu
The
Comparative Sociology area at Maryland brings together several
key threads that have been shaping our discipline in recent years:
-
An effort
to provide accounts of how social processes shape
change over time, often emphasizing logics that that
can best be understood as unfolding on a global or
world scale;
-
A
thoroughgoing appreciation of ‘situatedness,’ in
which particular settings matter, so that explicit
location in time and space becomes central to
explanation and interpretation;
-
Lastly, a
(small ‘c’) critical orientation, in which all
aspects of inquiry—from the specification of the
appropriate units of analysis and observation, to
the choice of relevant methodologies, to the
justification of the standpoint from which we choose
to narrate our findings—are subjected to critical
evaluation.
These threads
define our intellectual core and assert the vitality of
Comparative Sociology. The Comparative area encompasses
the concerns and approaches identified with both the ASA
Sections on Comparative and Historical Sociology and the
Political Economy of the World System, but is not
limited to these. Work in the area emphasizes the
interplay of economies, polities and cultures, and draws
heavily on the perspective and insight derived from both
implicit and explicit use of comparison. Our faculty
and graduate students focus on many different
phenomena—from nationalism and race to patterns of
economic inequality; from the development of states and
citizenries and the transformation of civil society to
the construction of identity and the transformation of
warfare; and from globalization to sexuality. What we
share is a common orientation, a way of asking questions
and engaging theoretical work that allows for and
encourages a wide range of compelling and provocative
scholarship.
Through its
courses, the program in Comparative Sociology encourages
students critically to assess central areas of dispute
and consensus among key theoretical approaches. At the
same time, the program aims to acquaint students with
current empirical debates, and to promote their
involvement in active programs of research and
publication. Hence, the program frames empirical
questions in theoretically salient terms, while
simultaneously making empirical research speak back to
theoretical issues. This emphasis on integrating theory
and empirical research acknowledges and addresses
potential divides within the practice of social
science. The area encourages students to delve into
questions across boundaries of time and space; it
explicitly draws upon quantitative, qualitative, and
historical methods.
Faculty Interests
The faculty directly involved in the area are
Patricia Hill Collins,
Meyer Kestnbaum,
Roberto Patricio Korzeniewicz,
George Ritzer,
David R. Segal, and
Reeve Vanneman.
Collins’ research interests include comparative analyzes
of emancipatory knowledges, for example, ideologies of
nationalism and feminism as well as influential
knowledges of popular culture and everyday life; and
examining how the status of male and female African
American youth sheds light on broader social processes
such as globalization, transnationalism, class
inequalities, racism and gender inequities.
Kestnbaum is conducting research into the revolutionary
creation of national citizenship and its relationship to
gender, race and the particularities of war-making. His
work on citizenship and the state is clearly linked to
his other primary interest, elaborating a historical
sociology of warfare, dedicated to explaining
transformation in war-making and its social and cultural
consequences, 1700 to the present.
Korzeniewicz is conducting research on global patterns
of inequality in the distribution of resources between
nations, among households, and between men and women.
He also works on cross-national trends affecting the
rise and demise of democratic and dictatorial regimes in
peripheral and semiperipheral countries, and on the
comparative and historical development of social
movements in Latin America. Ritzer is analyzing
primarily American means of consumption, their export to
much of the rest of the world, and their impact on the
ways in which people consume, as well as the theories
and realities of globalization. Segal conducts
comparative research on military institutions, primarily
in Western democracies, but also in the new democracies
of Eastern Europe. Vanneman is part of a collaborative
project on cross-national variations in gender
inequality that seeks to link explanations at the level
of individuals and households with those of national
contexts. He is also investigating how race, caste,
class, and gender inequalities vary across India’s many
regions.
Additional faculty whose research has a
comparative dimension includes
Kurt Finsterbusch,
Bart Landry,
Joseph Lengermann, and
John Robinson.
Academic
Program
The Sociology Department offers
a variety of graduate courses in the area of comparative sociology.
Ph.D. students are required to take three courses in the area. Students
are required to take at least two of the following courses:
SOCY 699X World-Systems Approaches
SOCY 699X States and Politics: Institutional Approaches to
Analysis
The remaining course/s
might be any of the following:
SOCY 631 Comparative Sociology
SOCY 664 Armed Forces and Society
SOCY 699X Capitalism and Democracy
SOCY 699X Sociology of Consumption
SOCY 699X Resistance, Revolution, and Nationalism in Comparative
Perspective
SOCY 699X Methods of Comparative and Historical Analysis
SOCY 699X War, the State and Society
SOCY 699X Globalization
SOCY 699X Race, Gender and Nationalism
Occasionally, the Department offers special research
seminars that might also be used to meet, upon approval
by the area coordinator and Graduate Director, the
required number of courses. Graduate courses in other
departments of the University such as Economics,
Government and Politics, or History may be substituted
as elective comparative courses with the approval of the
area coordinator and Graduate Director.
Graduate
Student Research Opportunities
Students
are encouraged to participate in research projects sponsored with
faculty in this area of concentration. Faculty active in this area
occasionally organize international conferences on emerging topics
of comparative analysis, and students are encouraged to participate
actively in such events.
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