Jeffrey Alexander

Office Hours: Wednesday 4-6pm.

Jeffrey C. Alexander is the Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor Emeritus of Sociology. He has worked in the areas of theory, culture, and politics. An exponent of the “strong program” in cultural sociology, he has investigated the cultural codes and narratives that inform diverse areas of social life.

Books

• Breaching the Civil Order: Radicalism and the Civil Sphere (with Farhard Khosrokhavar and Trevor Stack), Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming 2019.
• What Makes a Social Crisis? The Societalization of Social Problems, Polity Press, Forthcoming 2019.
• The Civil Sphere in East Asia (with David Palmer, Agnes Ku and Sunwoong Park), Cambridge University Press, 2019.
• Politics of Meaning/Meaning of Politics: Cultural Sociology of 2016 U.S. Presidential Election, (With Jason Mast), Palgrave, 2018.
• The Civil Sphere in Latin America (with Carlo Tognato), Cambridge Univeristy Press, 2018.
• The Drama of Social Life, Polity Press, 2017.
• The Crisis of Journalism Reconsidered: Cultural Power (edited with Elizabeth Butler Breese and Maria Luengo), Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2015
• Obama Power (with Bernadette Jaworsky), Polity Press, 2014.
• The Dark Side of Modernity Polity Press, 2013.
• The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Sociology (edited with Philip Smith and Ronald Jacobs), Oxford University Press, 2012.
• Trauma: A Social Theory Polity Press, 2012.
• Iconic Power: Materiality and Meaning in Social Life (edited with Dominik Bartmanski and Bernhard Giesen), Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
• Performative Revolution in Egypt: An Essay in Cultural Power Bloomsbury Academic, 2011. Department Link>
• Performance and Power Polity Press, 2011.
• Interpreting Clifford Geertz: Cultural Investigations in the Social Sciences (edited with Philip Smith and Matthew Norton), Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
• Narrating Trauma: On the Impact of Collective Suffering (edited with Ron Eyerman and Elizabeth Breese), Paradigm Publishers, 2011.
• The Performance of Politics: Obama’s Victory and the Democratic Struggle for Power Oxford University Press, 2010.
• A Contemporary Introduction to Sociology: Culture and Society in Transition (with Kenneth Thompson). Paradigm Publishers, 2008. (Second Edition, with Kenneth Thompson and Laura Edles, 2011)
• Remembering the Holocaust: A Debate (editor) Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Meaning and Method: The Cultural Approach to Sociology (edited with Isaac Reed), Paradigm Publishers, 2008
• Culture, Society, and Democracy (edited with Isaac Reed). Paradigm Publishers, 2007.
• The Civil Sphere Oxford University Press, 2006.
• Social Performance: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics and Ritual (edited with Bernhard Giesen and Jason Mast). Cambridge University Press, 2006.
• The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim (edited with Philip Smith). Cambridge University Press, 2005.
• Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity (with Eyerman, Giesen, Smelser, and Sztompka). University of California Press, 2004.
• The Meanings of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology Oxford University Press, 2003.

Recent Articles

JEFFREY ALEXANDER | PUBLISHED ARTICLES

2019

• “Frontlash/Backlash: The Crisis of Solidarity and the Threat to Civil Institutions,” Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews: Vol. 48 (1). January 2019.

2018

• “The Societalization of Social Problems: Church Pedophilia, Phone Hacking, and the Financial Crisis,” American Sociological Review: Online 2018.

2017

• Raging Against the Enlightenment: The Ideology of Steven Bannon. ASA Sociology of Culture Newsletter, Vol. 29(1 & 2), Spring/Summer 2017. (Portuguese translation, 2018)
• Seizing the Stage: Mao, MLK, and Black Lives Matter. The Drama Review, 61/1, Spring 2017. (Portuguese translation, 2017; Chinese translation, 2017)
• The Facticity of Symbols: A Reply to Morton Keller, with B. Nadya Jaworski. International Journal of Politics, Culture and Society.
• Interview: “Was the election a ‘shattering’ experience for you? There is hope, says a Yale sociologist,” Yale News, January 27, 2017

Courses and Seminars

Undergraduate

• HUMS 335 01 / SOCY 202 01, Cultural Sociology
• SOCY 330, Civil Society and Democracy.
• SOCY 352, Material Culture.

Graduate

• SOCY 525, Cultural Sociology: Theory and Research Programs.
• SOCY 534 01, Cultural Sociology
• SOCY 562 01, Topics in Cultural Sociology
• SOCY 565 01, Advanced Seminar in Cultural Sociology
• SOCY 567, Cultural Performances. The Whitney Seminar on New Perspectives in the Social Sciences and Humanities.
• SOCY 620 01, Iconic Material Culture
• SOCY 628, Workshop in Cultural Sociology.