Books, projects, miscellaneous stuff I'm up to (as of August 2011)
Working away on Flight 93 book centrally focused on the site of the temporary memorial for United Flight 93 and the Flight 93 Memorial Chapel. Hope to have the manuscript at least close to completion by the 10th anniversary of the events of 9/11, which is coming up in September of this year. Gave talks this spring on this work at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro and at Yale.
Bucknell was kind enough to do a story on the research I'm doing, with a short video in which I appear wearing unfashionably large sunglasses. The Somerset, PA Daily American did a short story on my Flight 93 work in November 2008, and two Pittsburgh papers, the Post-Gazette and the Tribune-Review, did stories leading into the annual ceremonies in Shanksville for September 2009. I was also on a Pittsburgh talk radio program talking about the memorial and especially about some of the conspiracy theories surrounding it.
In September 2011, the 10th anniversary of the attacks, I did more interviews: lengthy radio appearances on WVIA (with a second part here) and WKOK; and stories in Williamsport Sun-Gazette and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
Here are separate YouTube links to the Post-Gazette video and the video done by the Bucknell media folks, both from 2009.
Also just finished drafting an edited book on the Durkheimian tradition of thought on art and aesthetics, contributions from some of the best interpreters of Durkheimian thought in the US and Europe. Depending on how fast the editors move on it, it could be in print in early 2012.
In summer 2010, I was asked by Oxford Bibliographies Online to do the entry for Durkheim. It can be found here (viewing the whole thing requires a subscription, but you can see the first page for free).
Saints, Heroes, Myths, and Rites: Six Durkheimian Studies, a collection of English translations of several important essays by members of the Année sociologique group around Emile Durkheim, can be had by clicking this link.
Godless Intellectuals? is now available from Berghahn Books. Here's the cover (image is based on something I did with some fractal art freeware):
The book has been very favorably reviewed: American Journal of Sociology; Canadian Journal of Sociology; Anthropology Review Database; and (if you read Italian), Quaderni di Teoria Sociale.
Impure Play: Sacredness, Transgression, and the Tragic in Popular Culturewas recently published by Lexington Books. Cover image is from a photo I took last summer of a rowdy crowd at a soccer match in Mexico.
Other books I've had something to do with:
Philip Smith did the first edition (in 2001) by himself and kindly asked me to come on board as his co-author for this updated and expanded edition. Various photos inside are all by me. A great textbook/reference source for undergrad and grad theory courses. I've used it a good deal in my own teaching and students seem to like it.
I did the textual notes to this latest translation of Durkheim's classic study, On Suicide.
This is a collection of letters written by sociologist/philosopher/political activist Robert Hertz to his wife Alice (who was herself an important figure in the reform of the elementary educational system in France in the early 20th century), from the front during WWI, where Hertz died heroically in April 1915; Philippe Besnard and I edited and introduced it.
Here are a few mass media stories for which I was interviewed and quoted:
Stories in the AP and Chicago Tribune on the meaning of the death of Osama bin Laden.
An AP story on the cultural meaning of the merger of Marvel Comics and Disney
A Guardian piece on the Roman Polanski sex scandal case
A piece on Deutsche Welle on video games with religious themes
A Philadelphia Inquirer article on the phenomenon of YouTube celebrity and Glee
A number of different media pieces on the rise of "end of the world" narratives and various strange activities (e.g., companies emerging to offer timeshares in underground disaster shelters) associated with this cultural development; one current end time preacher, discussed in this article in the Omaha World-Herald, says the world will end on May 21, 2011
A local newspaper (Daily Item) story on the Florida Christian pastor who threatened to burn copies of the Qur'an in response to the plan to build a Muslim community center near Ground Zero in New York City
An appearance on a Harrisburg public radio program discussing scandals involving cheating
A Christian Science Monitor story on Conan O'Brien and the future of the talk show format