Laura J. Miller

Title

Associate Professor of Sociology

Sociology

Expertise

Sociology of culture. Mass communication. Urban sociology. Consumption and marketing.

Profile

Laura J. Miller is an Associate Professor of Sociology. She came to Brandeis in 2002, having previously taught at the University of Western Ontario and Vassar College. Professor Miller teaches courses in the sociology of culture, the mass media, and urban sociology

Her research is centered on understanding the interaction between cultural and economic processes. This interest has led to studies that examines information, media, and lifestyle industries, their contributions of such industries, to consumer culture, and the role of commercial institutions in community life. Her 2006 book, Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption, was on book marketing and retailing in the twentieth century, with a focus on the growth of large, corporate-owned chain bookstores. Her current project examines the relationship between the health/natural foods industry and natural foods as a social and cultural movement.

Degrees

University of California, San Diego, Ph.D.

University of California, San Diego, M.A.

University of California, Berkeley, M.S.

University of California, Berkeley, B.A.

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Contact

Email:	lamiller@brandeis.edu
Phone:	781-736-2643
Office:	Pearlman Hall, 103

Awards and Honors

American Sociological Association Section on the Sociology of Culture Book Award (2007)

Courses Taught

SOC	3b	Social Theory and Contemporary Society
SOC	120b	Globalization and the Media
SOC	146a	Mass Communication Theory
SOC	148b	Sociology of Information
SOC	149b	Social Production of Food
SOC	150b	Culture of Consumption
SOC	152a	Urban Life and Culture
SOC	204a	Foundations of Sociological Theory
SOC	212a	Theories of Morality
SOC	221b	Sociology of Culture
SOC	250a	Master's Program Proseminar

Scholarship

Miller, Laura J., and Emilie Lynn Hardman. "Cooking and Consciousness Raising: Vegetarian Cookbooks as Manuals for Social Change." Eastern Sociological Society, Boston. March 22, 2013.

Miller, Laura J.. "Whither the Professional Book Publisher in an Era of Distribution on Demand." The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies. vol. II: Production Ed. Angharad N. Valdivia and Vicki Mayer. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013. 171-191.

Miller, Laura J., and Emilie Hardman. "By the Pinch and the Pound: Protest in American Vegetarian Cookbooks from the Nineteenth Century to the Present.." Center for the History of Print & Digital Culture conference on Protest on the Page: Print Culture History in Opposition to Almost Anything, Madison. September 30, 2012.

Miller, Laura J.. "Business on the Barricades: Challenging Agro-Medical Interests from Within the Natural Foods Industry." Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meeting, New York. February 24.

Miller, Laura J.. "Meanings and Practices in Co-optation: The Case of Natural Foods." American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, Las Vegas. August 22.

Miller, Laura J.. "Perpetual Turmoil: Book Retailing in the Twenty-First Century United States." Logos: Journal of the World Publishing Community 22. 3 (2011): 16-25.

Miller, Laura J.. "Barnes & Noble,” “Books in Print,” “Borders,” “Brentano’s,” “Cody’s Books,” “Kroch’s & Brentano’s,” “Macy’s and Wanamaker’s Book Departments,” “Powell’s Books,” “Waldenbooks." Oxford Companion to the Book. 2 vols. 2010.

Miller, Laura J.. "Book Review." Rev. of The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control, by Ted Striphas. Journal of Consumer Culture vol. 10 July 2010: 300-302.

Miller, Laura J.. "The Price of Eating Ethically: Natural Foods in Hard Times." Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meeting, Boston. March 19, 2010.

Miller, Laura J.. "When Politics and Business Overlap: Defining Insiders and Goals in the Natural Foods Movement.." Organization Studies Workshop, Margaux, France. May 27, 2010.

Miller, Laura J., and David Paul Nord. "Reading the Data on Books, Newspapers, and Periodicals: A Statistical Appendix." A History of the Book in America, Volume 5: The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America. Ed. David Paul Nord, Joan Shelley Rubin, and Michael Schudson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. 503-518.

Miller, Laura J.. "Book Review." Rev. of Consuming Life, by Zygmunt Bauman. Contemporary Sociology vol. 38 January 2009: 74-75.

Miller, Laura J.. "Book Review." Rev. of Regionalism and the Reading Class, by Wendy Griswold. Contemporary Sociology vol. 38 September 2009: 403-404.

Miller, Laura J.. "Selling the Product." A History of the Book in America, Volume 5: The Enduring Book: Print Culture in Postwar America. Ed. David Paul Nord, Joan Shelley Rubin, and Michael Schudson. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. 91-106.

Miller, Laura J.. "Book Review." Rev. of Consumer Culture: History, Theory and Politics, by Roberta Sassatelli. Journal of Consumer Culture vol. 8 November 2008: 419-421.

Miller, Laura J.. "Book Review." Rev. of Getting Loose: Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970s, by Sam Binkley. American Journal of Sociology vol. 114 July 2008: 271-273.

Faculty Guide