Department of Sociology

Wendy Roth, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia

Onoso Imoagene, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania

Carla Shedd, Assistant Professor of Sociology and African American Studies at Columbia University

Allison Pugh, Associate Professor of Sociology at University of Virginia

Natasha Warikoo, Associate Professor of Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education

Ya-Wen Lei, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Harvard University

Arlie Hochschild, Emerita Professor of Sociology at UC Berekely

Iddo Tavory, Assistant Professor of Sociology at New York University

Peter Berger, University Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, at Boston University and the founder and Senior Research Fellow of the Institute on Culture, Religion, and World Affairs

Rafi Grosglik, Post Doc Visiting Scholar in the Sociology Department

Helle Porsdam, Professor of American Studies at the University of Copenhagen

Rowena He, Lecturer, Department of Government, Harvard University

Kimberly Hoang, Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Studies at Boston College

Howard Winant, Professor of Sociology at the University of California and founding director of the University of California Center for New Racial Studies (UCCNRS)

Adam Hochschild, Acclaimed Author, Journalist, and Lecturer, UC Berkeley, Graduate School of Journalism

Grete Brochmann, Professor of Sociology, University of Oslo

Co-sponsored by the Center for German and European Studies, Department of Politics, International Global Studies, Heller School for Social Policy and Management

Ofer Sharone, Sociologist and Assistant Professor, Institute of Work & Employment Relations, MIT Sloan

Gretchen Purser, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Syracuse University

Co-sponsor:The Martin Weiner Distinguished Lecturer Fund

Liah Greenfeld, Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and Anthropology, Boston University

Co-sponsors: The Martin Weiner Distinguished Lecturers Fund and the Department of Psychology

Mary Bernstein, Professor of Sociology, University of Connecticut at Storrs, Leading Scholar in Queer Politics

Co-sponsors: The Martin Weiner Distinguished Lecturers Fund, The Women's and Gender Studies Program

Matthew Kaliner, Doctoral Candidate in Sociology, Harvard University (Brandeis University ’00)

Co-sponsor: The Martin Weiner Distinguished Lecturers Fund

Doug Harper PhD ’76, Professor of Sociology, Duquesne University

Japonica Brown-Saracino, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Boston University

Co-sponsored with the Interdepartmental Program in Women's and Gender Studies

Steve Epstein, John C. Shaffer Professor in the Humanities, Northwestern University

Co-author of Three shots at Prevention: The HPV vaccine and the Politics of Medicine's Simple Solutions

Co-sponsored with the Interdepartmental Program in Women's and Gender Studies

Amy Schalet, University of Massachusetts-Amherst

Catherine Turco, MIT

Professor Donald W. Light Rutgers, UDMNJ-SOM

Sponsored by: Department of Sociology, Martin Weiner Distinguished Lecturers Fund, and Heller School of Social Policy and Management

Professor Sarah Sobieraj, Tufts University

Sponsored by Department of Sociology and Martin Weiner Distinguished Lecturers Fund

Professor Peggy Levitt, Wellesley College, Senior Research Fellow

Sponsored by: Department of Sociology and Martin Weiner Distinguished Lecturers Fund

Professor Sabrina McCormick, Science and Technology Fellow, AAAS

Sponsored by: Department of Sociology and Martin Weiner Distinguished Lecturers Fund, Environmental Studies Program, and Health: Science, Society, and Policy Program

Professor Tom Shapiro

Professor Rene Almeling

Professor Michele Lamont

Professor Shamus Khan

Professor Ayla Guseva

Professor Peter Bearman, Jonathan Cole Professor of Social Sciences Director of Lazarsfeld Center for the Social Sciences at Columbia University

Professor C. Shawn McGuffey

Professor Kelly Joyce, The College of William and Mary

Professor Sammy Smooha, University of Haifa

Professor Matt Desmond, Harvard University

Professor Courtney Bender, Columbia University

Dr. Ana Villalobos, PhD, University of California at Berkeley

Visiting Research Associate at the Department of Sociology, Brandeis

Professor Barrie Thorne, PhD’71

The Department of Sociology presents Professor Barrie Thorne, Brandeis Sociology PhD ’71, Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies, UC Berkeley. Professor Thorne is an eminent alum and a first rate ethnographer of children who recently finished fieldwork on "California Childhoods," funded by the MacArthur Foundation.

Zinner Forum, Heller school

"Left" political parties have been the major pole of opposition in capitalist market societies and the bearers of progressive change since the industrial revolution. They have insisted that governments assume responsibilities for correcting inequality, insecurity, market failures and externalities, and skewed opportunity structures. They have been fundamental in making democracy a mass phenomenon. They have promoted the expansion of rights from civil into political and social realms. They have provided people with visions of alternative social orders.

The collapse of actually existing socialism in the end of the Cold War made market societies the only game on the planet and discredited historical Left transformational utopias once and for all. Globalization has already made permeable many of the borders behind which Lefts felt able to pursue their programs. One consequence of all these changes is that socialist dreams, along with the word socialism itself, have disappeared.

It is deeply significant that in the media and professional political analysis what up until recently was called "the Left" is now widely labeled the "Center-Left." The political space and options of the political parties of the Left and Center Left that seek to govern have been narrowed and they have large new problems of connection with voters and constituents.