Past Events
All events were sponsored by the Department of Sociology (co-sponsors are noted).
2018
2017
Wendy Roth, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of British Columbia
Onoso Imoagene, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania
2016
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
2015
Rowena He, Lecturer, Department of Government, Harvard University
Kimberly Hoang, Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Studies at Boston College
2014
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
2013 and earlier
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.