In nearly every undergraduate sociology course, we discussed the mid-century sociological tradition “structural functionalism.” But, for me at least, discussions of Talcott Parsons, the theoretical powerhouse that spearheaded the rise of structural functionalism, was strangely absent from my undergraduate sociology courses.

The Paper [#{.group-hover:text-primary-300 .dark:group-hover:text-neutral-700 style=“text-decoration-line: none !important;” aria-label=“Anchor”}]{.absolute .top-0 .w-6 .transition-opacity .opacity-0 .ltr:-left-6 .rtl:-right-6 .not-prose .group-hover:opacity-100} Granovetter wrote the The Strength of Weak Ties

James Coleman’s oeuvre represents a significant contribution to general social theory, specifically sociological rational choice theory. Skimming Foundations of Social Theory (1990), we see several simple diagrams – mainly, lines with arrows.

Original post on December 2020. Updated on August 2021. The Document-Term Matrix (DTM) is the foundation of computational text analysis, and as a result there are several R packages that provide a means to build one.

View fullsize > We are in a podcast bubble – so many podcasts. In a recent episode of This American Life, Malcolm Gladwell discusses whether one shot the basketball underhand or overhand and references an article by Mark Granovetter.

Wendy Griswold is one of the central nodes in the boom of cultural analysis in sociology that started in the 1980s.

The sort of activities gathered under the label of The Chicago School (of American sociology, not economics) was a departure from the macro-historical and trans-national comparisons of the evolutionary sociology that dominated American academia in the late 19th century.

> Parson’s and Merton’s

Note: I am in the process of moving to GitLab Pages and updating these posts. For roughly two years, I was obsessed with risk. Naturally, this quickly led to the work of Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky. The former more so than the latter.