11:00 AM - 12:30 PM, Wednesday 24 May 2017

Place: Glamorgan Building, Cardiff University, Cardiff.

Gary Alan Fine is James E Johnson Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University, Illinois.  His wide-ranging work includes:

• Understanding difficult reputations and problematic collective memories of figures such as Joseph McCarthy, Charles Lindbergh, Warren Harding, and Benedict Arnold. This research was most recently published in Sticky Reputations: The Politics of Collective Memory in Midcentury America (2012). Current research involves shifting reputations and political positions of Southern segregationist politics.
• As an ethnographer he is currently completing a book on the worlds of competitive chess, examining the development of status systems and reputation markets. He is also beginning a project to examine the field of public relations, particularly as involving the management of celebrity reputation.
• A third stream of research involves the interpretation of rumour and contemporary legend, particularly political and economic rumour. Fine is the author of The Global Grapevine: Why Rumors of Terrorism, Immigration and Trade Matter (2010).
• Fourthly, research on microsociological theory, focusing on small group culture. Gary has recently published Tiny Publics: A Theory of Group Culture and Action (2012).

You can see more about Gary Alan Fine’s work on his university webpages or on Wikipedia.

Gary has kindly offered to run a discussion session for doctoral students when he visits Cardiff University’s School of Social Science. This session is aimed at ESRC funded research students Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff and Swansea who will have priority for places but others are welcome to attend, space permitting.

The session will be driven by your questions: you should come along having prepared a question to ask Gary. Such questions are likely to focus on method and methodology, but you shouldn’t feel limited to these.

Deadline for bookings

23 May 2017

Bookings