Colleagues -some recent work that may be of interest. As always, critical suggestions and comments are very welcome.  --Gary

"Your Papers Please": Personal and Professional Encounters With Surveillance
in D. Lyon, K. Ball and K. Haggerty (eds.) International Handbook of Surveillance Studies, Routledge, forthcoming

http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/survhandbook.html

"Foreword: Privacy is Not Quite Like the Weather" in D. Wright and P. de Hert,  Privacy Impact Assessment, Springer, forthcoming

http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/forewordnotlikeweather.html

"Agents Provocateurs as a Type of Faux Activist" in Snow, D. Della Porta, D., Klandermans, B. and McAdam, D. (eds.) Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements. Blackwell, forthcoming            http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/agentsprovocateursfaux.html

"In Gratitude: The Right Chemistry, Timing, Place and Organization"

--Remarks on 5 decades of research, mentoring and teaching on receiving

the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Las Vegas, 2011.      http://web.mit.edu/gtmarx/www/sssp.html

www.garymarx.net

I¹m teaching two sections of Introduction to Sociology at Drexel University
this semester. I¹d like to devote the final lectures of the semester to
helping students understand the Occupy movement and connecting that
explanation with basic sociological concepts, such as:

• an economic snapshot of the U.S. (rising incidence of poverty) as
  explanation for the protest
  www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/jobs-will-follow-a-strengthening-o
  f-the-middle-class.html?src=me&ref=general
• wealth distribution/ wealth gap in society ­ the 99% of people versus the
  400 families (animated explanation of: We are the 99%
  www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/video/2011/nov/16/99-v-1-occupy-data-animat
  ion
• interconnectedness of the world economy
• excessive influence and the increasing entanglement of business and
  government
• social constructionism/ media analysis of what constitutes news and how
  current events should be interpreted, i.e. contrasts between Democracy Now!
  www.democracynow.org/2011/11/16/as_occupy_enters_third_month_a ‹versus Fox
  News coverage
• social theory on protests and social movements
• economic reform of the past ­ what economic/financial reform is necessary
• the role of social networking media in protest movements

Soc 101 (Intro to Soc) is an elementary class of mostly freshman and
sophomores. The text book I¹ve been drawing on is Henslin¹s Essentials of
Sociology, though I¹m not finding it very useful for the goal of pulling out
concepts to apply to Occupy.

What other sociological concepts can be connected to current events? I have
four 50-minute lectures left to give and I am willing to devote that class
time and use the current event of Occupy as a way to apply sociological
concepts. I also need to write exam questions that capture these same
sociological concepts. I can send some models of these questions if you¹d
like to see what I¹ve used before.

The Occupy situation is looking grim here in Philadelphia
http://occupyphilly.org/
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8435248. Imminent
construction in Dilworth Plaza may displace protesters at City Hall, many of
whom are homeless people and drifters. It remains that there is a teaching
opportunity here.

Adrienne

The attached document is what I presented on your very question this
past Wed during UC Berkeley's Open University/Teach Out on Sproul Plaza
during our strike - along with Michael Burawoy, Cihan Tugal and other grad
students. It was a very energizing event to say the least.

I also have a
blog post here: http://schradie.wordpress.com/ on "The Significance of
Place - In Defense of Tents"

And tonight at UC Berkeley from 5.30-7,
Burawoy and Claude Fischer are going to be debating the question, "Where we
go from here" with the Occupy movement. It will be videotaped and available
at some point.
Regards,
Jen

Jen Schradie
Doctoral Candidate
Department of
Sociology
Berkeley Center for New Media
University of California,
Berkeley
Twitter: schradie

On Thu, 17 Nov 2011 10:43:01 -0500, Adrienne
Redd  wrote:  I'm teaching two sections of Introduction to Sociology at
Drexel University this semester. I'd like to devote the final lectures of
the semester to helping students understand the Occupy movement and
connecting that explanation with basic sociological concepts, such as:

* an economic snapshot of the U.S. (rising incidence of poverty) as

explanation for the protest
www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/opinion/sunday/jobs-will-follow-a-strengthening-of-the-middle-class.html?src=me">wealth
distribution/ wealth gap in society - the 99% of people versus the 400
families (animated explanation of: We are the 99%

www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/video/2011/nov/16/99-v-1-occupy-data-animation

* interconnectedness of the world economy 
* excessive influence and

the increasing entanglement of business and government
* social
constructionism/ media analysis of what constitutes news and how current
events should be interpreted, i.e. contrasts between Democracy Now!
www.democracynow.org/2011/11/16/as_occupy_enters_third_month_a --versus Fox
News coverage
* social theory on protests and social movements
*
economic reform of the past - what economic/financial reform is necessary

* the role of social networking media in protest movements 

Soc 101
(Intro to Soc) is an elementary class of mostly freshman and sophomores.
The text book I've been drawing on is Henslin's Essentials of Sociology,
though I'm not finding it very useful for the goal of pulling out concepts
to apply to Occupy.

What other sociological concepts can be connected to
current events? I HAVE FOUR 50-MINUTE LECTURES LEFT TO GIVE and I am
willing to devote that class time and use the current event of Occupy as a
way to apply sociological concepts. I also need to write exam questions
that capture these same sociological concepts. I can send some models of
these questions if you'd like to see what I've used before.

The Occupy
situation is looking grim here in Philadelphia http://occupyphilly.org/
[1]
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local">

--

Links:

[1] http://occupyphilly.org/
[2]
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=8435248

Hi All,

Someplace between action research and participant observation lies the
role of a research confederate.  Milgram's (in)famous studies of
obedience made prominent use of a research confederate (and the term
seems to have fallen into dis-use since).

I'd be grateful for your thoughts and pointers to research that employs
such a researcher role as we mull using an activist participant observer
in our studies of distributed collaboration.  Our thinking is simply:
what better way to learn about what distributed collaborators do than to
provide them a meeting/ project manager/ note-taker to help them with
their work...?

Feel free to respond to me or the list.  I am happy to summarize what
comes in response to this question.

Steve Sawyer
Professor
iSchool
Syracuse University
http://sawyer.syr.edu