AMSS - Scholar Interviews

For the inaugural edition of the AMSS section podcast and series of interviews. Current Chair Dr. David Melamed had a conversation with future section Chair Dr. Penny Edgell to discuss, among other things,  her work, '“I Believe in Taking Care of People”: Pushing Back against Rationalized Institutions with a Logic of Care' which is now available in the February 2022 Volume of Poetics (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2021.101593)

Dr. Penny Edgell is a cultural sociologist at the University of Minnesota who studies contemporary American religion and has earned a national and international reputation as a leader in the discipline. Her work is influential, highly cited, and has had a major impact on scholarly discussions of religion’s influence on American society. Mentoring and collaborating with graduate students has always been at the core of Dr. Edgell’s scholarly passion and commitments, and she is a tireless instructor and mentor who provides practical training along with boundless support and encouragement for helping students finding their intellectual voices and professional pathways.

David Melamed is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the Ohio State University, where he is also a faculty affiliate of the Translational Data Analytics Institute. Prior to joining Ohio State, David was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of South Carolina. He is currently Co-Editor of Sociological Methodology (2020-2022). His research examines how social (network) structures shape aggregate patterns of prosocial behavior between people, and the implications of segregation and inequality for prosociality. Some of his other research examines how status processes structure inequalities in small groups. Some of this work has appeared in venues such as American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Social Networks, and Science Advances.