Rethinking Vacancy, or Thinking with the Going Home & Blocking the Future: New Solutions for Old Problems in Historical Social Science - Incite at Columbia University

As part of the Narrative Workshop, Cassie Fennell and Peter Bearman joins us from the anthropology and sociology department at Columbia University to discuss “Rethinking Vacancy, or Thinking with the Going Home” and “Blocking the Future: New Solutions for Old Problems in Historical Social Science”.

The Narrative Workshop has limited capacity. To inquire about joining, please contact Dian Sheng or Amy Weissenbach.

About Cassie Fennell

Catherine Fennell’s work examines the cultural transformation of the American welfare state and the effects of this transformation on the politics of citizenship, belonging and race within redeveloping cities. Through her ethnographic research, she has focused on how large-scale changes in the urban built environment shape the ways in which urbanites come to understand social difference, and practice new forms of social care, concern and intimacy. In particular, her interest is in how the sensory and affective qualities of everyday urban life cultivate personal attachments to a place, as well as compel private commitments to the people associated with that place.

About Peter Bearman

Peter Bearman is the founding Director of Incite, the co-founding director of the Oral History Master of Arts program, and the Jonathan R. Cole Professor of Social Science at Columbia University. 2016 Guggenheim Fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine, he was awarded the NIH Director's Pioneer Award in 2007 to investigate the increased prevalence of autism. With J. Richard Udry, he co-designed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which was awarded the 2016 Golden Goose Prize. The recipient of numerous teaching awards, Bearman has chaired over 55 doctoral dissertations in sociology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (1986–1998) and Columbia (1998–present).