Christine Monnier

The reason why social conservatives have declared a “culture war” is because their faulty understanding of society is that it rests on an imaginary conception of the family as the moral and economic pillar of society, based on patriarchal values and structure, a model that existed for a brief period of time and was the exception, not the traditional family. In reality, family structures vary and change based on larger structural factors such as the economy, technology and cultural factors as... Read Full Story

A really nice tune with a very interesting video, La Gloria, from their latest album, Tango 3.0  : GOTAN PROJECT – La Gloria from Ya Basta records on Vimeo . Read Full Story

HA! This should warm our collective little sociologists’ hearts when some hotshot economist acknowledges that sociology it right (as opposed to, y’know…): “ One more thought: The real winner in this controversy is the distinguished sociologist William Julius Wilson. Back in 1996, the same year Ms. Himmelfarb was lamenting our moral collapse, Mr. Wilson published “When Work Disappears: The New World of the Urban Poor,” in which he argued that much of the social disruption among African... Read Full Story

Via Resources Research , this great visual from the Transnational Institute , a perfect illustration of corporate power: The Davos Class is an expression coined by Susan George: “‘All for ourselves and nothing for other people” seems in every age of the world to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind,’i wrote Adam Smith in 1776 in The Wealth of Nations, universally considered the first comprehensive inquiry into the nature and practice of capitalism. The masters of... Read Full Story

I am always suspicious of broad generalizations about entire populations or generations. So, I am not entirely sure what to make of this argument by sociologist Sophia Mappa. Something to think about. It is in French, so here is the gist of it in English. The starting point of her argument is that Angela Merkel’s inflexibility is incomprehensible to ordinary Greeks. The reason is that such inflexibility is rooted in the protestant culture of the 16th century, something well-known thanks to... Read Full Story

I got this thanks to Bob Ertishek , founder of the shiny new Profology network, and it’s actually more of a defense of liberal arts education than sociology per se: “As the new year begins and humanities and social science undergraduates across Canada return to campus, they will face the usual robust combination of academic pressure, parental anxiety over their future employability, nervousness over mounting debts and the inevitable recitation of that tired and toxic mantra: “How many... Read Full Story

Sorry about the lack of recent posts, guys. Between the beginning of the term and the massive amount of academic writing I have foolishly and irresponsibly agreed to do, I will be swamped until February 15th. That being said, while taking a break from The Writing, I watched this film , scifi fan that I am: The movie was directed by Andrew Niccol who also directed Gattaca (which I really loved) and Lord of War (ditto). Now, the main plot is rather stupid and the main characters were poorly... Read Full Story

See? (Not that anyone who is interested in reality and data would be surprised by this): The policy implications should be obvious to anyone, including people who do not like abortions. But we all know this is not about abortion per se, it is about patriarchal control and denial of women autonomy. Therefore, women in poorer countries will continues to have more numerous and unsafe abortions while the antichoice crowds will continue to make access to safe abortion less and less likely in... Read Full Story

Look at all this sharing … for free! (H/T Jim King on Google +) Read Full Story

While I am busy with academic writing (under deadline!), enjoy this great song – Little Dolls – and video from the latest Indochine album, La République des Météors: Read Full Story