Wendy Espeland
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Associate Professor Areas of Interest:Cultural Sociology, Organizations-formal/complex, Qualitative Methodology
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Wendy Espeland works in the areas of organizations, culture, and law. Her book, The Struggle for Water: Politics, Rationality and Identity in the American Southwest was awarded the Best Book Prize by the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association, the Rachel Carson Award from the Society for the Social Studies of Science, and the Louis Brownlow Book Award from the National Academy of Public Administration. She is currently writing a book about the effects of commensuration, the process of translating qualities into quantities. In it she investigates how media rankings have influenced higher education, how efforts to measure homosexuality have shaped gay and lesbian politics, and the commensurative practices necessary in order to transform air pollution into a commodity that is traded on futures markets.
Research, Funding and Collaboration with Graduate Students:
(1) Current and future research projects: commensuration, including how schools use tests to force accountability, how rankings influence admissions in grad schools, how environmental law can stimulate commensuration and create incommensurable categories, how efforts to count homosexuals changes politics, and how creating markets for air pollution requires commensuration. I will use archives, interviews, and participation observation.
(2) Availability of funding for students who might work on these projects: none so far except MacArthur's and Dispute Resolution money.
(3) Opportunities for non-funded collaboration: I'd be happy to collaborate with smart students but feel its inappropriate not to pay them.
Contact 
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1808 Chicago Av Room 207
Evanston, Illinois 60208-1330
Phone: (847) 467-1252
Fax: (847) 491-9907
Office Hours:
Relevant Links Top
Center for Law, Culture, and Social Thought
Courses Top
| Current Courses: Fall Quarter 2008 | |
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| Courses Taught | |
| Soc 306-0 Sec.20 (Winter 2006): Sociological Theory |
Syllabus |
| Soc 101-6 Sec.21 (Fall 2005): Freshman Seminar |
Syllabus |
