Daniel Winchester on Pierre Bourdieu

Give Theory A Chance

Our guest today is Daniel Winchester, Associate Professor of Sociology at Purdue University. Dan tells us about his initial encounter with Pierre Bourdieu’s famously dense writings, his application of Bourdieu’s ideas in his Masters thesis on Islamic faith, and his more recent turn to the American Pragmatism to supplement his use of Bourdieu in studying the process of converting to Eastern Orthodox Christianity.

*Dan is the recent winner of the American Sociological Association’s Junior Theorist of the Year Award for his co-authored paper “Talking Your Self into It: How and When Accounts Shape Motivation for Action”

**Make sure to check out the accompanying video made by SUNY Brockport sociology major Simone Graham – https://youtu.be/1FXzNctRFbw