The latest episode of Mark Tavener’s comedy, High Table Lower Orders, includes a character who has held both the Donald Rumsfeld Chair in Peace Studies and the Bill Clinton Chair in Personal Ethics. (My University has a set of Chairs which are named by the recipients: my fantasy is to hold the Tony Hancock Chair in something, though if push ever came to shove I guess I’d go for C.L.R. James if his executors would let me). Anyway, you can do better than Mark Tavener, surely. Nominations please.
The Eastern Sociological Society annual meetings will be in Washington, D.C. this weekend at the Wyndham Hotel. I organized a mini-conference on Sociology and the Internet for it that includes a session called “Can Blogs Influence Public Policy?”. This session will be held at 8:30am this Friday. If you’re in the area and inclined to be up and about at that hour, please stop by. Panelists are as follows:
* Tyler Cowen, George Mason University (Update: Unfortunately, it turns out that Tyler Cowen won’t be able to make it.)
* Henry Farrell, George Washington University
* Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern University
* Amy Sullivan, The Washington Monthly and Princeton University
* Discussant: Jeff Weintraub, Lehigh University and University of Pennsylvania
See information about the other panels in this mini-conference below the fold. [click to continue…]