We are delighted to announce that Prof Lyn Spillman will serve as North American editor for the journal Cultural Sociology. Prof Spillman, who teaches at the University of Notre Dame, has been a member of the editorial board for Cultural Sociology since the journal was founded in 2006. Editors Isabelle Darmon, Lisa McCormick and Nick Prior look forward to working with her more closely in this new capacity.

Prof Spillman’s work has been a major force in the establishment and advancement of cultural sociology. In addition to editing one of the first anthologies of cultural sociology (Blackwell Publishers 2002), and co-editing (with Mark Jacobs) a landmark special issue in Poetics (Vo. 33 No. 1 “Cultural sociology and sociological publics”), she has published widely in economic, political and historical sociology. Her most recent monograph, Solidarity and Strategy: Making Business Meaningful in American Trade Associations (University of Chicago Press 2012) won two best book awards from the American Sociological Association, one from the Culture section, and the other from the Economic Sociology section. She is a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and the ASA’s Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline award. She has also served as chair of the Culture section of the American Sociological Association in 2007-2008.

Prof Spillman took part in a filmed event for Cultural Sociology earlier this year at the BSA Annual Conference. She was joined by Dr Nick Stevenson and Dr Tomás Undurraga on the panel “Cultural Sociology and Contemporary Capitalism: Business as Usual?” to take stock of cultural approaches in the study of contemporary capitalism, and to explore new possibilities in analysing the dynamics of, engagements with, and resistances against capitalism.

Click here to see the videos of this event and hear the discussion.

This panel marked the 10th anniversary of the journal Cultural Sociology and the start of the new editorial team. Panellists reflected on the evolution of cultural sociology as an ‘intellectual field’ in recent years and mapped out some possible directions of travel.

The British Sociological Association Annual Conference 2017 was held on 4-6 April at the University of Manchester. Join us for next year’s conference, to be held at Northumbria University from 10-12 April 2018 where we’ll be talking about ‘Identity, Community and Social Solidarity’.