Work

CURRENT PROJECTS

Elites

My next major monograph will be a sociological history of elites in America. My main for focus will be on New York elites. The book is tentatively titled, Elite New York: A sociological history. It’s completion is about two years away.

In addition to this work, along with Dorian Warren I am forming an international research group to better understand elites. Along with economists, historians, and political scientists, our aim is to better understand the conditions of advantage in a global context. Our first meeting will be held in October 2010

Read about this project in the New York Times.

Status Hierarchies

Along with my colleague, Peter Bearman, I am working on a project to understand fame. An internet company, FameGame has been gathering information on about 200,000 people in New York -- specifically the public events they have been attending (and who they’re photographed with at these events). They have generously given us all their data. These data give us a sense of who has been to what parties over the last three years. In addition to these network data, in Fall 2010 I will begin attending parties in New York to get a sense of what people do. We are primarily interested in the construction and negotiation of status hierarchies.

Deliberation

Along with my collaborator, Erik Schneiderhan, I am doing a series of experiments on the impact of deliberation on political decision-making. This work is an extension of our earlier work together. Supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, we will be exploring deliberation in multiethnic contexts.

In addition to the experiments we have been commissioned by the Runnymede Trust of England to run real-world deliberations of multi-ethnic groups in London and Birmingham. Together with our experimental work, this will allow us to better understand political decision-making in diverse social groups.

Finally, with Kathryn Flynn at Duke University Medical School, we are also initiating research into how patient deliberations influence health understanding and outcomes.

Cultural and Social Theory

I have a series projects on cultural sociology and social theory. With Colin Jerolmack, I have written on the importance of ethnographic research to understanding culture; with Pierre-Marie Chauvin I am writing on the constitution of French Tastes, with Claudio Benzecry I am writing on the conditions under which cultural capital “doesn’t spend” -- that is, when capital doesn’t have the value we think it should. And with Jennifer Kondo I have written on the spatial distribution of arts in New York City and the impact of institutional exposure on inequality.

On my own, I am working on a paper on embodiment, and one on the modernist moment in classical music, and what it can tell us about embodiment. Together these projects pick up on my interests in social theory and cultural sociology.

Methods

With Dana Fisher I am editing a book on research methodology in the social sciences. The Practice of Research is an instructional text that focuses on how social scientists ask and answer questions. This book presents a practical guide to the challenges facing researchers through excerpting well known studies in the social sciences and accompanying them by a personal reflection written by the author of the excerpt. These reflections emphasis the advantages of using a particular research method to answer certain kinds of questions, and the constraints and choices that are a part of every social science research project.

Published Work

Books:
Shamus Khan, 2011, Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School, Princeton University Press.

The Practice of Research, in contact, Oxford University Press (with Dana Fisher).

Exceptional: The New York Elite and the History of American Inequality, in contract, Princeton University Press.

Journal Articles:
Shamus Khan, commissioned (2012), “The Sociology of Elites,” Annual Review of Sociology, Volume 38.

Shamus Khan and Erik Schneiderhan, 2008, “Reasons and Inclusion: The Foundation of Deliberation,” Sociological Theory 26:1–24. (PAPER HERE: reasonsandinclusion.pdf)

Papers in Edited Volumes, Shorter Essays, & Book Reviews:

“Localism: Increasing Political Participation at the cost of Equality?,” Runnymede Bulletin, Issue 363: 12-14 (with Casey Stockstill)

Jen Kondo and Shamus Khan, “The Cultural Democracy Myth,” forthcoming, Contexts.

Shamus Khan, “Review of The Sociology of Elite Distinction,” Contemporary Sociology

Shamus Khan, forthcoming, “Elites,” entry for Oxford Bibliographies Online, Oxford University Press.

Shamus Khan, forthcoming, “Review of Foodies,” Social Forces.

Shamus Khan, forthcoming, “Deliberation and Medical Decision-Making” (with Kathryn Flynn and Erik Schneiderhan), Cultural Factors in Decision Making and Action, ed. Gavriel Salvendy, Taylor and Francis.

Shamus Khan, forthcoming, “Why I like Contemporary Music and Social Theory”, Toward a Dialogical Sociology, ed. Michael Bell, Philadelphia: Temple University Press. (PAPER HERE: music.pdf)

Shamus Khan, 2011, “Getting In: How Private School Kids Play the College Admissions Game,” Educating Elites, ed. Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández and Adam Howard, Routledge. (PAPER HERE: gettingin.pdf)

Myra Marx Ferree, Shamus Khan, and Shauna Morimoto, 2006, “Assessing the Feminist Revolution: The Presence or Absence of Gender in Theory and Practice,” in Sociology in America: The American Sociological Association Centennial History, Craig Calhoun, ed., University of Chicago Press. (PAPER HERE: FerreeKhanMorimoto.pdf)

Popular Press

New York Times
GOOD Magazine
FORBES Magazine
NBC News (GRIO)