A Riley
Biographic Data
| ID | 12450 |
|---|---|
| NAME | A Riley |
| GIVEN NAMES | A |
| FAMILY NAME | Riley |
| SIGNATURE | RILEY A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Bucknell University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5235-8536 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 40 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 53 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 40 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
A Slave to Whatever Has Mastered You
Alexander Riley critiques Tricia Rose’s Metaracism: How Systemic Racism Devastates Black Lives―and How We Break Free, a wholly inadequate attempt to explain racial disparities with appeals to systemic or structural racism
Exploring adolescent‐adult connections, coping, and safety among minoritized youth in neighborhoods impacted by community violence
Dyadic interviews were conducted with 32 youth ages 13–21 and their self‐identified key adult supports to illuminate how adult supports help protect youth in communities impacted by high levels of violence. Interview transcripts were analyzed using thematic content analysis. Youth described choosing social interactions carefully, avoiding high‐violence areas, and keeping busy with activities. Many youths discussed the necessity of minimizing cont…
The Warped Vision of Contemporary Sociology
The decline of sociology as an academic discipline has been unfolding in plain sight as ideologues colonize departments and repurpose scholarship in the service of radical political goals. A series of short videos available on the website of the American Sociological Association shows just how “hair-raising” this process has become
Testing the Feasibility and Acceptability of Geographic Ecological Momentary Assessments Among Black Youth Living in Neighborhoods Impacted by Community Violence
Nothing but Shallow Resentment
Alexander Riley reviews Ibram X. Kendi and Keisha N. Blain’s Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
Two French Canadians Assess the Revolution
Two recent books by French-speaking Canadians tell us that the United States is not the only country beset by declining academic standards, anti-Western hatred, and cancel culture
Understanding the Protective Role of Adolescent-Adult Relationships Among Minoritized Youths in Neighborhoods Impacted by Community Violence
Using dyadic youth-adult interviews, the current study explored characteristics, benefits, and challenges of supportive youth-adult relationships for youths living in neighborhoods with high levels of community violence. Thirty-two dyads of youths between the ages 13 to 21 years (63% female, 88% Black) and their self-identified key adult supports in Pittsburgh, PA, completed semi-structured interviews exploring important qualities of youth-adult …
Cormac McCarthy
Where some critics see only dystopia and misanthropy in the violent novels of Cormac McCarthy, sociologist Alexander Riley notices a “distinct moral core” in McCarthy’s best-known fiction, drawing from both conservative and Christian values
Exploring the Impact of Racism on Black Youth
Intellectual Affirmative Action
Of College and Community in the Wake of George Floyd
Sociologist Alexander Riley questions whether the establishment of a woke social justice regime is sufficient for a shared notion of community in American colleges, and delineates the likely consequences if it is not
Kobe Bryant, Memento Mori
Lenin and His Revolution
A Tribute to Paul Hollander (1932-2019)
Myths, Islam, and American Cultural Conflict
On How and Why Intellectuals Deceive Themselves
William Pawlett, Violence, Society and Radical Theory
Ethnography of the Ek-Static Experience
Much work has been done in recent decades to emphasize the need in ethnographic writing to grapple with questions of authorship, perspective, aesthetics, emotional resonance, and style. Various forms of reflexive ethnographic writing, and especially autoethnography, have opened up new expressive avenues. In this article, I argue that a figure who is at present poorly known in English-language social scientific circles, the French ethnographer, po…
The Social Thought of Émile Durkheim
This new volume of the SAGE Social Thinkers series provides a concise introduction to the work, life, and influences of Emile Durkheim, one of the informal "holy trinity" of sociology's founding thinkers, along with Weber and Marx. The author shows that Durkheim's perspective is arguably the most properly sociological of the three. He thought through the nature of society, culture, and the complex relationship of the individual to the collective …
Flags, Totem Bodies, and the Meanings of 9/11
Some four miles as the crow flies from the site at which United 93, which was the fourth plane involved in the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on the United States, struck ground, there sits a small chapel dedicated to the passengers and crew. The Thunder on the Mountain Chapel is considerably less well known than the Parks Department memorial a few hundred yards from the crash site, but it is, arguably at least, equally important in the cultural prod…
A Durkheimian Quest
William Watts Miller. A Durkheimian Quest: Solidarity and the Sacred. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012, 275 pp
The Causal Power of Social Structures
Tiryakian
Edward Tiryakian, For Durkheim: Essays in Historical and Cultural Sociology, Ashgate, 2009, 360 pp
Desire for Race
Towards a New Cultural Sociology
Jeffrey Alexander, Bernhard Giesen and Jason Mast (eds.), Social Performance: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics and Ritual, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 374 pp. Ron Eyerman and Lisa McCormick (eds.), Myth, Meaning, and Performance: Toward a New Cultural Sociology of the Arts, Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2006, 166 pp
Whence Durkheim's Nietzschean grandchildren? A closer look at Robert Hertz's place in the Durkheimian genealogy
Recent interptetive work suggests ways of historically situating French post-structuralism as a mingling of Nietzschean philosophy with elements of Durkheimian sociology. This article aims to demonstrate the presence of Nietzschean themes in the life-work of the Durkheimian Robert Hertz and to recognize him as a key figure in the history of this intellectual confluence. An examination of published and private sources reveals Hertz as a prototype …
Durkheim Contra Bergson? The Hidden Roots of Postmodern Theory and the Postmodern 'Return' of the Sacred
Postmodern social theory is often seen as entirely distinct from and even antagonistic to modern sociological thought. This article endeavors to challenge this framing by tracing the emergence of postmodernist social thought to a historical development in Western societies intimately tied to the conditions of emergence of modern sociology, that is, to the crisis of the loss of the sacred for the modern intellectual class. Postmodern theory is lin…
The Causal Power of Social Structures
The Rebirth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Hip Hop
Hip hop culture and rap music have been the object of considerable scholarly attention in recent years. Yet much of the literature on rap is either unconcerned with attempting to empirically locate the interpretive communities and reading formations of the increasingly diverse hip hop audiences. The subgenre of rap known as gangsta rap is particularly affected by this problem. This essay endeavors (1) to challenge notions in the existent literatu…
Exploring the Impact of Racism on Black Youth
Flags, Totem Bodies, and the Meanings of 9/11
Some four miles as the crow flies from the site at which United 93, which was the fourth plane involved in the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on the United States, struck ground, there sits a small chapel dedicated to the passengers and crew. The Thunder on the Mountain Chapel is considerably less well known than the Parks Department memorial a few hundred yards from the crash site, but it is, arguably at least, equally important in the cultural prod…
The sacred calling of intellectual labor in mystic and ascetic Durkheimianism
This article explores the Durkheimian engagement with the sacred as intricately enmeshed in a personal search for meaning in intellectual labor. By situating the intellectual work of Durkheim, Mauss, Hubert and Hertz in their personal quests for the sacred, we uncover two kinds of Durkheimian thought on the sacred and two 'species' of Durkheimian intellectual. Weber's categories of religious experience, the mystic and the ascetic, frame this reth…
The Theory of Play / Games and Sacrality in Popular Culture
The question of the trajectory of Durkheimian thought after the death of Durkheim in 1917 is of great interest to many scholars. Increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the place of the Collége de Sociologie in that legacy (e.g., Hollier 1979; Kurasawa 1998; Richman 2002; Marroquin 2005). The focus of much of this scholarship, however, has been on one participant in the Collége, Georges Bataille. Both those who see the Collége as a …
Crisis, habitus, and intellectual trajectory
How and how much should biographical events and details from a thinker’s life matter in understanding his/her intellectual work? This is a venerable question to which we still do not have many satisfactory answers, despite the efforts of many. Some still argue for purely internalist readings of intellectual projects, unspoiled by information about the thinker’s history and position in society, though most would now acknowledge with Karl Mannheim …
Ethnologie d'un anthropologue. À propos de la correspondance de Robert Hertz
Riley Alexander Tristan. Ethnologie d’un anthropologue. À propos de la correspondance de Robert Hertz. In: Gradhiva : revue d'histoire et d'archives de l'anthropologie, n°30-31, 2001. Dossier : Archives et anthropologie. pp. 123-134
Kobe Bryant, Memento Mori
Ethnography of the Ek-Static Experience
Much work has been done in recent decades to emphasize the need in ethnographic writing to grapple with questions of authorship, perspective, aesthetics, emotional resonance, and style. Various forms of reflexive ethnographic writing, and especially autoethnography, have opened up new expressive avenues. In this article, I argue that a figure who is at present poorly known in English-language social scientific circles, the French ethnographer, po…
So what is the normal amount of bumps allowed in a pit?’
This study of a youth subculture/scene in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania offers an empirical intervention into theoretical debates about the nature of youth subcultural identity. We focus on the different framing and discussion of a crisis event in the life of the subculture (the stabbing of two teens at a club show) in various mainstream and non-mainstream media, and suggest some ways in which different strategies for identity construction emerge in…
Whence Durkheim's Nietzschean grandchildren? A closer look at Robert Hertz's place in the Durkheimian genealogy
Recent interptetive work suggests ways of historically situating French post-structuralism as a mingling of Nietzschean philosophy with elements of Durkheimian sociology. This article aims to demonstrate the presence of Nietzschean themes in the life-work of the Durkheimian Robert Hertz and to recognize him as a key figure in the history of this intellectual confluence. An examination of published and private sources reveals Hertz as a prototype …
Elementary school-aged children's reports of their health
Ethnologie d'un anthropologue. À propos de la correspondance de Robert Hertz
Riley Alexander Tristan. Ethnologie d’un anthropologue. À propos de la correspondance de Robert Hertz. In: Gradhiva : revue d'histoire et d'archives de l'anthropologie, n°30-31, 2001. Dossier : Archives et anthropologie. pp. 123-134
The sacred calling of intellectual labor in mystic and ascetic Durkheimianism
This article explores the Durkheimian engagement with the sacred as intricately enmeshed in a personal search for meaning in intellectual labor. By situating the intellectual work of Durkheim, Mauss, Hubert and Hertz in their personal quests for the sacred, we uncover two kinds of Durkheimian thought on the sacred and two 'species' of Durkheimian intellectual. Weber's categories of religious experience, the mystic and the ascetic, frame this reth…
Durkheim Contra Bergson? The Hidden Roots of Postmodern Theory and the Postmodern 'Return' of the Sacred
Postmodern social theory is often seen as entirely distinct from and even antagonistic to modern sociological thought. This article endeavors to challenge this framing by tracing the emergence of postmodernist social thought to a historical development in Western societies intimately tied to the conditions of emergence of modern sociology, that is, to the crisis of the loss of the sacred for the modern intellectual class. Postmodern theory is lin…
Crisis, habitus, and intellectual trajectory
How and how much should biographical events and details from a thinker’s life matter in understanding his/her intellectual work? This is a venerable question to which we still do not have many satisfactory answers, despite the efforts of many. Some still argue for purely internalist readings of intellectual projects, unspoiled by information about the thinker’s history and position in society, though most would now acknowledge with Karl Mannheim …
“Renegade Durkheimianism” and the transgressive left sacred
Émile Durkheim's The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life ([1912] 1991) (hereafter Elementary Forms ) is considered by many the conclusive statement on religion of the Durkheimian school. In fact, this is rather a simplification of a more complicated intellectual history. A more careful evaluation of the examinations of religious phenomena by the members of the Durkheimian team demonstrates some intriguing theoretical distinctions that give ris…
The Cambridge Companion to Durkheim
Long recognised as a foundational figure in the development of social scientific thought, Emile Durkheim's work has been the subject of intense debate over the years. This authoritative and comprehensive collection of essays re-examines the impact of Durkheim's thought, considering the historical contexts of his work as well as evaluating his ideas in relation to current issues and controversies. Eminent authorities in the field have contributed …
The Rebirth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Hip Hop
Hip hop culture and rap music have been the object of considerable scholarly attention in recent years. Yet much of the literature on rap is either unconcerned with attempting to empirically locate the interpretive communities and reading formations of the increasingly diverse hip hop audiences. The subgenre of rap known as gangsta rap is particularly affected by this problem. This essay endeavors (1) to challenge notions in the existent literatu…
The Theory of Play / Games and Sacrality in Popular Culture
The question of the trajectory of Durkheimian thought after the death of Durkheim in 1917 is of great interest to many scholars. Increasing attention has been paid in recent years to the place of the Collége de Sociologie in that legacy (e.g., Hollier 1979; Kurasawa 1998; Richman 2002; Marroquin 2005). The focus of much of this scholarship, however, has been on one participant in the Collége, Georges Bataille. Both those who see the Collége as a …
Recent Publications
A new kind of fear
The classical Durkheimian understanding of violence has been significantly augmented in recent decades by a neo-Durkheimian analysis of the dual nature of the sacred and mass-mediated ritual. A good deal of the post-1970s thought of Jean Baudrillard, including his controversial writings on the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, was centrally concerned with the ways in which the media shape the social experience of violence. In this chapter I a…
So what is the normal amount of bumps allowed in a pit?’
This study of a youth subculture/scene in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania offers an empirical intervention into theoretical debates about the nature of youth subcultural identity. We focus on the different framing and discussion of a crisis event in the life of the subculture (the stabbing of two teens at a club show) in various mainstream and non-mainstream media, and suggest some ways in which different strategies for identity construction emerge in…
On the role of images in the construction of narratives about the crash of United Airlines Flight 93
The site of the crash of United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001 has received considerably less scholarly attention than Ground Zero in New York, but the cultural symbolism and narrative‐making being generated there is no less fascinating. In this essay, I examine some of the visual evidence of this cultural work and suggest ways to understand how those images are mobilized culturally and incorporated into narratives about the meaning of the crash…
Towards a New Cultural Sociology
Jeffrey Alexander, Bernhard Giesen and Jason Mast (eds.), Social Performance: Symbolic Action, Cultural Pragmatics and Ritual, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 374 pp. Ron Eyerman and Lisa McCormick (eds.), Myth, Meaning, and Performance: Toward a New Cultural Sociology of the Arts, Boulder: Paradigm Publishers, 2006, 166 pp
Psychology of terrorism
Tiryakian
Edward Tiryakian, For Durkheim: Essays in Historical and Cultural Sociology, Ashgate, 2009, 360 pp
Desire for Race
The Causal Power of Social Structures
A Durkheimian Quest
William Watts Miller. A Durkheimian Quest: Solidarity and the Sacred. New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2012, 275 pp
The Social Thought of Émile Durkheim
This new volume of the SAGE Social Thinkers series provides a concise introduction to the work, life, and influences of Emile Durkheim, one of the informal "holy trinity" of sociology's founding thinkers, along with Weber and Marx. The author shows that Durkheim's perspective is arguably the most properly sociological of the three. He thought through the nature of society, culture, and the complex relationship of the individual to the collective …
Flags, Totem Bodies, and the Meanings of 9/11
Some four miles as the crow flies from the site at which United 93, which was the fourth plane involved in the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack on the United States, struck ground, there sits a small chapel dedicated to the passengers and crew. The Thunder on the Mountain Chapel is considerably less well known than the Parks Department memorial a few hundred yards from the crash site, but it is, arguably at least, equally important in the cultural prod…
William Pawlett, Violence, Society and Radical Theory
Ethnography of the Ek-Static Experience
Much work has been done in recent decades to emphasize the need in ethnographic writing to grapple with questions of authorship, perspective, aesthetics, emotional resonance, and style. Various forms of reflexive ethnographic writing, and especially autoethnography, have opened up new expressive avenues. In this article, I argue that a figure who is at present poorly known in English-language social scientific circles, the French ethnographer, po…
On How and Why Intellectuals Deceive Themselves
Sociology (36 works) · Philosophy (23 works) · Political science (18 works) · Law (16 works) · Epistemology (14 works) · Social science (11 works) · History (10 works) · Emile Durkheim and Sociology (9 works) · Philosophy (9 works) · Aesthetics (8 works)