Lyn Spillman
Biographic Data
| ID | 225011 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lyn Spillman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lyn |
| FAMILY NAME | Spillman |
| SIGNATURE | SPILLMAN L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Notre Dame |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0725-2457 |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 27 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 144 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 27 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1994 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Tensions and insights: More on ‘Reading Jeffrey C. Alexander’
This comment on Villegas and Watt's reflective overview of Jeffrey Alexander's scholarly contributions, addresses canonization, the value of sociological tensions and neglected empirical components of his work.
Reading Between and Across the Lines: A Response to Anne Taylor’s “What Is Cultural Sociological Debate? A Review of Lyn Spillman’s What Is Cultural Sociology? (2020, Cambridge: Polity Press)”
Uncertain Futures: Imaginaries, Narratives, and Calculation in the Economy
Culture’s Coherence: How the Trees Compose the Woods
Culture
Treating culture as meaning‐making, this entry traces interdisciplinary and disciplinary influences on cultural sociology, discusses three themes in sociological research on culture – cultural production, culture in action, and formal properties of cultural objects – and summarizes core topics, current emphases, and future directions in cultural research, theory, and methods
Ghosts of straw men: A reply to Lee and Martin
Economic Culture in the Public Sphere: Introduction
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Mixed Methods and the Logic of Qualitative Inference
Symbols of Nations and Nationalism: Celebrating Nationhood
Interest-Oriented Action
Sociology frequently presumes interest-oriented action but deconstructs interests. Here, we argue for more inquiry into the social conditions under which interest-oriented action is generated. We analyze how interest-oriented action is understood in classical sociology, rational choice theory, social exchange theory, and cultural sociology. These perspectives vary in the extent to which interests are an explanatory principle, how interests are co…
Solidarity in Strategy: Making Business Meaningful in American Trade Associations
Popular conceptions hold that capitalism is driven almost entirely by the pursuit of profit and self-interest. Though this may largely be true, it conflicts with our actual experience of the realities of capitalism - and is belied by the many associations that take an interest not just in their industry but also the people who maintain it. In Solidarity in Strategy, Lyn Spillman works from extensive documentary archives and a comprehensive data s…
Political Centres, Progressive Narratives and Cultural Trauma: Coming to Terms with the Nanjing Massacre in China, 1937–1979
In December 1937, about two years before World War II broke out in Europe, the Imperial Japanese Army captured Nanjing, then capital of China. The conquering army turned the city into a hell. Over a period of six weeks, the Japanese carried out wanton killings, rapes and lootings on a large scale. Thousands of civilians and prisoners of war were killed by shooting, bayoneting, decapitating, burning, and burying alive. Thousands of women were rape…
Culture
Although the idea of culture seems commonplace and indispensable for thinking about human groups and human action, the term has resonated for more than a century with a variety of sometimes dissonant connotations (Kroeber & Kluckhohn 1963; Williams 1976; Smelser 1992). In vernacular usage, it may refer either to all the symbols, meanings, and values shared by members of a group, by contrast to other groups; or else to a specialized realm of expre…
Texts, Bodies, and the Memory of Bloody Sunday
We examine here recent arguments that embodied experience is an important site of collective memory, and related challenges to the standard emphasis on discourse and symbols in collective memory research. We argue that although theories of embodied memory offer new insights, they are limited by (1) an overdrawn distinction between embodied memory and textual memory that neglects the complex relations between the two, (2) an overemphasis on ritual…
Cultural sociology at the crossroads of the discipline
Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia
When Do Collective Memories Last? Founding Moments in the United States and Australia
Lyn Spillman, When Do Collective Memories Last? Founding Moments in the United States and Australia, Social Science History, Vol. 22, No. 4, Special Issue: Memory and the Nation (Winter, 1998), pp. 445-477
When Do Collective Memories Last: Founding Moments in the United States and Australia
In 1876, there was a huge commemoration of the centennial of American independence. The year was marked in many ways, by many groups, in many parts of the country. The central event, though, was a grand International Exhibition in Philadelphia, four years in the making. Planners first met in 1872 in Independence Hall and spoke at length about the sacredness of the venue: “It is altogether fit and wise that we should take our first step and utter …
Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia
Nationalism and Literature: The Politics of Culture in Canada and the United States
1. Introduction: cultural fields and literary use 2. Nation-building and the historical timing of a national literature in the United States 3. Nation-building and the historical timing of a national literature in Canada 4. The canonical novels: the politics of cultural nationalism 5. The literary prize-winners: revision and renewal 6. The bestsellers: the economics of publishing and the convergence of popular taste 7. Literary meaning and cultur…
Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia
Journal Article Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia. By Lyn Spillman. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. xii, 252 pp. Cloth, $59.95, ISBN 0-521-57404-8. Paper, $18.95, ISBN 0-521-57432-3) Get access April Schultz April Schultz Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volum…
Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia
What do people think when they imagine themselves as part of a nation? Nation and Commemoration answers this question in an exploration of the creation and recreation of national identities through commemorative activities. Extending recent work in cultural sociology and history, Lyn Spillman compares centennial and bicentennial celebrations in the United States and Australia to show how national identities can emerge from processes of 'cultural …
Identity Designs: The Sights and Sounds of a Nation
National symbols, modern totems with ancient roots, remain entities for which men and women continue to march, debate, fight, and die. Modern political leaders still drape their campaigns in such symbols; modern revolutionaries still defile them. Identity Designs explores the source of this long-standing power--the way national symbols are selected, the manner in which their meaning is conveyed, their potential effects, and the sustenance of thei…
The Construction of Social Reality
Neither the same Nation Nor Different Nations: Constitutional Conventions in the United States and Australia
Debates in constitutional conventions in the United States in 1787 and Australia in 1897 reveal similarities and differences that illuminate the process by which nations became increasingly meaningful forms of social organization. Although the tone of these debates tended to be technical and pragmatic, focusing on specific concerns about the machinery of 'good government,' convention delegates showed in their assumptions, their omissions, and in …
Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia
What do people think when they imagine themselves as part of a nation? Nation and Commemoration answers this question in an exploration of the creation and recreation of national identities through commemorative activities. Extending recent work in cultural sociology and history, Lyn Spillman compares centennial and bicentennial celebrations in the United States and Australia to show how national identities can emerge from processes of 'cultural …
Mixed Methods and the Logic of Qualitative Inference
Texts, Bodies, and the Memory of Bloody Sunday
We examine here recent arguments that embodied experience is an important site of collective memory, and related challenges to the standard emphasis on discourse and symbols in collective memory research. We argue that although theories of embodied memory offer new insights, they are limited by (1) an overdrawn distinction between embodied memory and textual memory that neglects the complex relations between the two, (2) an overemphasis on ritual…
Cultural sociology at the crossroads of the discipline
Interest-Oriented Action
Sociology frequently presumes interest-oriented action but deconstructs interests. Here, we argue for more inquiry into the social conditions under which interest-oriented action is generated. We analyze how interest-oriented action is understood in classical sociology, rational choice theory, social exchange theory, and cultural sociology. These perspectives vary in the extent to which interests are an explanatory principle, how interests are co…
Imagining community and hoping for recognition: Bicentennial celebrations in 1976 and 1988
When Do Collective Memories Last? Founding Moments in the United States and Australia
Lyn Spillman, When Do Collective Memories Last? Founding Moments in the United States and Australia, Social Science History, Vol. 22, No. 4, Special Issue: Memory and the Nation (Winter, 1998), pp. 445-477
Uncertain Futures: Imaginaries, Narratives, and Calculation in the Economy
Ghosts of straw men: A reply to Lee and Martin
Economic Culture in the Public Sphere: Introduction
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Culture’s Coherence: How the Trees Compose the Woods
When Do Collective Memories Last: Founding Moments in the United States and Australia
In 1876, there was a huge commemoration of the centennial of American independence. The year was marked in many ways, by many groups, in many parts of the country. The central event, though, was a grand International Exhibition in Philadelphia, four years in the making. Planners first met in 1872 in Independence Hall and spoke at length about the sacredness of the venue: “It is altogether fit and wise that we should take our first step and utter …
Neither the same Nation Nor Different Nations: Constitutional Conventions in the United States and Australia
Debates in constitutional conventions in the United States in 1787 and Australia in 1897 reveal similarities and differences that illuminate the process by which nations became increasingly meaningful forms of social organization. Although the tone of these debates tended to be technical and pragmatic, focusing on specific concerns about the machinery of 'good government,' convention delegates showed in their assumptions, their omissions, and in …
Culture
Treating culture as meaning‐making, this entry traces interdisciplinary and disciplinary influences on cultural sociology, discusses three themes in sociological research on culture – cultural production, culture in action, and formal properties of cultural objects – and summarizes core topics, current emphases, and future directions in cultural research, theory, and methods
Symbols of Nations and Nationalism: Celebrating Nationhood
The Construction of Social Reality
Nations of Immigrants: Australia, the United States, and International Migration
Immigration has profoundly shaped the national development of countries like the United States and Australia, who were both founded as settler societies. They have both been transformed by successive waves of immigration, first from Europe, and then from every other part of the world. The policies that these countries have enforced regarding immigration, recruitment, and settlement have had as equally far-reaching consequences for the oppressed a…
Imagining community and hoping for recognition: Bicentennial celebrations in 1976 and 1988
The Construction of Social Reality
Neither the same Nation Nor Different Nations: Constitutional Conventions in the United States and Australia
Debates in constitutional conventions in the United States in 1787 and Australia in 1897 reveal similarities and differences that illuminate the process by which nations became increasingly meaningful forms of social organization. Although the tone of these debates tended to be technical and pragmatic, focusing on specific concerns about the machinery of 'good government,' convention delegates showed in their assumptions, their omissions, and in …
Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia
What do people think when they imagine themselves as part of a nation? Nation and Commemoration answers this question in an exploration of the creation and recreation of national identities through commemorative activities. Extending recent work in cultural sociology and history, Lyn Spillman compares centennial and bicentennial celebrations in the United States and Australia to show how national identities can emerge from processes of 'cultural …
Identity Designs: The Sights and Sounds of a Nation
National symbols, modern totems with ancient roots, remain entities for which men and women continue to march, debate, fight, and die. Modern political leaders still drape their campaigns in such symbols; modern revolutionaries still defile them. Identity Designs explores the source of this long-standing power--the way national symbols are selected, the manner in which their meaning is conveyed, their potential effects, and the sustenance of thei…
When Do Collective Memories Last? Founding Moments in the United States and Australia
Lyn Spillman, When Do Collective Memories Last? Founding Moments in the United States and Australia, Social Science History, Vol. 22, No. 4, Special Issue: Memory and the Nation (Winter, 1998), pp. 445-477
When Do Collective Memories Last: Founding Moments in the United States and Australia
In 1876, there was a huge commemoration of the centennial of American independence. The year was marked in many ways, by many groups, in many parts of the country. The central event, though, was a grand International Exhibition in Philadelphia, four years in the making. Planners first met in 1872 in Independence Hall and spoke at length about the sacredness of the venue: “It is altogether fit and wise that we should take our first step and utter …
Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia
Nationalism and Literature: The Politics of Culture in Canada and the United States
1. Introduction: cultural fields and literary use 2. Nation-building and the historical timing of a national literature in the United States 3. Nation-building and the historical timing of a national literature in Canada 4. The canonical novels: the politics of cultural nationalism 5. The literary prize-winners: revision and renewal 6. The bestsellers: the economics of publishing and the convergence of popular taste 7. Literary meaning and cultur…
Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia
Journal Article Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia. By Lyn Spillman. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. xii, 252 pp. Cloth, $59.95, ISBN 0-521-57404-8. Paper, $18.95, ISBN 0-521-57432-3) Get access April Schultz April Schultz Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volum…
Nation and Commemoration: Creating National Identities in the United States and Australia
Cultural sociology at the crossroads of the discipline
Culture
Although the idea of culture seems commonplace and indispensable for thinking about human groups and human action, the term has resonated for more than a century with a variety of sometimes dissonant connotations (Kroeber & Kluckhohn 1963; Williams 1976; Smelser 1992). In vernacular usage, it may refer either to all the symbols, meanings, and values shared by members of a group, by contrast to other groups; or else to a specialized realm of expre…
Texts, Bodies, and the Memory of Bloody Sunday
We examine here recent arguments that embodied experience is an important site of collective memory, and related challenges to the standard emphasis on discourse and symbols in collective memory research. We argue that although theories of embodied memory offer new insights, they are limited by (1) an overdrawn distinction between embodied memory and textual memory that neglects the complex relations between the two, (2) an overemphasis on ritual…
Political Centres, Progressive Narratives and Cultural Trauma: Coming to Terms with the Nanjing Massacre in China, 1937–1979
In December 1937, about two years before World War II broke out in Europe, the Imperial Japanese Army captured Nanjing, then capital of China. The conquering army turned the city into a hell. Over a period of six weeks, the Japanese carried out wanton killings, rapes and lootings on a large scale. Thousands of civilians and prisoners of war were killed by shooting, bayoneting, decapitating, burning, and burying alive. Thousands of women were rape…
Solidarity in Strategy: Making Business Meaningful in American Trade Associations
Popular conceptions hold that capitalism is driven almost entirely by the pursuit of profit and self-interest. Though this may largely be true, it conflicts with our actual experience of the realities of capitalism - and is belied by the many associations that take an interest not just in their industry but also the people who maintain it. In Solidarity in Strategy, Lyn Spillman works from extensive documentary archives and a comprehensive data s…
Interest-Oriented Action
Sociology frequently presumes interest-oriented action but deconstructs interests. Here, we argue for more inquiry into the social conditions under which interest-oriented action is generated. We analyze how interest-oriented action is understood in classical sociology, rational choice theory, social exchange theory, and cultural sociology. These perspectives vary in the extent to which interests are an explanatory principle, how interests are co…
Mixed Methods and the Logic of Qualitative Inference
Symbols of Nations and Nationalism: Celebrating Nationhood
Ghosts of straw men: A reply to Lee and Martin
Economic Culture in the Public Sphere: Introduction
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Culture’s Coherence: How the Trees Compose the Woods
Culture
Treating culture as meaning‐making, this entry traces interdisciplinary and disciplinary influences on cultural sociology, discusses three themes in sociological research on culture – cultural production, culture in action, and formal properties of cultural objects – and summarizes core topics, current emphases, and future directions in cultural research, theory, and methods
Uncertain Futures: Imaginaries, Narratives, and Calculation in the Economy
Political science (19 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Law (15 works) · Politics (15 works) · Social and Cultural Dynamics (10 works) · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice (8 works) · History (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Anthropology (6 works)