Our PhD students receive an excellent training in research and pedagogy, preparing them for careers in top research and teaching universities. While many also choose to pursue careers outside of the academy, on this page, we feature those students currently seeking positions in universities or colleges.
Cinthya Guzman
c.guzman@mail.utoronto.ca
Website
Dissertation Title: Situated Agency and the Unfolding of Emotional Experiences
Dissertation Committee: Dan Silver, Melissa Milkie, and Ethan Fosse
Research and Teaching Areas: Theory, Emotions, Gender, Qualitative Methods, Introduction to Sociology
Statement on Teaching and Research Interests: Cinthya Guzman’s research primarily focuses on the theoretical canonization processes in sociology across English, German, and French contexts, revealing the institutional and cultural influences that shape the discipline. A secondary exploration examines the interplay between emotions and agency, especially the societal implications of boredom, utilizing innovative methodologies to combine real-time observations with qualitative insights. In the classroom, Cinthya teaches various core and substantial areas, including introduction to sociological perspectives, theory, and qualitative methods, as well as courses in gender inequality and special topics in culture and theory. Her emphasis on interactive exercises and experiential learning ensures students actively grasp and apply theoretical concepts. She is the recipient of the University of Toronto’s TA Teaching Excellence Award 2022.
Publications:
- Guzman, Cinthya, Dan Silver, Lars Döpking, Lukas Underwood, and Sébastien Parker. 2023. “Towards a Historical Sociology of Canonization: Comparing the development of Sociological Theory in the English, German and French language contexts since the 1950s.” European Journal of Sociology. 1-44.
- Silver, Dan*, Cinthya Guzman*, Sébastien Parker and Lars Döpking. 2022. “The Rhetoric of the Canon: Functional, Historicist, and Humanist Justifications.” The American Sociologist: 1-27.
- Guzman, Cinthya. 2020. “Routine Disruption during COVID-19.” Contexts Magazine.
- Guzman, Cinthya and Daniel Silver. 2018. "The Institutionalization of Sociological Theory in Canada." Canadian Review of Sociology, 55(1): 9-39.
- Tepperman, Lorne*, Cinthya Guzman*, and Ioana Sendriou*. 2017. Picturing Social Problems. Oxford University Press.
Jordan Foster
jordann.foster@mail.utoronto.ca
Website
Dissertation Title: The Rich Kids of Instagram: Tracing Symbolic Wealth and Social Visibility in The Digital Era
Dissertation Committee: Josée Johnston, Shyon Baumann, and David Pettinicchio
Research and Teaching Areas: Cultural sociology, media studies, inequality
Statement on Teaching and Research Interests: Jordan Foster is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. His research lies at the intersection of culture, new media, and inequality with a critical focus on how everyday and taken-for-granted trends reinforce and reproduce inequality. His dissertation project, “The Rich Kids of Instagram,” follows the rise of social media influencers and the industry personnel who surround them to show what forms of content influencers traffic in, the status characteristics that shape their visibility online, and the rewards that follow. Outside of this work, Jordan engages with critical questions related to social media platforms and their democratic and inclusive potentials. Specifically, he investigates what opportunities and challenges these platforms provide to historically marginalized communities and those who embody markers of difference.
Publications:
- Jordan Foster. 2023. “Platformed Cultural Production and Calibration in the Covid-19 Pandemic.” New Media & Society.
- Jordan Foster, David Pettinicchio, Michelle Morato, Andy Holmes, and Martin Lukk. 2023. “Trading Blame: Drawing Boundaries around the Righteous, Deserving, and Vulnerable in Times of Crisis.” Sociology.
- Jordan Foster. 2022. “It’s All About the Look: Appearance, Attractiveness and Authenticity Online.” Social Media + Society.
- Jordan Foster. 2022. “‘Scatter My Ashes at Saks Fifth Avenue: Boundary Work and the Role of Intermediaries in Fashion.” European Journal of Cultural Studies, 25(5): 1485-1503.
- Jordan Foster and Jayne Baker. 2022. “Muscles, Makeup and Femboys: Analyzing TikTok’s “Radical” Masculinities.” Social Media + Society.
- Jordan Foster and David Pettinicchio. 2021. “A Model Who Looks Like Me: Communicating and Consuming Representations of Disability.” Journal of Consumer Culture, 22(3): 579-597.
Marie-Lise Drapeau-Bisson
ml.drapeau.bisson@mail.utoronto.ca
Website
Academia.edu
Dissertation Title: Reading, Evaluating and Commemorating Feminism : Excluding and reviving dynamics in the reception of L'Euguélionne in Québec
Dissertation Committee: Judith Taylor (Chair), Shyon Baumann, Josée Johnston
Research and Teaching Areas: Cultural Sociology, Sociology of Arts, Qualitative Methods, Social Movements Studies, Commemoration Studies, Feminist Studies, Québec Studies.
Statement on Teaching and Research Interests: My work is motivated by a desire to understand how activists innovate to escape erasure. While activists often rely on a well-worn repertoire of tactics for continuity, they need to transform their repertoires to address new issues and renew mobilization. This tension is at the heart of research projects I have undertaken over the past 10 years: from the pots and pans protests in Montreal, to reproductive justice activists in Northern Ireland, to Québec feminists practicing commemorative work to defy the invisibilisation of the movement’s cultural production.
My work puts in conversation literatures that, despite important consonances, are not in dialogue due to disciplinary or linguistic boundaries. In my teaching, this bridging work broadens students' horizons and helps them develop critical thinking skills. I also help students to develop concrete job market skills through assignments that borrow from various genres, from peer feedback, to letter writing, to project proposals. You can learn more about my current research and teaching interests by visiting my website.
Publications:
- Drapeau-Bisson, Marie-Lise (Forthcoming) “Critical Appraisal and Masculine Authority: The Boys' Club’s Derogatory Method of Reading Canadian Feminist Speculative Fiction” in Cultural Sociology.
- Drapeau-Bisson, Marie-Lise (2019) “Beyond Green and Orange: Alliance for Choice – Derry’s mobilisation for the Decriminalisation of Abortion” in Irish Political Studies, 35(1): 25.
- Drapeau-Bisson, Marie-Lise, Francis Dupuis-Déri and Marcos Ancelovici (2014) “‘La grève est étudiante, la lutte est populaire!’ Manifestations de casseroles et assembles de quartier” in Un Printemps rouge et noir, regards croisés sur le grève étudiante de 2012, edited by Marcos Ancelovici and Francis Duipuis-Déri, Montréal: Écosociété.
Noga Keidar
Dissertation title: The Making of Urban Knowledge: Ideas, Cities, Gurus
Dissertation committee: Dan Silver (Chair), Mark Fox, John Hannigan
Research and teaching areas: Urban Sociology, Political Socioloy, Sociology of Ideas, Immigration, Race and Ethnicity
In her research, Noga examines what it means for a messy and complex entity like a city to adopt a new idea, and how particular ideas have become ‘must-haves’ for cities. Her different research projects touch upon these issues from different angles, asking, for instance: How do urban models become relevant when placed in a context extremely different from the one in which they were formulated? How does the ‘same’ idea vary over time and across geographical scales? How have a small group of charismatic urban thinkers established their position as urban ‘gurus’? And how in practice do they connect cities with ideas? Noga examines these questions using multiple qualitative and quantitative methods. Noga is currently an Azrieli postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she also teaches Urban Sociology and works as the Deputy Director and Head of Research of the "Urban Clinic".
Publications:
- Making Jerusalem “Cooler”: Creative Script, Youth Flight, and Diversity
- Residential Segregation in Israel, 1961-2008: The Spatial Assimilation of Immigrants
James Lannigan
james.lannigan@mail.utoronto.ca
News
Dissertation title: “Discourse and structure: An examination of the organizational identities and networks of contemporary specialty coffee retailers”
Dissertation committee: Bonnie Erickson (supervisor), Clayton Childress, Josée Johnston
Research and teaching areas: Social Research Methods, Sociology of Culture, Social Networks, Urban Sociology
James Lannigan is a PhD candidate enrolled in the Sociology department at the University of Toronto. His current research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of the Sociology of Culture, Social Networks, and Urban Sociology. His dissertation work focuses on the networks of specialty coffee retailers paying close attention to the development of distinct identity-making practices and their contemporary adaptation to challenges in the marketplace from chain competition. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, James has been recently focusing on how this population has adapted their organizational practices to deal with uncertainties facing the niche as a whole.
Publications:
- Lannigan, J. (2020). Making a space for taste: Context and discourse in the specialty coffee scene. International Journal of Information Management, 51, 101987.
- Gruzd, A., Lannigan, J., & Quigley, K. (2018). Examining government cross-platform engagement in social media: Instagram vs Twitter and the big lift project. Government Information Quarterly, 35(4), 579-587.
- Lannigan, J. (2017, July). Branding practices in the new (Er) media: a comparison of retailer twitter and web-based images. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Social Media & Society (pp. 1-5).
- Klein, M., Gruzd, A., & Lannigan, J. (2017). Using Deliberation-Centric Social Network Analysis to Measure Balkanization. Available at SSRN 2914554.
- Lannigan, J., & McLaughlin, N. (2017). Professors and politics: Noam Chomsky’s contested reputation in the United States and Canada. Theory and Society, 46(3), 177-199.
Martin Lukk
martin.lukk@mail.utoronto.ca
Website
Dissertation title: The Distributional Question in Contemporary Nationalism
Dissertation committee: Erik Schneiderhan, Geoffrey Wodtke (co-chair, U. Chicago), David Pettinicchio, Vanina Leschziner
Research and teaching areas: Political Sociology, Inequality and Stratification, Social Policy, Health and Illness, Race and Ethnicity
Statement on teaching and research interests: I study the political consequences of economic inequality. The dramatic growth in income and wealth inequality in industrialized countries is among the major social and economic developments of the postwar era. My research examines the individual consequences of this and related transformations in three areas: political identity, voting behavior, and social welfare. I am particularly interested in how income inequality shapes conceptions about legitimate membership in the nation; how attitudes about the nation affect support for radical-right parties; and how novel digital solutions to financing individual health care needs reproduce economic inequality. I study these issues primarily using quantitative analyses of survey data and computational approaches to data collection and analysis. My scholarship contributes to research in multiple areas, including political sociology, inequality and stratification, social policy, health and illness, and race and ethnicity. At the core of my work is an effort to understand how long-term structural changes shape individuals’ political lives in today’s democratic societies, including decisions about how to identify, vote, and get help in times of need. I am author of the forthcoming book GoFailMe: Digital Philanthropy and the Politics of Social Welfare (Stanford University Press, 2023), written with Erik Schneiderhan.
Man Xu (Angela)
Dissertation Title: : Brokering transnational exchange: examining Chinese Muslim’s identity formation and relational labor in the global trade economy
Dissertation Committee: : Patricia Landolt (co-chair), Ping-Chun Hsiung (co-chair), Laura Doering
Research and Teaching Areas: Globalization, Migration, Race and Ethnicity, Economic Sociology, Qualitative Methodology, China Studies
Statement on Teaching and Research Interests: I study globalization and migration as forces of change that shape social identity, ethnic relations, economic processes, and state governance. My research interprets recent shifts in the global political economy, such as the rise of Global China and the expanding ties within the Global South. My dissertation delves into the experiences of Hui Muslims who work as brokers facilitating trade between China and the Middle East. This project theorizes how the growing trade economy within Asia produces new segment of relational labor, and how ethnic minority people’s brokerage work contributes to shifts in the structure of the global economy. The dissertation brings into dialogue economic sociology, race, ethnicity, and migration studies, to advance the sociology of brokerage.