Daniel Winchester

  • bio

    Graduate Student
    1074 Social Sciences
    winch023@umn.edu

    Education
    M.A. Sociology - University of Missouri
    B.A. Sociology - University of Missouri
    Currently pursuing a PhD in sociology at the University of Minnesota

    Interest Areas
    Sociology of Culture/Cultural Sociology, Religion, Morality, Subjectivity and the Self, Embodiment, Social Theory, and Qualitative Methods

    Publications
    2008. "Embodying the Faith: Religious Practice and the Making of a Muslim Moral Habitus" Social Forces 86(4): 1753-80.
    Building off ethnographic research conducted for my M.A. thesis, this article examines how a group of Muslim converts in mid-Missouri developed new moral subjectivities through the utilization of embodied religious practices such as ritual prayer (salat), fasting (sawm), and covering (hijab). .

    Current Research
    I am currently beginning my preliminary exams in the areas of cultural sociology, subjectivity and the self, religion, and morality/ethics. My theoretical project is to develop a truly "thick description" of cultural life, arguing that cultural sociologists need to take better account of issues of subjectivity, affect and the complex interconnections between culture, sociality, and human physiology and embodiment. In my future dissertation work, I plan to put this theoretical project into conversation with an empirical inquiry in the substantive areas of religion and/or morality.

    Working Papers
    "Morality, Ethics, and Religiosity" w/ Mary Jo Neitz and Kevin McElmurry. For Publication in Routledge's Sociology of Culture: A Handbook, eds. John Hall, Laura Grindstaff, & Ming-cheng Lo.
    We argue that while prominent classical and contemporary works on morality, ethics, and religion comprise a "subtraction story" of modern moral decline, a good deal of contemporary scholarship in cultural sociology and elsewhere is developing a new theoretical narrative - one not of subtraction but, rather, of multiplicity. We draw on this research to explore issues of moral 1) boundaries, 2) conflict, 3) hybridity, and 4) negotiating across difference. .

    "Diversity in Two Dimensions: A Comparison of Attitudes About Race and Religion from a New National Survey" w/ Douglas Hartmann, Joseph Gerteis, and Penny Edgell.
    This paper uses nationally-representative survey data from the American Mosaic Project (AMP webpage) to analyze contemporary attitudes about race and religion in the United States. Our findings indicate that while race and religion are generally understood and experienced according to conventional cultural and scholarly assumptions, the differences are not as great as is often assumed or implied, and there are revealing deviations from this general pattern for specific racial and religious minority communities.
    Get the full abstract here: AMP Publications and Working Papers.

    Teaching Experience
    I have taught Introduction to Sociology and Culture and Mass Media. I am currently assisting for Sociology 3701 - Sociological Theory.

     January 16th, 2007

Department of Sociology - University of Minnesota
909 Social Sciences Building, 267 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Phone: 612-624-4300 Fax: 612-624-7020 E-mail: socdept@soc.umn.edu