The Theory Section’s Edward Shils- James Coleman Prize for Best Graduate Student Paper
Award established in 1996.
2023: Krystal Laryea, Stanford University, “Playing up Difference: How Identities are Interactionally Navigated in Groups.”
2023 Honorable Mention: Ankit Bhardwaj, New York University, “The Soils of Black Folk: W.E.B. Du Bois’s Theories of Environmental Racialization.”
2022: Gordon Brett, University of Toronto, “Dueling with Dual Process Models. Cognition, Creativity and Context.”
2022 Honorable Mention: Mary Shi, University of California, Berkeley, “’Until Indian title shall be… fairly extinguished:’ The Public Lands, Settler Colonialism, and Early Government Promotion of Infrastructure in the United States.”
2021: Andrew Le. “The Third Element of Migration.”
2021: Yuchen Yang. “What’s Hegemonic about Hegemonic Masculinity?”
2021 Honorable Mention: Laura Acosta Gonzales. “Victimhood Dissociation and Conflict Resolution”
2021 Honorable Mention: Demar Lewis. “Troubling America’s Historical Waters.”
2020: Aaron Horvath, “From Accounting to Accountability: Organizational Supererogation and the Transformation of Nonprofit Disclosure.”
2019: Amanda Cheong, Princeton University, “Legal Omission as Political Strategy: Motivations for and Consequences of Deliberate Contractions of the State’s Administrative Power”
2019: Neil Gong, University of California, Los Angeles, “That Proves You Mad, Because You Know it Not: Impaired Insight and the Dilemma of Governing Psychiatry Patients as Legal Subjects,” Theory and Society 46(3):201-228. 2017.
2019 Honorable Mention: Fauzia Husain, University of Virginia, “Hobbled Leadership. Gender And The Engines Of Authority In The Pakistani Police”
2018: Talia Shiff, Northwestern University, “Evaluating the Case: Encounters of Schematic Accordance and Schematic Discordance in Asylum Adjudications”
2018 Honorable Mention: Arvind Karunakaran, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “Reconfiguring Accountability: Organizational Accountability in the Age of Smartphones and Social Media”
2018 Honorable Mention: Mikell Hyman, University of Michigan, “When Policy Feedbacks Fail: ‘Collective Cooling’ in Detroit’s Municipal Bankruptcy”
2017: Paige Sweet, “The Feminist Question in Realism.” Sociological Theory 36(3): 221-243. 2018.
2017 Honorable Mention: Christopher M. Rea, “Theorizing command-and-commodify regulation: the case of species conservation banking in the United States.” Theory & Society 46(1), 21-56.
2016: Hannah Wohl, “Community Sense: The Cohesive Power of Aesthetic Judgement,” Sociological Theory 33(4):299-326. 2015.
2015: Jonah Stuart Brundage, “The Pacification of Hunting: Elite Conflict, State Formation, and Violence in Early Modern England,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 59(4):786-817. 2017.
2013: Marco Garrido, University of Michigan, “The Sense of Place behind Segregating Practices: An Ethnographic Approach to the Symbolic Partitioning of Metro Manila,” Social Forces 91(4):1343-1362. 2013.
2012: Margaret Frye, University of California, Berkeley, “Bright Futures in Malawi’s New Dawn: Educational Aspirations as Assertions of Identity,” American Journal of Sociology 117(6):1565-1624. 2012.
2011: Álvaro Santana Acuña, Harvard University, “How a Literature Book Becomes a Classic: The Case of García Márquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude”
2010: Jeremy Schulz, University of California, Berkeley, “The Social and Cultural Construction of the Work-Private Life Boundary in Three Countries: A Comparative Study of the Evening Hours in the Lives of French, Norwegian and American Business Professionals”
2009: Michael Strand, Notre Dame, “Institutional Change as a Field Process: The Transformation of American Psychiatry, 1945-1980”
2008: Erin Metz McDonnell, Northwestern University, “Budgetary Units: A Weberian Approach to Consumption,” American Journal of Sociology 119(2):307-350. 2013.
2007: William Wood, Boston College, “(Virtual) Myths,” Pp. 441-478 in Culture, Power, and History: Studies in Critical Sociology. Brill Publishers. 2006.
2005: Daniel E. Adkins, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
2004: Scott Washington, Princeton University, “Principles of Racial Taxonomy”
2003: Erika Summers-Effler, University of Pennsylvania, “The Micro Potential for Social Change: Emotion, Consciousness, and Social Movement Formation,” Sociological Theory 20(1):41-60. 2002.
2002: Adam Isiah Green, New York University, “Gay But Not Queer: Toward a Post-Queer Study of Sexuality,” Theory and Society 31(4):521-545. 2002.
2001: Christopher D. Porto, University of Virginia, “The Predictable Nature of the Balinese Cockfight”
2000: Alison Bianchi, Stanford University, “Sentiment and Status Process: A Test Between the Constitutive and Mediator Models”
1999: Eric M. Klinenberg, University of California, Berkeley, “Denaturalizing Disaster: A Social Autopsy of the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave,” Theory and Society 28(2):239-295. 1999.
1998: Wayne Brekhus, Rutgers University, “A Sociology of the Unmarked: Redirecting our Focus,” Sociological Theory 16(1):34-51. 1998.
1997: Ivan Ermakoff, University of Chicago, “Prelates and Princes: Aristocratic Marriages, Canon Law Prohibitions, and Shifts in Norms and Patterns of Domination in the Central Middle Ages,” American Sociological Review 62(3):405-422. 1997.
1996: Timothy James Berard, Boston University, “Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality, and the Reformulation of Social Theory,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 29(3):203-227. 1999.
The Theory Section’s Junior Theorist Award
2023: Mathieu Hikaru Desan, University of Colorado Boulder, “Realist and Historicist Modes of Critique in Critical Sociology.” Critical Sociology, 49(4-5): 589-612. 2023.
2023 Honorable Mention: Jason L. Ferguson, University of California, Los Angeles, and Harvard University, “‘There Is an Eye on Us’: International Imitation, Popular Representation, and the Regulation of Homosexuality in Senegal.” American Sociological Review, 86(4):700–727. 2021.
2023 Honorable Mention: Ioana Sendroiu, University of Hong Kong, “‘All the Old Illusions’: On Guessing at Being in Crisis.” Sociological Theory, 40(4):297–321. 2022.
2021: Paul Joosse and Robin Willey.“Gender and Charismatic Power,” Theory and Society, 49(4):533-561. 2020.
2021 Honorable Mention: Christina Simko. “Marking Time in Memorials and Museums of Terror: Temporality and Cultural Trauma,” Sociological Theory 38(1):51-77. 2020.
2020: Neil Gong, “Between Tolerant Containment and Concerted Constraint: Managing Madness for the City and the Privileged Family,” American Sociological Review 84 (2019): 664-689.
2019: Daniel Winchester and Kyle D. Green. “Talking your self into it: How and when accounts shape motivation for action.” Sociological Theory 37(3): 257-281.
2018: Erin Metz McDonnell, University of Notre Dame, “Patchwork Leviathan: How Pockets of Bureaucratic Governance Flourish within Institutionally Diverse Developing States,” American Sociological Review 82(3):476-510. 2017.
2017: Larissa Buchholz, Northwestern University
2016: Chris Bail, “The Public Life of Secrets: Deception, Disclosure, and Discursive Framing in the Policy Process,” Sociological Theory 33(2):97-124. 2015.
2015: Claudio Benzecry, “An Opera House for the Paris of South America: Pathways to the Institutionalization of High Culture,” Theory and Society 43(2):169-196. 2014.
2014: Clair Laurier Decoteau, University of Illinois, Chicago, “Hybrid Habitus: Toward a Post-Colonial Theory of Practice,” Political Power and Social Theory 24:263-293. 2013.
2014: Isaac Reed, University of Colorado, Boulder, “Power: Relational, Discursive, and Performative Dimensions,” Sociological Theory 31(3):193-218. 2013.
The Theory Section’s Lewis A Coser Award for Theoretical Agenda-Setting
Award established in 2006.
2023: Claudio Ezequiel Benzecry, Northwestern University
2022: Claire Decoteau, University of Illinois Chicago
2021: Greta Krippner, University of Michigan
2020: Kimberly Kay Hoang, University of Chicago
2019: Monika Krause, London School of Economics
2018: Julian Go, Boston University
2017: Gabriel Abend, New York University
2016: Iddo Tavory
2015: Isaac Ariail Reed, University of Colorado
2014: Marion Fourcade, University of California, Berkeley
2013: Omar Lizardo, University of Notre Dame
2012: Ivan Ermakoff, University of Wisconsin, Madison
2011: Philip Gorski, Yale University
2010: Mustafa Emirbayer, University of Wisconsin
2009: Loic Wacquant, University of California, Berekely
2008: Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
2007: George Steinmetz, University of Michigan
2006: Margaret R. Somers, University of Michigan
The Theory Section’s Theory Prize
The Theory Prize was first awarded in 1980.
2023: Ellis Monk, Harvard University, “Inequality without Groups: Contemporary Theories of Categories, Intersectional Typicality, and the Disaggregation of Difference.” Sociological Theory, 40(1): 3-27. 2022.
2022: Charles Camic, Northwestern University, Veblen: The Making of an Economist Who Unmade Economics. Harvard University Press. 2020.
2022: Paige L. Sweet, University of Michigan, The Politics of Surviving: How Women Navigate Domestic Violence and Its Aftermath. University of California Press. 2021.
2022 Honorable Mention: Monika Krause, London School of Economics, Model Cases: On Canonical Research Objects and Sites. Chicago University Press. 2021.
2021: Victor Ray. “A Theory of Racialized Organizations,” American Sociological Review 84(1): 26-53. 2019.
2021: Michael Sauder. “A Sociology of Luck,” Sociological Theory 38(3): 193-216. 2020.
2020: Ari Adut, Reign of Appearances: The Misery and Splendor of the Public Sphere, Cambridge University Press, 2018.
2020 Honorable Mention: Michal Pagis, Inward: Vipassana Meditation and the Embodiment of the Self, University of Chicago Press, 2019.
2020 Honorable Mention: Sarah Quinn, American Bonds: How Credit Markets Shaped a Nation, Princeton University Press, 2019.
2019: Jaeeun Kim, University of Michigan, “Migration-facilitating Capital: A Bourdieusian Theory of International Migration,” Sociological Theory 36(3):262-288. 2018.
2018: Gabriel Abend, The Moral Background: An Inquiry into the History of Business Ethics. Princeton University Press. 2014.
2018: Josh Pacewicz, Partisans and Partners: The Politics of the Post-Keynesian Society. University of Chicago Press. 2016.
2017: Gabriel Abend, New York University
2016: Mustafa Emirbayer and Matthew Desmond, The Racial Order. University of Chicago Press. 2015.
2015: Erin Metz McDonnell, “Budgetary Units: A Weberian Approach to Consumption,” American Journal of Sociology 119(2):307-350. 2013.
2014: Christian Borch, Copenhagen Business School, The Politics of Crowds: An Alternative History of Sociology. Cambridge University Press. 2012.
2013: Dan Silver, University of Toronto, “The Moodiness of Action,” Sociological Theory 29(3):199-222. 2011.
2012: John Levi Martin, University of Chicago, The Explanation of Social Action. Oxford University Press. 2011.
2011: Stephen Vaisey, “Motivation and Justification: A Dual-Process Model of Culture in Action,” American Journal of Sociology 114(6):1675-1715. 2009.
2010: John Levi Martin, University of Chicago, Social Structures. Princeton University Press. 2009.
2009: Andreas Wimmer, University of California, Los Angeles
2008: James M. Jasper, Getting Your Way: Strategic Dilemmas in the Real World. University of Chicago Press. 2006.
2008: William H. Sewell, Jr., Logics of History: Social Theory and Social Transformation. University of Chicago Press. 2005.
2007: Jeffrey Alexander, “Cultural Pragmatics: Social Performance between Ritual and Strategy,” Sociological Theory 22(4):527-573. 2004.
2006: Karin Knorr Cetina and Urs Bruegger, “Global Microstructures: The Virtual Societies of Financial Markets,” American Journal of Sociology 107(4):905-950. 2002.
2005: Noah Mark, Stanford University, “Culture and Competition: Homophily and Distancing Explanations for Cultural Niches,” American Sociological Review 68(3):319-345. 2003.
2004: Andrew Abbott, University of Chicago, Chaos of the Disciplines. University of Chicago Press. 2001.
2003: Edward J. Lawler, Cornell University, “An Affect Theory of Social Exchange,” American Journal of Sociology 107(2):321-352. 2001.
2002: R.S. Perinbanayagam, Hunter College of the City University of New York, The Presence of Self. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2000.
2001: Paul DiMaggio, Princeton University, “Culture and Cognition,” Annual Review of Sociology 23:263-287. 1997.
2000: Carol A. Heimer and Lisa R. Staffen, Northwestern University, For the Sake of the Children: The Social Organization and Responsibility in the Hospital and the Home. University of Chicago Press. 1998.
1999: Noah Mark, Stanford University, “Beyond Individual Differences: Social Differentiation from First Principles,” American Sociological Review 63(3):309-330. 1998.
1998: Linda D. Molm, University of Arizona, Coercive Power in Social Exchange. Cambridge University Press. 1997.
1997: William H. Sewell, Jr., University of Chicago, “Historical Events as Transformations of Structures: Inventing Revolution at the Bastille,” Theory and Society 25(6):841-881. 1996.
1996: Moishe Postone, University of Chicago, Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory. Cambridge University Press. 1993.
1995: Carol A. Heimer, Northwestern University, “Doing Your Job and Helping Your Friends: Universalistic Norms about Obligations to Particular Others in Networks,” Pp. 143-164 in Networks and Organization: Structure, Form and Action. Harvard Business School Press. 1995.
1994: Donald Black, University of Virginia, The Social Structure of Right and Wrong. Academic Press. 1993.
1993: Michael W. Macy, Brandeis University, “Social Learning and the Structure of Collective Action.” Pp. 1-36 in Advances in Group Processes, Vol 10. JAI Press. 1993.
1991: Alan Wolfe, “Mind, Self, Society, and Computer: Artificial Intelligence and the Sociology of Mind,” American Journal of Sociology 96(5):1073-1096. 1991.
1990: Stephen Kalberg, “Rationalization of Action in Max Weber’s Sociology of Religion,” Sociological Theory 8(1):58-84. 1990.
1989: Daniel Chambliss, Hamilton College, “The Mundanity of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers,” Sociological Theory 7(1):70-86. 1989.
1987: Norbert Wiley, University of Illinois, “Early American Sociology and the Polish Peasant,” Sociological Theory 4(1):21-40. 1986.
1986: Ann Shola Orloff Theda Skocpol, “Why Not Equal Protection? Explaining the Politics of Public School Spending in Britain, 1900-1911, and the United States, 1880s-1920,” American Sociological Review 49(6):726-50. 1986.
1985: Mark Granovetter, “Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness,” American Journal of Sociology 91(3):418-510. 1985.
1984: Donald Carveth, “Psychoanalysis and Social Theory: The Hobbesian Problem Revisited,” Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Thought 7(1):43-98. 1984.
1982: Randall Collins, “On the Microfoundations of Macrosociology,” American Journal of Sociology 86(5):984-1014. 1981.
1980: David Rubinstein, “The Concepts of Action in the Social Sciences,” Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 7(2):209-236. 1977.
