Qualitative Sociology Review
2008
Volume IV Issue 2


Contributors

Hans-Georg Soeffner Dr. phil., Professor emeritus of Sociology at the Department of History and Sociology, University of Konstanz. Senior Fellow at the KWI - Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Essen and President of the German Sociological Association (DGS). Visiting Professor at UCSF, UCB, Boston University and Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano Santiago de Chile. His research interests are in the sociologies of knowledge, religion, media and culture. English publications include “Germany: Once Again ‘Belated’ Nation?” Society 31 (2), 1994: 39-48, The Order of Rituals: The Interpretation of Everyday Life. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers 1997, “Cultural Globalization in Germany” (with Hansfried Kellner). Pp. 119-145 in Many Globalizations. Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World, edited by P. L. Berger and S. P. Huntington. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2002, “Verstehen.” Pp. 864-868 in Encyclopedia of Social Theory. Vol. II., edited by G. Ritzer. Thousand Oaks, London and New Delhi: Sage 2005.

Contact: hans-georg.soeffner@kwi-nrw.de

Dariuš Zifonun Dr. rer.soc., Permanent Fellow at the KWI - Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities, Essen, and Lecturer at TU Berlin. Senior Researcher at the Department of History and Sociology, University of Konstanz (2000-2005), Visiting Professor at Hitotsubashi University Tokyo (2005) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2006). His research interests include the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of migration, qualitative research methodology, politics of memory and organization theory. Recent publications include Gedenken und Identität. Der deutsche Erinnerungsdiskurs. Frankfurt a.M. and New York: Campus 2004, “How Can We Study Sport from a Sociological Perspective?” Hitotsubashi Annual of Sport Studies 25, 2006: 49-56, „Zur Kulturbedeutung von Hooligandiskurs und Alltagsrassismus im Fußballsport.“ Zeitschrift für Qualitative Forschung 8 (1), 2007: 97-117.

Contact: darius.zifonun@kwi-nrw.de

Robert Prus, a professor of sociology at the University of Waterloo, is a symbolic interactionist, pragmatist ethnographer, and social theorist. Stressing the importance of connecting social theory with the study of human action in direct, experientially-engaged terms, he has written extensively on the ways that people make sense of and deal with the life-worlds in which they find themselves. His publications include Road Hustler with C.R.D. Sharper; Hookers, Rounders, and Desk Clerks with Styllianoss Irini; Making Sales; Pursuing Customers; Symbolic Interaction and Ethnographic Research; Subcultural Mosaics and Intersubjective Realities; Beyond the Power Mystique; and The Deviant Mystique with Scott Grills. Working as an ethnohistorian and theorist, Robert Prus has been tracing the developmental flows of pragmatist thought from the classical Greek era (c700-300BCE) to the present time. This transhistorical venture has taken him into a number of areas of western social thought -- including rhetoric, poetics, religious studies, history, education, politics, and philosophy.

Contact: prus@uwaterloo.ca

Larry Strelitz is a Professor of Media Studies and Deputy-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at Rhodes University in South Africa. Prof Strelitz’s interest is in media reception and much of his recent work examines the reception of global media by South African youth audiences.  He is currently researching the rapid growth of tabloid newspapers in South Africa. His work has been published primarily in local and international Media Studies journals.

Contact: l.strelitz@ru.ac.za

Marina Grishakova is an Associate Professor in the Institute of Cultural Research and Fine Arts at the University of Tartu (Estonia). She has published widely in the areas of narratology and semiotics. Her research interests currently focus on cognitive narratology, discourse analysis and transmedial storytelling. She is the leader of the project „The Semiotics of Narrative and Interdisciplinary Analysis of Culture” (Estonian Science Foundation) and coordinator of the Nordic Network of Narrative Studies.

Contact: marina.grisakova@ut.ee

Margarita Kazjulja is a researcher at Institute for International and Social Studies, Tallinn University, Estonia. She is also a doctoral student in Tallinn University. Her areas of research are the stratification, education, labour market and social network.

Contact: kazjulja@iiss.ee

Jaroslava Gajdosova is a Sociology PhD student at the New School for Social Research. Her current research focuses on narrative, memory, and identity in German postwar literature. Its focal point is the narrative of German guilt, its limits vis-à-vis the culturally pluralistic society, and the need of its forgetting as a way toward a more integrative framework for social interaction. Her theoretical interests include the application of critical, poststructural, and phenomenological theories to qualitative research models.

Contact: jaroslava_g@hotmail.com