Randall Collins
[1941-]
Dr. Randall Collins is an American sociologist who has been influential in both his teaching and writing. His academic writings have been translated into many different languages, and he has taught in numerous renowned universities throughout the world.
As a sociologist, how has his career improved ? Learn more about Randall Collins and his life in the below article.
I. Introduction about Randall Collins biography
Collins is currently Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. His areas of expertise include the macro-historical sociology of political and economic change, micro-sociology, which includes face-to-face interaction, and the sociology of intellectuals and social conflict. He is a leading contemporary social theorist.
1. Who is Randall Collins?
Collins was born on July 29, 1941, in Knoxville, Tennessee, the United States. Since his father worked for the US State Department as a diplomat during the Cold War, Dr. Collins was raised in a variety of cities and nations. After the war, they resided in Germany for a while, then moved on to Moscow and other locations like Uruguay. Despite coming from a Southern family and being Tennessee-born, he does not consider any of these places to be his "home."
Collins attended a school in New England that was preparatory. From 1959 to 1963, Collins attended the prestigious Harvard University. He then completed a Master of Arts degree and a Ph.D. in sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. He had previously received a Master of Arts degree in the subject from Stanford University.
2. Randall Collins early career
Collins' first position in academia was at the University of California Berkeley, his alma mater. He then held positions at numerous other colleges and universities, such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of California-San Diego, the University of Virginia, the University of California-Riverside, and finally his current position at the University of Pennsylvania.
Collins is a Sociology Emeritus Professor at the University of Pennsylvania right now. His areas of expertise include the macro-historical sociology of political and economic change, micro-sociology, which includes face-to-face interaction, and the sociology of intellectuals and social conflict. He is a leading contemporary social theorist. He has devoted a large portion of his professional life to studying society, specifically how human emotional behaviors both build and destroy it.
He occasionally took time off from his academic work to write novels and work as a freelance scholar. Along with numerous universities in Europe, Japan, and China, he has also served as a visiting professor at Chicago, Harvard, and Cambridge. Since completing his undergraduate studies, Collins has almost one hundred articles published. In addition, he has written or contributed to a number of books on a variety of subjects, from the study of society to the sociology of marriage and family life.
3. Randall Collins Contribution
According to Jerry Gaston in the American Journal of Sociology, Collins and Michael Makowsky give readers not only an overview of "general social theory" in The Discovery of Sociology, but also "present social theory of their own."
The Count de Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill, and Max Weber are among the prominent sociologists that are covered. According to Gaston, the authors "begin to develop a sociology of sociology that could lead to interesting research" in the epilogue. The critic continued, "The Discovery of Society takes the position that sociological theory must 'advance toward a comprehensive and powerful explanatory theory of social behavior and institutions'."
II. Randall Collins Major Works
1. Randall Collins on Credential Inflation
Collins has written a great deal about the inflation of credentials and has suggested a number of mechanisms through which it operates.
Collins notes that even a small number of elite positions can have an impact on how the social mobility competition is structured as a whole. Education has expanded and degree production has increased to meet demand, and the business community has responded to the oversupply of credentials by hiring candidates with the most esteemed degrees. The result has been an increase in consumer demand.
The resulting double-spiral is an ascending, ever-expanding credential spiral. Businesses are unable to take on all of the additional degrees that are produced, but demand for degrees that can open doors to salaried positions remains high. Credential inflation, or the emergence of more advanced degrees and professional certifications, accelerates the expansion and diminishes the value of American education.
2. Randall Collins Research
Social scientist Collins believes that theory is crucial to comprehending the world. According to him, "the very essence of science is theory...a generalized and coherent body of ideas, which explain the range of variations in the empirical world in terms of general principles." Collins approaches the social world in this way, focusing on the function and interaction of larger social structures.
He has devoted a large portion of his career and research to understanding how human emotion shapes society and how it can be destroyed. Collins thinks that emotion is the most straightforward explanation for radical behavior and actions. Collins defines emotional energy as the "amount of emotional power that flows through one's actions" and not just any emotion.
Collins contends that interaction rituals are the driving force behind many aspects of our social lives, including sex, smoking, social stratification, and many others. He attempts to create a "radical microsociology" in his major sociological theory work, Interaction Ritual Chains. According to this theory, successful rituals produce symbols of group membership and infuse people with emotional energy, whereas unsuccessful rituals drain this energy. Every individual moves from interaction to interaction, drawn to those where their cultural capital provides them with the greatest emotional energy payoff. According to this theory of interaction ritual chains, each person carries a micro-macro link.
III. Randall Collins Awards
- The Sociology of Philosophies won the 1999 Distinguished Publication Award for Best Book from the American Sociological Association.
- The Sociology of Philosophies won the 1999 Association of American Publishers Scholarly Publishing Annual Award in the field of sociology and anthropology.
- The Sociology of Philosophies was listed in Philadelphia Inquirer's 2000 list of the Ten Best Books of the Year.
- The Sociology of Philosophies won the 2002 Ludwik Fleck Award from the Society for Social Studies of Science for best book.
- Violence: A Micro-Sociological Theory won the 2011 Distinguished Publication Award for Best Book from the American Sociological Association.
IV. Randall Collins Books
1. Interaction Ritual Chains
A significant piece of sociological theory called Interaction Ritual Chains makes an effort to create a "radical microsociology." According to this theory, successful rituals produce symbols of group membership and infuse people with emotional energy, whereas unsuccessful rituals drain this energy.
2. The Discovery of Society
Collins and Makowsky examine the ideas and lives of the social philosophers who have established and are still establishing traditions in sociology in this now-classic book. They create a tapestry of the history of social thought in the 19th and 20th centuries by concentrating on the leading figures in the field and incorporating biographical and conceptual information.
The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change
Collins' comparative study of intellectual development within cultures and the development of ideas across cultures, which was honored by both the American Sociological Association and the Association of American Publishers , sheds new light on the history of philosophy.
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