Patten lecture: Michael Burawoy

"Marxism Engages Bourdieu"

Michael Burawoy, one of the world's leading sociologists and ethnographers of work, will present the final Indiana University Patten Lectures of the 2017-18 academic year March 27 and 29 on the IU Bloomington campus.

Burawoy has studied industrial workplaces through participant observation in Zambia, Chicago, Hungary and Russia, seeking to develop general theories about the nature of labor, the despotism of the industrial workplace and the inability of workers to resist subordination. He is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.

Burawoy has examined the dynamics of human labor under industrial capitalism, state socialism, colonialism, and postcolonial and postsocialist orders. His book "Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism" is based on an ethnographic study of a Chicago factory where he spent 10 months as a machine operator and examines how worker consent is organized by the production process.

Methodologically, Burawoy practices and defends what he calls the "extended case method," which says that, if you want to understand how human beings live, you should go into the field and ask them -- repeatedly, over time, and in different contexts.

"Marxism Engages Bourdieu"

He will examine responses to Marxism in the work of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci, focusing on theories of cultural domination.

The William T. Patten Foundation

The William T. Patten Foundation provides funds to bring distinguished scholars or practitioners in the sciences, the humanities and the arts to the Bloomington campus for a week. The foundation has brought over 150 scholars of extraordinary national and international distinction since 1937, making it the oldest lecture series at Indiana University. Lecturers are chosen by a campus-wide faculty committee.

William T. Patten graduated in 1893 with a Bachelor of Arts in history from IU. He then moved to Indianapolis and led a successful career in real estate and politics. He created an endowment for the university in 1931, with the purpose of bringing renowned leaders to the Bloomington campus.