Following a strategic plan developed over the last decade and endorsed by a prestigious outside committee, we are building upon our strengths in culture, stratification, and theory. Within these areas of inquiry we address questions of meaning, morality, and power in contemporary society. These are issues central to the progress of the discipline and, we believe, to the well-being of society. The theoretically-oriented study of culture and its intersection with stratification has become one of the hallmarks of Virginia sociology. This broad concern incorporates important aspects of religion, science, education, law, and the family, as well as collective identities such as nationality, ethnicity, and gender.
Culture now attracts some of the best minds in the discipline of sociology.
Virginia s place at the forefront of this important intellectual development positions us to benefit from the resulting re-orientation of scholarly interests and departmental reputations. We have the opportunity to become one of the most distinctive departments in the country, and a leading national and international center in the study of culture and its related social institutions. At the same time, because our own work in culture is empirically grounded, we distinguish ourselves from the extremes of abstract and over-rarefied theorizing that beset much of cultural studies. We see this kind of sociology as bridging the humanistic and scientific traditions in the social sciences. This emphasis links us to the intellectual life of the University as a whole.