There is an extant gap between the academic world of sociology, the art world of improvisation (particularly in comedic form), and the blogosphere. In this blog, I aim to address this gap by applying sociological theory to improv, thus providing an intellectual space for stimulating sociologists and improvisors about one another. In doing so, I hope to shed light on the meaning-making processes involved in each, including terminology and conceptual analogues.
Michael Burawoy, former president of the American Sociological Association (ASA) called for a "public sociology." Since his inaugural speech, the idea of public sociology as some form of linkage between academic sociology and public consciousness has proliferated. Thanks to brave and intelligent teachers, journalists, non-profit professionals and a host of others, public sociology has taken off. This blog is my feeble attempt at something microcosmic of such achievements. By bringing in the sociological, I hope non-sociologists can gain perspective on their own private experiences--or what C.Wright Mills called the "Sociological Imagination" or "The Promise of Sociology." And perhaps more important is the converse, that sociologists will begin to understand the alternative knowledge-production of improvisation.
So, to define the term, by "SocioloProv" I refer here to the intersection of academic sociology and improvisation such that a mutual consciousness is approximated.
In keeping with the tradition of more recent qualitative researchers--namely feminist "standpoint" theorists-- I acknowledge my relationship to my "object" of study. That is, I will try to be clear about my "positionality," recognizing the link between the "knower" and the "known" (Sprague 2004). My approach to that link is that knowledge is partial and situated (Harding 1998). We all occupy unique social locations at the junction of social class, race, ethnicity, nationality, sex, sexuality, age, region, and a host of other socially constructed boundaries. I am a white male sociologist-in-training living in Chicago from a working class background. I was the first in my family to earn a B.A. On the improv side, I have been training in improv comedy here in the city for approximately 1 year. There are probably more things I should mention, but the point is that that these likely shape how I experience and interpret the social world, including my writings on SocioloProv.
IN OTHER WORDS, welcome to my ramblings on the topics of improv comedy and sociology. I'll do my best to make it a place where I learn something and maybe teach you something as well. But I don't want to talk at you, so your reading of this will be more like listening to me talk to myself. Wow! That sounds enthralling...[sarcasm]. Oh, yea--and I'll try to sprinkle humor throughout. Enjoy, comment, and stop back soon.
-Inglorious Analysis (I.A.)
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