Sociologist Dr. Allison Pugh to Speak at Pitt

April 2, 2014 - 4:30pm to 5:45pm

Pitt’s Childhood Studies Speaker Series continues with Dr. Allison Pugh, who will give a talk on “The Theoretical Costs of Ignoring Childhood: What Children Have to Tell Us About Inequality, Independence, and Insecurity.” Brief responses from Dr. Tyler Bickford (Pitt, English/Childhood Studies) and Dr. Melissa Swauger (Indiana University of PA, Sociology) will follow the talk to jumpstart the Question & Answer period.

This talk will take place in 324 CL at 4:30 PM on Wednesday April 2, 2014. It is free and open to the public.

Dr. Pugh is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia. She is the author of Longing and Belonging: Parents, Children, and Consumer Culture (University of California Press, 2009). Her forthcoming second book, The Tumbleweed Society: Working and Caring in an Age of Insecurity (Oxford University Press) analyzes how job insecurity and inequality intersect to shape the way working parents respond to the “common sense” that obligations and relationships are fleeting at work and at home.

In her upcoming talk, Dr. Pugh will contend that Sociology and the other social sciences should stop ignoring key insights generated by scholars working in the field of Childhood Studies, since such work can greatly enrich social theories about independence, insecurity, and inequality.