UNLV Sociology Faculty Publications: Michael Ian Borer

Read the review at MLB.com The Green Monster. Pesky's Pole. The Lone Red Seat. Yawkey Way. To baseball fans this list of bizarre phrases evokes only one place: Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox. Built in 1912, Fenway Park is Americas oldest major league ballpark still in use. In Faithful to Fenway, Michael Ian Borer takes us out to Fenway where we sit in cramped wooden seats (often with obstructed views of the playing field), where there is a hand-operated scoreboard and an average attendance of 20,000 fewer fans than most stadiums, and where every game has been sold out since May of 2003. There is no Hard Rock Caf#65533; (like Toronto's Skydome), no swimming pool (like Arizona's Chase Field), and definitely no sushi (which has become a fan favorite from Baltimore to Seattle). As Borer tells us in this captivating book, Fenway is short on comfort but long on character. Faithful to Fenway investigates the mystique of the ballpark. Borer, who lived in Boston before and after the Red Sox historic 2004 World Series win, draws on interviews with Red Sox players, including Jason Varitek and Carl Yastrzemski, management, including Larry Lucchino and John Henry, groundskeepers, vendors, and scores of fans to uncover what the park means for Boston and the people who revere it. Borer argues that Fenway is nothing less than a national icon, more than worthy of the banner outside the stadium that proclaims, "America's Most Beloved Ballpark". Certainly as one of New England's greatest landmarks, Fenway captures the hearts and imaginations of a deferential and devoted public. There are T-shirts, bumper stickers, banners, and snow globes that honor the ballpark. Fenway shows up in popular films, novels, television commercials, and in replicated form in people's backyards--and coming in 2008 to Quincy, Massachusetts, is Mini-Fenway Park, a replica stadium built especially for kids. Full of legendary stories, amusing anecdotes, and the shared triumph and tragedy of the Red Sox and their fans, Faithful to Fenway offers a fresh and insightful perspective, offering readers an unforgettable pilgrimage to the mecca of baseball.

Undergraduate students of urban sociology and urban studies.

Cities play an important role in contemporary American culture as sites of commerce, trade, entertainment, and the arts. We can learn a lot about what Americans believe and how they act upon those beliefs by looking at the ways our cultural dramas are continually played out on the city's stage. The complexity and sheer variety of urban experiences can be overwhelming. In clear prose, the essays in this volume decipher some of these experiences and offer fresh analytical insights. Without relying on one theoretical, disciplinary, or ideological framework, the contributors collectively explore the city as an identity marker, an artist's muse, a cultural hybrid, and a place many call home. Issues related to gender, race, ethnicity, religion, and power are present in American cities and are therefore present within this collection. Most importantly, these essays acknowledge the hard work required to keep something as large and complex as a city running. The authors show how people practice culture and the ways that culture is expressed through myths, rituals, images, and places.

Are reports of the 'death of deviance' premature? This collection brings together leading international scholars to analyse uses of the 'deviance' concept to argue its vitality and show its possible utility in a variety of fields including religion, education and media narratives.

The new edition of this landmark volume emphasizes the dynamic, interactional and reflexive dimensions of the research interview. Contributors highlight the myriad dimensions of complexity that are emerging as researchers increasingly frame the interview as a communicative opportunity as much as a data-gathering format. The book begins with the history and conceptual transformations of the interview, which is followed by chapters that discuss the main components of interview practice. Taken together, the contributions to the Handbook encourage readers simultaneously to learn the frameworks and technologies of interviewing and to reflect on the epistemological foundations of the interview craft.

Academics often direct their research 'across' in order to examine issues that grip members of the middle classes, or 'down' in order to understand the difficulties workers and other marginalized groups endure. Research that is directed 'up' at individuals and groups with positions of greater wealth and power is less common, yet 'studying up' can contribute to our understanding of growing inequality, economic polarization and social change by studying the rich, powerful and elite in our society. Presenting the latest empirical case studies from Canada, The USA and Australia, this volume explores the challenges and difficulties involved in conducting research amongst the rich and elite, whilst shedding light on the manner in which power is harnessed, protected and controlled to manage and manipulate resources. A demonstration of the importance of studying up to our understanding of decision-making, governance and the nature of contemporary democracy in the global economy, Researching Amongst Elites will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists and geographers working in areas such as social research methods, social stratification, the sociology of elites and relations of class, wealth and power.

This book brings together eminent and rising scholars from religious studies, science, sociology of religion, sociology of science, philosophy, and theology in order to engage the new atheism and place it in the context of broader debates in these areas.

In Popular Culture and Everyday Life Phillip Vannini and Dennis Waskul have brought together a variety of short essays that illustrate the many ways that popular culture intersects with mundane experiences of everyday life. Most essays are written in a reflexive ethnographic style, primarily through observation and personal narrative, to convey insights at an intimate level that will resonate with most readers.　 Some of the topics are so mundane they are legitimately universal (sleeping, getting dressed, going to the bathroom, etc.), others are common enough that most readers will directly identify in some way (watching television, using mobile phones, playing video games, etc.), while some topics will appeal more-or-less depending on a reader's gender, interests, and recreational pastimes (putting on makeup, watching the Super Bowl, homemaking, etc.). This book will remind readers of their own similar experiences, provide opportunities to reflect upon them in new ways, as well as compare and contrast how experiences relayed in these pages relate to lived experiences. The essays will easily translate into rich and lively classroom discussions that shed new light on a familiar, taken-for-granted everyday life--both individually and collectively. At the beginning of the book, the authors have provided a grid that shows the topics and themes that each article touches on. 　This book is for popular culture classes, and will also be an asset in courses on the sociology of everyday life, ethnography, and social psychology.

"Given the complexity of the issues, the study of social problems requires, indeed demands, specialized focus by experts." -A. Javier Trevi#65533;o Welcome to a new way of Investigating Social Problems.   In this groundbreaking new text, general editor A. Javier Trevi#65533;o, working with a panel of experts, thoroughly examines all aspects of social problems, providing a contemporary and authoritative introduction to the field. Each chapter is written by a specialist on that particular topic. This unique, contributed format ensures that the research and examples provided are the most current and relevant in the field. The chapters carefully follow a model framework to ensure consistency across the entire text and provide continuity for the reader. The text is framed around three major themes: intersectionality (the interplay of race, ethnicity, class, and gender), the global scope of many problems, and how researchers take an evidence-based approach to studying problems.