Issues & Articles / Special Issues | American Journal of Cultural Sociology

In this special issue of the American Journal of Cultural Sociology, Guest Edited by Jason L. Mast, leading sociologists explain the mystery of how the 2016 US presidential election created a sense of rupture even while the cultural elements that facilitated Trump’s victory have been shaping America’s political, religious, news media and entertainment spheres for some time.

The articles in this issue explain how and why Donald Trump won the presidency, and they outline how his victory will impact the future of democratic politics, journalism, the US’s positioning in the global order, and America’s model of multicultural citizenship. The contributors present new theorizing on post-rupture politics, and charts innovative pathways forward for analysing democratic elections occurring in contexts of fractured civic epistemologies and troubled legitimacies.

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Fragments, ruptures, and resurgent structures in the 2016 US presidential election – cultural sociology’s new pathways forward
by Jason L. Mast

Politics as a vacation
by Robin Wagner-Pacifici and Iddo Tavory

On the construction sites of history: Where did Donald Trump come from?
by Mabel Berezin

Why evangelicals voted for Trump: A critical cultural sociology
by Philip Gorski

Muslims as outsiders, enemies, and others: The 2016 presidential election and the politics of religious exclusion
by Ruth Braunstein

A period of “wild and fierce fanaticism”: Populism, theo-political militarism, and the crisis of US hegemony
by Julia Hell and George Steinmetz

Deep stories, nostalgia narratives, and fake news: Storytelling in the Trump era
by Francesca Polletta and Jessica Callahan

Journalism after Trump
by Ronald N. Jacobs

When voters are voting, what are they doing?: Symbolic selection and the 2016 U.S. presidential election
by Matthew Norton

The fragmenting of the civil sphere: How partisan identity shapes the moral evaluation of candidates and epistemology
by Daniel Kreiss

Legitimacy troubles and performances of power in the 2016 US presidential election
by Jason L. Mast

Vol. 5, Issue 1-2: Inequality

Inequality has come roaring back onto the public agenda, punctuated by Barack Obama’s December 2013 claim that income inequality is “a defining challenge of our time”.

... But if the new object of civil concern is economic, the nature of that concern remains centrally cultural. In a special double-length issue of the American Journal of Cultural Sociology, nine original articles explore the social meanings that inform contemporary discussions about inequality. Examining prisoner re-entry narratives, racialized exclusion, support programs for former foster youth, discourses of cultural mobility, and elite parenting strategies, these articles provide important new resources for thinking about culture and inequality.

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Conflicted cultivation: Parenting, privilege, and moral worth in wealthy New York families

by Rachel Sherman

A critical strong program: Cultural power and racialized civil exclusion

by Stephen F. Ostertag and Lucas Dìaz

Cultural implications of historical exclusion for the racial wealth gap: How ideal financial behavior varies by race

by Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana

Perceived positions along the social spectrum: The subjective social status of contemporary Chinese in a coastal metropolis

by Chi Phoenix Wang

The unbalanced theoretical toolkit: Problems and partial solutions to studying culture and reproduction but not culture and mobility

by Jessi Streib