Back to Previous Page


Eric Klinenberg

Professor of Sociology; Director of Graduate Studies
Ph.D. 2000 (Sociology), M.A. 1997 (Sociology), University of California, Berkeley; B.A. 1993 (History/Philosophy), Brown University.

Office Address: 295 Lafayette St., Room 4119
Office Hours: W 1:30-3:15PM
Phone: (212) 998-8375
Email:

Areas of Research/Interest: Urban studies; media and cultural production; risk and disaster; race; theory.

Click here to download the CV

Bio:

Eric Klinenberg is Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. He's also editor of the journal Public Culture, and an affiliated faculty member of the Wagner School of Public Service and the Department of Media, Culture, and Communications.

Klinenberg's latest book is Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, a sociological analysis of the greatest social change of the past sixty years that we have failed to name or identify. Critics have called Going Solo "trailblazing" (Vanity Fair), "fascinating" (Wall Street Journal), and "so important that is is likely to become both a popular read and a social science classic" (Psychology Today).

Klinenberg's first book, Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago, won six scholarly and literary prizes and was praised as "a dense and subtle portrait" (Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker), "intellectually exciting" (Amartya Sen), and a "trenchant, persuasive tale of slow murder by public policy" (Salon). A theatrical adaptation of Heat Wave premiered in Chicago in 2008, and Judith Helfand is directing a feature documentary based on the book.

Professor Klinenberg's second book, Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America’s Media, examines the how media consolidation and the rise of the Internet have transformed culture, journalism, and democracy. Since its publication, he has testified before the Federal Communications Commission and briefed the U.S. Congress on his findings.

Klinenberg is currently leading a major research project on climate change and the future of cities. Part of this work involves a sociological investigation of Superstorm Sandy and the challenge of adapting to the emerging age of extreme, dangerous weather. "Adaptation," is the first article from this research, appeared in the New Yorker in 2013.

In addition to his books and scholarly articles, Klinenberg appears often on public radio and television, and he has contributed to popular publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Time, Fortune, Rolling Stone, The London Review of Books, Le Monde Diplomatique and the radio program This American Life.

At NYU, Professor Klinenberg teaches courses on cities, climate change, culture, and media, as well graduate seminars on research methods, ethnography, and urban design.  

Select Publications:

Going_Solo_cover.jpg 

Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone
The Penguin Press, 2012.


Read an excerpt in Fortune.

Read an author interview in Smithsonian Magazine.

Listen to a story from Going Solo on this podcast from This American Life.



fightingforair.jpg

Fighting For Air: The Battle to Control America's Media
Metropolitan Books, 2007.


Bill Moyers interviewed Eric Klinenberg about his latest book,
Fighting for Air: The Battle to Control America's Media, on the PBS
special, The Net at Risk.

See the video here: www.pbs.org/moyers/media_players/chapter3-6.html

Click here to see Klinenberg's appearance on Democracy Now!

Click here to read Klinenberg's recent Idea Lab story in the New York Times Magazine.


 

heatwave.jpeg

Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago
University of Chicago Press, 2002.

  • Heat Wave is now a play. Two theater companies, Pegasus Players and Live Bait, have combined to stage a theatrical adaptation that runs from February 25 to April 6 in Chicago.
    Click here to read more about the production.

  • Best Book in Sociology/Anthropology by the Association of American Publishers

  • Urban Affairs Association Book Prize

  • Chicago Tribune, Favorite Book Selection

  • Robert Park Book Award from the ASA

  • British Sociology Association Award for Best Book on Health and Illness.

  • Mira Komarovsky Book Award, Eastern Sociological Society

    Book interview on PBS Newshour: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/conversation/july-dec02/klinenberg_11-27.html


 

makingandunmaking.jpg

The Making and Unmaking of Whiteness
Duke University Press, 2001.

culturalproduction.jpg

Cultural Production in a Digital Age: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
SAGE Publications, 2005.

"Of risk and pork: urban security and the politics of objectivity" (with Andrew Lakoff). Theory and Society 39:503–525 (Fall 2010).
http://www.springerlink.com/content/x8263w0732784524/

"Blaming the Victims: Hearsay, Labeling, and the Hazards of Quick-Hit Disaster Ethnography." American Sociological Review 71/4, August 2006: 689-698.
http://asr.sagepub.com/content/71/4/689.full.pdf+html

"Looting Homeland Security." Rolling Stone.

"Beyond 'Fair and Balanced.'" Rolling Stone.

"When Chicago Baked." Slate.
http://www.slate.com/id/2125572/

"Disasters: Natural and Social." In These Times.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2330/

"Introduction: Cultural Production in a Digital Age" (with Claudio Benzecry). The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 597 (January 2005).
http://ann.sagepub.com/content/597/1/6.full.pdf+html

"Convergence: News Production in a Digital Age." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 597 (January 2005).
http://ann.sagepub.com/content/597/1/48.full.pdf+html

"Channeling into the Journalistic Field: Youth Activism and the Media Justice Movement." In Rodney Benson and Eric Neveu (Editors). Pierre Bourdieu and the Sociology of the Journalistic Field (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004).

"Overheated." Contemporary Sociology 33/5: 521-528, 2004.

"Dying Alone: The Social Production of Urban Isolation." Ethnography 2/4: 499-529, 2001.
http://eth.sagepub.com/content/2/4/501.full.pdf+html

"Bodies That Don't Matter: Death and Dereliction in Chicago." Body and Society 7/3: 121-136, 2001. (Reprinted in Bodies as Commodities, London: Sage, 2002.)
http://bod.sagepub.com/content/7/2-3/121.full.pdf+html

"The Political Economy of Whiteness Studies."Souls 4/4: 52-55, 2002.

"Information et Production Numerique." Actes de la Recherche en Sciences Sociales 134: 66-75, 2000.
ttp://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1157863

"Denaturalizing Disaster: A Social Autopsy of the 1995 Chicago Heat Wave." Theory and Society 28: 239-295, 1999. (Revised and reprinted in Philippe Bourgois and Nancy Scheper-Hughes (Editors), Violence in War and Peace: An Anthology (London: Blackwell, 2003).
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r23417847g6lw434/fulltext.pdf

"Bourgeois Dystopias", a review essay of Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000, and A Field Guide to Sprawl. The Nation (June 28, 2004).

"Neo-Catastrophism." London Review of Books (October 9, 2003).
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n19/eric-klinenberg/neo-catastrophism

"Strength in Numbers." Review of James Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds. The Washington Post Book World (September 7, 2004).

"To Have and Have Not." Review of Sir Michael Marmot, The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects our Health and Longevity. The Washington Post Book World (August 1, 2004).

"Contestation de l'ordre médiatique, Le Monde Diplomatique (April 2004).

"Fear and the City: After Madrid, Does Urban Life Have a Future?" New Statesman (March 22, 2004, cover story).

 Update your faculty profile