My professional origin story
History provides symbolic resources for constructing social identities. Origin stories of nations, such as Columbus Day, induce intense identity conflicts, in part because of the emotional power of origin stories. Lately I have also been thinking about different types of origin stories, such as professional origin stories, that is, the stories we tell about how we landed in our current profession. I love to teach. Of course, the interaction with the students is primary, but I've come to realize that much of my enjoyment also comes from many of the "incidental" components of teaching, such as course preparation, chatting with students outside of class, watching students graduate and advance in their careers, etc. One recent example was something that has happened many times but also something that I've rarely acknowledged: I like telling my story about how I became a sociologist. I came to this realization recently when a student and I were talk...