Lecturer in Sociology
Education
M.A. in Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara, March 2017
B.A. in Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara, June 2013
Biography
Joseph Sterphone earned his M.A. in Sociology from UC Santa Barbara in March 2017. He researches German racial and national formations as expressed and (re)produced discursively, institutionally, and interactionally. He also conducts interactional research on conflict in board gaming.
His dissertation asks:
- Does race matter for understandings of “Germanness” in everyday interactions in the mainstream of German society and the extremist groups that form on its fringes, and if so, how?
- How do Germans maintain their belief that Germany is a “space free of race” while nevertheless contending with a range of ways in which race potentially matters?
- What are the consequences of this maintenance? Thus, he focuses on two aspects of German racial formations: the racialization of the category “Muslim” and the racialization of the category “German.”
The common thread throughout his research is an ethnomethodological perspective that emphasizes members’ practices and orientations. This orientation is present in both his macro-historical work and his interactional and conversation analytic studies.
Joseph currently lives in Goleta while completing his PhD at UC Santa Barbara.
Keywords
Race and racism, nation and nationalism, ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, interaction