Jason Turowetz is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Siegen. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2016 in sociology with a focus on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. His research addresses questions of meaning, interaction, and identity in social theory, communication, and cultural sociology – including the relationship of symbolic media to social practices, the experiences of people in socially marginal identities, and what those experiences reveal about power and inequality, and the constitutive conditions required to achieve social justice. Jason’s primary responsibilities with regard to the Garfinkel Archive include organizing and preparing materials for, as well as collaborating on, various research and publication projects. Recently, Jason worked with Anne Rawls to publish Garfinkel’s 1962 manuscript Parsons’ Primer (Springer 2019) and co-authored publications and presentations on archive manuscripts, including “‘Discovering Culture in Interaction: Solving Problems in Cultural Sociology by Recovering the Interactional side of Parsons’ Conception of Culture” (American Journal of Cultural Sociology 2019) and “The Development of Garfinkel’s ‘Trust’ Argument from 1947 to 1967: Demonstrating how Inequality Disrupts Sense and Self-making” (Journal of Classical Sociology 2020). Jason has also published research that explicates Garfinkel’s argument regarding issues of race and inequality, including “Problems Establishing Identity/Residency in a City Neighborhood During a Black/White Police/Citizen Encounter: Reprising Du Bois’ Conception of Submission as “‘Submissive Civility’” (with Anne Rawls and Waverly Duck). His current projects include preparing a book (with Anne Rawls, Clemens Eisenmann, and Elliott Hoey) from archive materials – including audio recordings, written correspondence, and transcripts – based on a 1964 meeting organized by Garfinkel at the UCLA Suicide Prevention Center, at which Parsons, Goffman, and Sacks were also present.
Jason’s other research projects examine issues of power and inequality in the context of autism diagnosis and the Stanley Milgram “obedience” experiments. Currently, he is working on a book (with Douglas Maynard, under contract with University of Chicago Press) that examines the largely tacit practices clinicians use in diagnosing autism, and how they reify problematic interactions as if they were a property of the child alone, rather than a joint creation through social practices in the testing environment. A second book (with Matthew Hollander, under contract with Oxford University Press) focuses on the Milgram experiments as a perspicuous setting for studying power, resistance, and moral action and decision making in interaction.
- Sociological Theory
- Media of Interaction and Cooperation
- Ethnomethodology/Conversation Analysis
- Medicine and Science
- Cultural Sociology
- Social Psychology
- Race and Inequality
Books
2022
- Douglas W. Maynard and Jason Turowetz. Autistic Intelligence: Interaction, Individuality, and the Challenges of Diagnosis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Articles
2021
- Rawls, Anne and Jason Turowetz. “Garfinkel’s Politics: Collaborating with Parsons to Document Taken-for-Granted Practices for Assembling Cultural Objects and their Grounding in Implicit Social Contract.” The American Sociologist 52(1): 131-58.
2020
- Turowetz, Jason and Anne Rawls. “The Development of Garfinkel’s ‘Trust’ Argument from 1947 to 1967: Demonstrating How Inequality Disrupts Sense and Self-Making.” Journal of Classical Sociology 21(1): 3-37.
2019
- Rawls, Anne and Jason Turowetz. “‘Discovering Culture’ in Interaction: Solving Problems in Cultural Sociology by Recovering the Interactional Side of Parsons’ Conception of Culture.” American Journal of Cultural Sociology 9(3): 293-320.
Book Chapters
2021
- Turowetz, Jason and Anne W. Rawls. “Talcott Parsons and Harold Garfinkel: The Development of Culture as Interaction,” in Javier Trevino and Helmut Staubmann (eds.), The Routledge International Handbook on Talcott Parsons Studies. London: Routledge.
- Turowetz, Jason and Anne W. Rawls. “Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis, and the Varieties of Interactionism,” in Natalia Ruiz-Junco and Dirk Vom Lehn (eds.), Handbook of Interactionism. London: Routledge.
Invited Talks
2020
- “On Meaning: The Meaning of a Particular Social Fact – ‘Suicide’ – as Discussed by Parsons, Garfinkel, Goffman, and Sacks in 1964,” with Anne W. Rawls, Clemens Eisenmann, and Elliott Hoey. Yale University, Center for Cultural Sociology, February 28.
Conference Presentations
2022
- On Meaning: The Meaning of Suicide as Discussed by Parsons, Garfinkel, Goffman, and Sacks in 1964. Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Los Angeles, CA.
2019
- “Ethnomethodology, Social Justice, and Inequality in Modern Societies,” with Anne Rawls. Annual Meetings of the Eastern Sociological Association, Boston, MA.