William Roy
Research Professor
Surveying the history of commercial popular music in the 20th century, I am constructing an account of how a broad variety of factors, including technology, markets, allied fields (radio, cinema, etc.), institutional processes, culture, and the social composition of society shaped the genre system. The particular historical focus is the rise and decline of a musical main stream in mid-century.
Degrees
Ph. D., University of Michigan
Awards
UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award, 1989.
American Sociological Association, Distinguished Contribution to Teaching, 1999.
Socializing Capital: The Rise of the Large Industrial Corporation in America named by Choice as an "Outstanding Academic Book of 1997."
Charles Tilly Award for the Best Book on Collective Behavior and Social Movements, by the Collective Behavior and Social Movements Section of the ASA, 2011.
Research Fellowship at the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, 2011-12.
Selected Publications
Reds, Whites, and Blues: Social Movements, Folk Music, and Race in the United States. Princeton University Press, 2010.
"What is Sociological About Music?" (with Timothy J. Dowd), Annual Review of Sociology. 2010.
“How Social Movements Do Culture,” The International Journal of Political and Cultural Sociology. 23 (2010): 85-98. 2010.
"'Race records' and 'hillbilly music': institutional origins of racial categories in the American commercial recording industry." Poetics. 2004.
Making Societies: The Historical Construction of the World We Live In. Pine Forge Press, 2001
“How Many Logics of Collective Action?”” (with Rachel Parker-Gwin), Theory and Society. 1999.
Socializing Capital: The Rise of the Large Industrial Corporation in America, Princeton University Press, 1997.
Research
Personal Research:
Bill Roy's Geneology Page
Courses Taught:
Sociology 1: Introduction to Sociology
Sociology 19: Fiat Lux
Sociology 183: Comparative-Historical Sociology
Sociology 202: Theory and Research in Sociology
Sociology 211: Comparative and Historical Methods
Useful Links:
Internet Techniques in the Social Sciences
American Sociological Association