My research of late has been focused on the area of cognition and culture. Sociologists are notorious for avoiding explicit accounts of psychology or “human nature”. Yet all of our theories involve implicit models of both. My interests in culture, science, and knowledge are really pushing me toward addressing these shortcomings. While digging around I’ve come across a number of great resources. Here are just a few:

*The Institute of Cognition and Culture at Queen’s University, UK

*The Journal of Cognition and Culture : This is a link to the TOC of their forthcoming issue on “Psychological and Cognitive Foundations of Religiosity”

*Jonathan Haidt’s research on moral reasoning

My parents have both come down with the flu and will likely not be able to come to a big family gathering this weekend. Christy and I are also not feeling too well, sore throat and nausea respectively. I also found out that the pastor we like so much is leaving our parish at the end of June. Does anyone have any good news?

Pass, pass, double pass!!!

The word has come in. I passed my first comp!!!

“She never did decide. She did develop a terrific hankering for a crucifix, though. And she bought one from a Santa Fe gift shop during a trip the little family made out West during the Great Depression. Like so many Americans she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”—Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five

“A crazy thought now occurred to Billy. The truth of it startled him. It would make a good epitaph for Billy Pilgrim—and for me, too.”

“EVERYTHING WAS BEAUTIFUL, AND NOTHING HURT.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Slautherhouse Five

I know it’s been a quite week on the old blog. Well I’ve been studying, studying, studying. I took my second comp, sociology of culture, today. I feel better about it than the political sociology comp though I didn’t have as much fun. I think I’m just burnt out. Things have been pretty intellectually intense around here. I’m looking forward to getting back to the old 40 hour work week. Meanwhile, it’s the weekend, I just crossed a major academic bridge, and my wife is out of town. Common wisdom would have me believe that calls for a whole lot of getting drunk. Instead I think I’ll just pine for my lovely wife who is off living it up in Montreal.