Hyunsik Chun

Mills recognized that as the power elite becomes increasingly degenerate, it is increasingly difficult for their intellectual acolytes to formulate reasonable ideological justifications for their corrupt and irresponsible actions. In these circumstances, the power elite resorts to intellectual repression against those who call attention to their declining political capacities; that is, the intelligentsia who work in universities, museums, the arts, scientific institutes, entertainment, and the mass media.

Sociologist C. Wright Mills saw this coming—and tried to warn us—60+ years ago.

jacobin.com/2026/02/wrig...

Through this paradigm, the state bureaucracy is radicalized, adopting the overt violence previously relegated to the fringes of the radical right. [4/4]

In this era, war is no longer merely the continuation of politics by other means, as Clausewitz famously argued. Instead, "war politics" has become the primary mechanism through which power governs the populace. [3/4]

I was struck by the haunting parallel to the infamous Saigon Execution photograph from the Vietnam War. Yet, the current reality is perhaps even darker: we are no longer witnessing executions between combatants, but the summary execution of ordinary citizens in the midst of their daily lives. [2/4]

A defining feature of Trump's New America is the inward turn of the grand strategies once deployed by Cold War liberals across Asia and Latin America decades ago. These tactics are now being weaponized against the domestic population. Upon learning of the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis, [1/4]

traditional concepts have not lost their power over us. On the contrary, they can become even more tyrannical, for a confused moral and political orientation can seem more appealing than no orientation at all." [2/2]

From Zerilli (2005: xi): "It is not only pointless but dangerous to try to recover categories of thought that no longer resonate within our current political and historical context, Arendt held. Unfortunately, as she also recognized, just because a tradition has come to an end, [1/2]

An ELSI for AI: Learning from genetics to govern algorithms In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months h...

🧵 The summer of 2025 has been AI's "cruel summer"—wrongful deaths, dangerous therapy chatbots, medical misinformation, facial recognition failures. These aren't isolated glitches but predictable harms from systems deployed without adequate oversight. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

When We Target Federal Workers, Whom Are We Targeting? Three Perspectives on U.S. Federal Workers - Deirdre Bloome, 2025 The U.S. Department of Government Efficiency has targeted U.S. federal workers through downsizings, funding reductions, and delegitimization efforts. When we ta...

When federal workers are targeted, whom are they?
They resemble most Americans, support millions of children across the country, and, disproportionately, are veterans and members of marginalized ethnoracial groups. See new article by Dierdre Bloom at Harvard journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

screenshot of my post

Big new blogpost!

My guide to data visualization, which includes a very long table of contents, tons of charts, and more.

--> Why data visualization matters and how to make charts more effective, clear, transparent, and sometimes, beautiful.
www.scientificdiscovery.dev/p/salonis-gu...

Lacunalogy - Sergio Sismondo, Khadija Coxon, 2025

"They emerge through citation practices, genre conventions, and the fine art of rhetorical sifting. Identifying a gap is less a simple act of discovery than one of artisanal craftwork, a quarrying for stones buried by the quarriers themselves."

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

How to stop the revolving door of German academia Germany is one of the most popular destinations for students and scholars worldwide, but those pursuing academic careers face significant hurdles to success.

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Weaponized cuteness : from control to creativity in East Asia YouTube video by Friederike Wolf (Frieda)

These students speak super fast, but they made English, German, and French subtitles. You might enjoy their analysis of #cute culture in #EastAsia #Japan #Korea #China
Can you leave them a thumbs up?

youtu.be/kw7ZKipvoqg?...

A set of three political environment factors that contribute to social movement success. Elite conflict - When elite groups are in conflict with one another, the political system is more vulnerable. Elites cannot ignore, stigmatize, or repress social movements with a unified voice during crises. Renegade elites may align with a social movement. Public opinion - When a majority of the population supports the goals of a social movement, policy makers are more likely to negotiate—or face being removed from elected office. Favorable public opinion provides a promising environment to use more noninstitutional protests. Elite blunders - Publicly observed blunders by elites during a social movement conflict bring more support to a social movement and harm the legitimacy of elite targets.

Social movements are more likely to have success when three factors are present: elite conflict, shifting public opinion, and elite blunders.

Mass collective action can create the conditions for these factors to emerge and deepen.

Sociologist Christina Cross’s new book, Inherited Inequality: Why Opportunity Gaps Persist Between Black and White Youth Raised in Two-Parent Families, seeks to challenge the emphasis on nuclear families being the key to success for Black children.

Sociology in the Provost’s Office: Leading through Contraction | American Sociological Association Across the United States, higher education is contracting. Since 2010, colleges and universities have lost more than two million students. The

Sociology we have to talk about ASA/Footnotes' decision to publish an article about how *checks notes* a sociologist in upper admin *checks notes* used Sociology to *checks notes* cut the Sociology Program at their university. 🙃

www.asanet.org/footnotes-ar...

‘Enrichment’ as a Pragmatist and Structuralist Contribution to Economic Sociology: Perspectives on the Approach of Economics and Sociology of Conventions - Rainer Diaz-Bone, 2023 The article discusses main contributions and results of the monograph Enrichment: A Critique of Commodities, written by the French sociologists Luc Boltanski an...

ICYMI: Rainer Diaz-Bone, '‘Enrichment’ as a Pragmatist and Structuralist Contribution to Economic Sociology: Perspectives on the Approach of Economics and Sociology of Conventions' (Open Access) journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10....

Americans of Japanese heritage say they hear echoes of their families' forced internment in the Trump administration's newest immigrant detention site. bit.ly/466O5sk

The sovereign individual and the paradox of the digital age | Aeon Essays Data has created a new and paradoxical social order: the promise of emancipation is made possible by classifying everything

"As the deployment of digital technologies continues to generate ever-more stratospheric concentrations of wealth, the masses sink deeper into the void left by the evisceration of social solidarity and the rise of automation."

aeon.co/essays/the-s...

Veit Braun publishes a well-informed and really entertaining history of the Bielefeld school of STS/Sociology of science: To add one point: All the major protagonists of this story are still there and active - with the exception of the premature death of Niklas Luhmann in 1998 /1

Michel Callon's foundational work in actor network theory has inspired generations of STS scholars. Callon was 4S president 1998–2000. He was awarded the Bernal Prize in 2002. We thank the Center for the Sociology of Innovation for sharing this in memorium: www.csi.minesparis.psl.eu/en/featured-...

Reading list from the talk! I.e., the references slide

This looks potentially useful for junior scholars.

"The Research Paper Playbook: A PhD Student's Guide to Writing and Presenting"

papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

"If social and cultural mechanisms of transmission cannot be specified, nothing can stop a researcher from filling in the blank and interpreting group differences in terms of any mechanism." (10)

The basis for such skepticism is reinforced insofar as the cultural mechanisms underlying parental socialization are not specified nor shown to be convertible and portable, but instead assumed to be an essential feature of parents’ social group and directly transmitted to their children." (12) [2]

How Does Culture Matter for Attainment, and How Would We Know If It Did? - David Brady, Aliza Luft, Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan, 2025 In their 2022 ASR article, Horwitz, Matheny, Laryea, and Schnabel (HMLS 2022) argue that religious subculture significantly shapes educational stratification, e...

"Scholars have long been skeptical of arguments that a problematic parental culture causes children’s under-attainment. We should be equally skeptical of arguments that a productive parental culture causes attainment (a point HMLS also make; p. 337). [1/2]

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Trump Administration Will Reinstall Confederate Statue in Washington

“The Trump administration will restore and reinstall the only statue that had honored a Confederate official in the U.S. capital after demonstrators toppled and set it on fire during the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020.”

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/u...

these advocates seem to believe they've discovered some novel opportunity amid our current political and social turmoil. It's tedious watching people who assume their colleagues are epistemologically blind or cultural dupes.

Some people aggressively preach scientism, propagating their beliefs as if it represents the only legitimate approach to science. This is problematic not only because the epistemological assumptions underlying such claims were debunked long ago, but also because