Published Work in the CASBS-Public Books Partnership

The CASBS partnership with Public Books, launched and announced in fall 2019, is all about books and ghosts that reside on the Center’s hilltop campus. This page displays a running list of partnership publications. 

In terms of books, it places a spotlight on select classics as well as recent accessions to the Center’s renowned Ralph W. Tyler Collection.* In terms of ghosts, current fellows reflect upon impactful and inspiring “Ghosts in the Study” – former fellows who occupied their offices (called studies at CASBS) at some point since the Center’s 1954-55 inaugural year.

View all installments in the partnership

Special Essays

• Through an examination of a recent book on the virtues of "anthro-vision," CASBS director Margaret Levi and CASBS senior research scholar Roberta Katz describe the tools, mindset, and ways of thinking and practicing that "The 21st-Century Social Scientist" must employ.
   
• Public Books published an edited transcript of an episode of the CASBS podcast Human Centered, "Developing AI Like Raising Kids." It features a conversation between Alison Gopnik and Ted Chiang on the profound ways that we humans care for one another, and what these practices might teach us about how we care for thinking machines.
   

Recent Accessions to the Tyler Collection

These take the form of author interviews.

• Neta Alexander engages Margaret O’Mara, who initiated work on her latest book, The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America (2019), as a 2014-15 CASBS fellow.
• Emma Chubb engages Patricia Banks, who completed her latest book, Diversity and Philanthropy at African American Museums: Black Renaissance (2019), as a 2018-19 CASBS fellow.
• Paul DiMaggio (CASBS fellow 1984-85) engages former Pulitzer Prize winner Paul Starr, who worked on his latest book, Entrenchment: Wealth, Power, and the Constitution of Democratic Societies (2019), as a 2014-15 CASBS fellow.
• Shazeda Ahmed engages Jennifer Pan, who completed her book, Welfare for Autocrats: How Social Assistance in China Cares for its Rulers (2020), as a 2019-20 CASBS fellow.
• Mitchell Stevens interviews Elizabeth Shermer, who completed her book, Indentured Students: How Government-Guaranteed Loans Left Generations Drowning in College Debt (2021), as a 2019-20 CASBS fellow.
• Joanne Randa Nucho engages Andrew Lakoff, who launched work on his (coauthored) book The Government of Emergency: Vital Systems, Expertise, and the Politics of Security (2021) as a 2016-17 CASBS fellow.
• Caitlin Zaloom, a 2016-17 fellow and founding co-editor-in-chief of Public Books, interviews another 2016-17 CASBS fellow, Batja Mesquita, on her book Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions (2022). Mesquita launched the book project during her fellowship year.
• Chenjerai Kumanyika sat down with Julie Livingston and Andrew Ross about their book Cars and Jails: Freedom Dreams, Debt and Carcerality (2022); Livingston completed the book as a 2021-22 CASBS fellow.
• Elizabeth Fetterolf interviews Allison Pugh, who launched work on her book The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (2024) as a 2016-17 CASBS fellow.
• Michael Walker engages with Laurence Ralph, who wrote much of his book Sito: An American Teenager and the City that Failed Him (2023), as a 2021-22 CASBS fellow. 
   

Tyler Collection Classics

Scholars reflect upon the enduring significance and intellectual impact of a classic book in the collection. Publication anniversaries often motivate the essays.

• Jeremy Adelson reflects on the enduring legacy of Albert Hirschman’s Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States (1970). Hirschman wrote the book as a 1968-69 CASBS fellow.
• Harvey Molotch (CASBS fellow 1999-2000) reflects on the importance of Stanley Lieberson’s A Matter of Taste: How Names, Fashions, and Culture Change (2000). Lieberson wrote the book as a 1995-96 CASBS fellow.
• Paula Findlen (CASBS fellow 2007-08) pays tribute to Carolyn Merchant's The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (1980). Merchant wrote the book as a 1977-78 CASBS fellow.
• Thomas Bender (CASBS fellow 2005-06) describes how Carl Schorske came to the Center to to write a "distinctive book, one that would bring together politics and culture." The result is the classic, Pulitzer Prize-winning book Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture, which Schorske worked on during two stints as a CASBS fellow (1959-60, 1965-66).
• Shane Graham offers a retrospective on David Levering Lewis's "magisterial" history of the Harlem Renaissance, "When Harlem Was In Vogue," written by Lewis during his 1980-81 CASBS fellowship year.
• Webb Keane, a 2003-04 CASBS fellow, reappraises Marshall Sahlins's classic essay "The Original Affluent Society" -- the centerpiece of his book Stone Age Economics, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the book's publication. Sahlins wrote parts of the book as a 1963-64 CASBS fellow.
• Fernando Domínguez Rubio reflects on Art Worlds, initiated by Howard Becker during his 1969-70 CASBS fellowship year, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the book's publication. It "changed forever how sociologists study art."

Ghosts in the Study

CASBS fellows discuss prominent former CASBS fellows who occupied their studies, including the intellectual impact the former fellows have had on their work or their lasting importance for the field/social science at large.

• Catherine Ramírez (CASBS fellow 2019-20) writes on the meaning of assimilation while reflecting upon one ghost who previously occupied her study (#51) – Alejandro Portes (1980-81) and another, Samuel Huntington (1969-70), who occupied another study.
• Rene Almeling (CASBS fellow 2019-20) explores the relationship between scientific knowledge and social inequalities while paying tribute to a ghost who previously occupied her study (#38) – Evelyn Fox Keller (1991-92).
• Sonja Amadae (CASBS fellow 2019-20; research affiliate 2020-21), drawing on classic work by Anatol Rapoport (1954-55), a "ghost" in her study (#1), explains how innovations in game theory expose systemic, persistent discrimination and can help guide us to a better future.
• Sharon Block (CASBS fellow 2020-21), inspired by the work of Ann Laura Stoler (1999-00), a "ghost" in her study (#37), reflects on the intersections of race and sexuality in a colonial context.
• Trinidad Rico (CASBS fellow 2020-21) meditates on global heritage preservation and discourse in an intellectual landscape influenced by Edward Said (1975-76), who wrote his landmark book Orientalism in study #32.
• Saumitra Jha (CASBS fellow 2020-21) explains how the pioneering work of Nobel Prize winner and former CASBS fellow Douglass North, a "ghost" in Saum's study (#38), provided him a lens for understanding how and why beliefs and norms (about, say, trust or distrust) play-out both through time and institutional structures and exert influence on human behavior and interactions.

*Thousands of scholarly articles and nearly 2,000 books have been initiated, drafted, worked upon, or completed by fellows at the Center. Many are classic, foundational works that exert significant influence on academic discourse, contemporary thought, and public policy – influence that often reverberates across decades. The books reside in the Center’s Ralph W. Tyler Collection. Explore the entire Tyler collection and view recent entries.