
Contact Information
310 Garland Hall
615-322-8539
Email
On leave Fall 2020
Research Interests
- Science and Technology
- Environmental Sociology
- Political Sociology
- Social Movements
Education
PhD, Cornell University, 1987
Curriculum Vitae
David J. Hess
Professor of Sociology
James Thornton Fant Chair in Sustainability Studies
Associate Director, Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment
Director, Program on Environmental and Sustainability Studies
What is the role of social movements, industry, scientific research, and political parties in the pace at which governments support the transition to more sustainable technologies?
The world today is often described as a "knowledge society or technological society." I view attention to issues of knowledge, technology, and the politics of industrial development not merely as specialty areas but as crucial sites for understanding the contemporary world. My current work focuses on the politics of industrial transitions, especially factors that lead to a more sustainable economy and society and factors that lead to stasis in transition policies. In this area of work I am interested especially in the dynamics of coalitions in support of and opposed to policies in support of more sustainable technological and industrial systems. I investigate the role of incumbent industries, countervailing industrial power, scientists and research, social movements and advocacy groups, entrepreneurs, and the small business sector. This body of work includes studies of industrial opposition movements and alternative industrial movements.
Selected Publications
2016. Undone Science: Social Movements, Mobilized Publics, and Industrial Transitions. MIT Press.
2014. Fields of Knowledge: Science, Politics, and Publics in the Neoliberal Age (Political Power and Social Theory, vol. 27), edited by Scott Frickel and David Hess.
2016. David J. Hess, Christopher A. Wold, Elise Hunter, John Nay, Scott Worland, Jonathan Gilligan, and George M. Hornberger. 2016. “Drought, Risk, and Institutional Politics in the American Southwest.” Sociological Forum 31(S1): 807-827. 10.1111/socf.12274. Open access.
2016. David J. Hess, Sulfikar Amir, Scott Frickel, Daniel Lee Kleinman, Kelly Moore, and Logan Williams. “Structural Inequality and the Politics of Science and Technology.” In Rayvon Fouché, Clarke Miller, Laurel Smith-Doerr, and Ulrike Felte (eds.), Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. MIT Press. Pp. 319-347.
2016. Anna Lamprou and David J. Hess. 2016. “Finding Political Opportunities: Civil Society, Industrial Power, and the Governance of Nanotechnology in the European Union.” Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 2: 35-54.
For a full list of publications and some full texts, go to www.davidjhess.net