Daniel B. Cornfield
Professor of Sociology
Editor-in-Chief, Work and Occupations
Affiliated Faculty, Political Science and Blair School of Music
Harvie Branscomb Distinguished Professor Award
Elected Member, Sociological Research Association
Fellow, Labor and Employment Relations Association
Daniel B. Cornfield (Ph.D., University of Chicago) is Professor of Sociology, Editor-in-Chief of Work and Occupations, a Fellow of the Labor and Employment Relations Association, and an elected member of the Sociological Research Association. His work on labor, civil rights, artist communities, and immigration has appeared in such journals as the American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, and Social Science History and several books including Becoming a Mighty Voice: Conflict and Change in the United Furniture Workers of America (Russell Sage Foundation) and Beyond the Beat: Musicians Building Community in Nashville (Princeton University Press) and been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Russell Sage Foundation. He comments for major news outlets including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and the BBC and has received the Harvie Branscomb Distinguished Professor Award from Vanderbilt University and the Excellence in Education Award from the Labor and Employment Relations Association.
Specializations
Work and Occupations; Social Inequality; Social Movements
Representative Publications
Cornfield, D. B. (2023). The New Labor Activism, a New Labor Sociology. Work and Occupations, 50(3), 316–334.
Cornfield, D. B., Herbolsheimer, C., & Bastian, S. (2023). In Pursuit of Cultural Equity: DEI Grantmaking Practices of U.S. Local Arts Agencies in Community Context. American Behavioral Scientist, 0(0).
Cornfield, D., Coley, J., Isaac, L., & Dickerson, D. (2021). The Making of a Movement: An Intergenerational Mobilization Model of the Nonviolent Nashville Civil Rights Movement. Social Science History, 1-26. doi:10.1017/ssh.2021.18
Daniel Cornfield, Dennis Dickerson, Larry Isaac, and Reverend James M. Lawson, Jr. 2021. “Learning from the Nashville model of social change,” Op-ed, Los Angeles Times, March 28, 2021.
Daniel B. Cornfield, Jonathan S. Coley, Larry W. Isaac, and Dennis C. Dickerson. 2019. “Occupational Activism and Race Desegregation at Work: Activist Careers after the Nonviolent Nashville Civil Rights Movement.” Pp. 217-248 in Research in the Sociology of Work, vol. 32, special issue on “Race, Identity, and Work.”
Daniel B. Cornfield, Rachel E. Skaggs, Elizabeth K. Barna, Megan L. Jordan, and Megan E. Robinson. “Equity and Engagement in the Arts: Regional Differences in the Missions of Local Arts Agencies in the United States.” Policy Paper, Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy, Vanderbilt University, June 6, 2018.
Cornfield, Daniel. 2016. "Randy Hodson, Agent of a New Sociology of Work: Remembrance, Reflection, and Celebration." Pp. xvii - xxv in Lisa A. Keister and Vincent J. Roscigno (eds.), A Gedenkschrift to Randy Hodson: Working with Dignity, Research in the Sociology of Work, vol. 28. Emerald Publishing.
Cornfield, Daniel. 2015. Beyond the Beat: Musicians Building Community in Nashville. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Cornfield, Daniel. 2014. “Integrative Organizing in Polarized Times: Toward Dynamic Trade Unionism in the Global North.” pp. 151-168 in Lee Adler, Maite Tapia, and Lowell Turner (eds.), Mobilizing against Inequality: Unions, Immigrant Workers, and the Crisis of Capitalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2014.
Cornfield, Daniel. 2006. “Immigration, Economic Restructuring, and Labor Ruptures: From the Amalgamated to Change to Win.” WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society 9: 215-23.
Cornfield, Daniel, Angela Arzubiaga, Rhonda BeLue, Susan L. Brooks, Tony N. Brown, Oscar Miller, Douglas D. Perkins, Peggy A. Thoits, and Lynn S. Walker. 2003. Final Report of the Immigrant Community Assessment, commissioned by Mayor Bill Purcell, Nashville, Tennessee.
Cornfield, Daniel B. and Bill Fletcher. 1998. “Institutional Constraints on Social Movement 'Frame Extension': Shifts in the Legislative Agenda of the American Federation of Labor, 1881-1955.” Social Forces 76(4): 1305-1321.
Cornfield, Daniel. 1989. Becoming a Mighty Voice: Conflict and Change in the United Furniture Workers of America. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Cornfield, Daniel. 1986. "Declining Union Membership in the Post‑World War II Era: The United Furniture Workers of America, 1939‑1982." American Journal of Sociology 91(5): 1112‑53.