Presenting at the Yale Center for Cultural Sociology's weekly workshop

On February 1st, I achieved a big milestone for junior fellow of the Yale Center for Cultural Sociology: presenting a paper at the weekly workshop. My paper is entitled, “Audiences Becoming Actors in Charismatic Performance: A study of Sarah Osborn and George Whitefield in the Great Awakening.” Using cultural pragmatics theory in the Strong Program tradition of cultural sociology, I argue that the audience has been under theorized as an element of social performance. Through a study of Sarah Osborn, a radical layperson in Newport, Rhode Island during the Great Awakening, I show that the audience has more agency in generating charismatic power than has previously been assumed.

We had a lively discussion, and a gleaned a lot of great feedback and ideas. As it is my second year paper (the master’s thesis), I will now make revisions before presenting at the Comparative Research Workshop here at Yale in a few weeks, and then will submit in May when I receive my Master’s degree.