Richard Austin Peterson (September 28, 1932 – February 4, 2010) was an American sociologist and Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University.
Richard A. Peterson | |
|---|---|
 Pete Peterson in 2008 | |
| Born | Richard Austin Peterson September 28, 1932 |
| Died | February 4, 2010 (aged 77) |
| Alma mater | Oberlin College (B.A.) University of Illinois (Ph.D.) |
| Known for | sociology of culture, sociology of music |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Sociology |
| Institutions | Vanderbilt University |
| Academic advisors | Alvin Gouldner |
Early life and education
editRichard Peterson was born in Mussoorie, British India, where his father was a missionary. He graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor's, and attended graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he worked with the sociologist Alvin Gouldner and completed his PhD in 1962[2] In 1965, Peterson received a job in the sociology department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.[3] It was there that he began to study the country music scene in-depth.
He was the founding chairman of the American Sociological Association's culture section, and the section's prize for the best graduate student paper is named in honor of him. He was a major contributor to the "production of culture" perspective within the sociology of culture,[4][5][6] and a widely known scholar of popular music, country-western in particular. Peterson's highly-cited book Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity "is one of the most important scholarly works ever written about the genre".[7]
The journal Poetics released a special double issue devoted to the contributions of Peterson to the sociology of culture.[8]
Works
edit- Peterson, R.A. and Simkus, A. (1992) 'How Musical Tastes Mark Occupational Status Groups', in M. Lamont and M. Fournier (eds) Cultivating Differences, pp 152–86. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- Peterson, Richard A. (August 1992). "Understanding audience segmentation: From elite and mass to omnivore and univore". Poetics. 21 (4): 243–258. doi:10.1016/0304-422X(92)90008-Q.
- Peterson, Richard A.; Kern, Roger M. (October 1996). "Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore". American Sociological Review. 61 (5): 900–909. doi:10.2307/2096460.
- Peterson, Richard A. (November 1997). "Changing representation of status through taste displays: An introduction". Poetics. 25 (2–3): 71–73. doi:10.1016/S0304-422X(97)00012-0.
- Peterson, R.A. (2005) 'Problems in Comparative Research: The Example of Omnivorousness', Poetics 33(5—6): 257—82 .
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References
edit- ^ U.S., Consular Reports of Births, 1910-1949
- ^ "Vanderbilt University – Department of Sociology". 2008-05-04. Archived from the original on 2008-05-04. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ^ "Sociologist Pete Peterson has died – Vanderbilt University: myVU". 2010-02-11. Archived from the original on 2010-02-11. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) - ^ Dowd, Timothy J.; Janssen, Susanne (1 April 2010). "Richard A. Peterson (1932–2010)". Poetics. 38 (2): 111–113. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2010.03.001. hdl:1765/101857.
- ^ Inglis, David; Almila, Anna-Mari (2016-05-09). The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Sociology. SAGE. ISBN 978-1-4739-5868-5.
- ^ Hirsch, Paul M and Peer C. Fiss (2000). "Doing sociology and culture: Richard Peterson's quest and contribution." Poetics 28: 97-105.
- ^ "Richard A. "Pete" Peterson, Country Music Scholar, Dead at 77". Nashville Scene. Retrieved 2017-01-02.
- ^ van Eijck, Koen (December 2000). "Richard A. Peterson and the culture of consumption". Poetics. 28 (2–3): 207–224. doi:10.1016/S0304-422X(00)00022-X. Retrieved 15 December 2022.