Weird Stuff People Steal
So my apartment in Copenhagen got robbed this afternoon–while I was in it. Dudes broke down the door, walked right past a flat panel television, and failed to try the bedroom doors, behind which they would have found a couple of new, easily fence-able laptops. And me. Having ignored all the pricey and highly portable electronics, guess what they stole? The living room light fixture.

Guest Post: The Economic Sociology of Triathlons
This guest post is the first in what I hope will be a series of contributions by some of my former students from Brown University: people who took my course in Economic Sociology, and who have stayed in touch over the years. It’s always wonderful to hear from former students, and especially so when they find that material from my classes has been helpful in navigating their post-university lives. Since I was always rattling on in lectures about how pragmatic and useful Sociology can be–I was particularly fond of quoting Kurt Lewin, who is credited with saying “there is nothing so practical as a good t

Money and Medicine, Part II: Economic Culture Shock
A sign whose like you will never see in Germany. Taken in Mountain View, CA. You know what’s really fun? Being sick and in pain, up the middle of the night, trying to decipher the directions inside a box of pain medication, in a language you don’t really understand that well. I go