Public Programs And Events

The second lecture in The New School for Social Research's  Sociology Series will be delivered by John Mohr (University of California at Santa Barbara) who will give a talk entitled: “The Duality of Science and Hermeneutics: Past, Present and Possible Futures.” 

What are cultural meanings?  In what ways can we use quantitative measures to capture meanings? How have social scientists changed their approach to measuring meanings over the years? From the original invention of attitude measures by W.I. Thomas nearly a century ago, to the mapping of meaning fields by Kurt Lewin, the analysis of semantic differentials by Charles Osgood, the emergence of cognitive anthropology and network mappings of cultural discourse systems by sociologists over the last 20 years to the modern use of “topic model” technologies by computer scientists, the formal study of cultural meanings has changed dramatically over the last century, but the core questions about the nature of meaning and the central dilemmas of cultural interpretation continue to confound us. 

In this talk, Professor Mohr will address the conceptual problems and the historical progress of the social scientific approach to quantifying the study of cultural meanings and address the questions of where does the field stand today and where is it headed tomorrow?