Mark Granovetter - Weak ties, living questions, and the history and future of social science

10/31/23 • 60 min

Mark Granovetter has made and remade our understanding of social networks, social theory, collective action, and economic sociology, making and remaking our world in the process. It would not be hyperbole to say that few living scholars have had the influence of Mark Granovetter.
Origins Podcast Website

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Show Notes:

Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell (9:00)
Interest in world history (10:00)
A History of the Modern World (11:00)
Why are there revolutions? (12:00)
Philosophy of science (13:00)
Carl Hempel (13:00)
- What does it mean to explain in science?
Talcott Parsons (15:00)
BF Skinner (16:00)
A philosophy of asking questions (17:00)
"The function of general laws in history" (18:00)
Universal peeking out from the particular (20:00)
Max Weber (23:00)
Norbert Weiner (30:00)
The Strength of Weak Ties (30:00)
The Great Fear of 1789 by Georges Lefebvre (31:00)
Harrison White (33:00)
Anatol Rapoport (37:00)
Stanley Milgram (40:30)
Danielle Allen (43:00)
Threshold analysis (45:00)
Lightning round (54:00)
- Book: Economy and Society by Max Weber
- Passion: anywhere asking questions that expand you
- Heart Sing: working on new book and teaching
- Screwed up: life balance
Find Mark online:
- https://sociology.stanford.edu/people/mark-granovetter
'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series
- Mark’s playlist

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez

Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:

Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell (9:00)
Interest in world history (10:00)
A History of the Modern World (11:00)
Why are there revolutions? (12:00)
Philosophy of science (13:00)
Carl Hempel (13:00)
- What does it mean to explain in science?
Talcott Parsons (15:00)
BF Skinner (16:00)
A philosophy of asking questions (17:00)
"The function of general laws in history" (18:00)
Universal peeking out from the particular (20:00)
Max Weber (23:00)
Norbert Weiner (30:00)
The Strength of Weak Ties (30:00)
The Great Fear of 1789 by Georges Lefebvre (31:00)
Harrison White (33:00)
Anatol Rapoport (37:00)
Stanley Milgram (40:30)
Danielle Allen (43:00)
Threshold analysis (45:00)
Lightning round (54:00)
- Book: Economy and Society by Max Weber
- Passion: anywhere asking questions that expand you
- Heart Sing: working on new book and teaching
- Screwed up: life balance
Find Mark online:
- https://sociology.stanford.edu/people/mark-granovetter
'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series
- Mark’s playlist

Logo artwork by Cristina Gonzalez

Music by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Previous Episode

Tina Eliassi-Rad - A master class in network thinking and the kind of life it makes

Tina Eliassi-Rad is a network science pioneer, and an intrepid explorer of where network science shows up in our world and how we understand that. Her work, as her life, falls across network science, complexity, artificial intelligence, and commitments to democracy and equality, itself a constellation of experiences and literacies befitting our increasingly complex world.
Origins Podcast Website

Flourishing Commons Newsletter
Show Notes:

Jon Kleinberg (09:20)
Northeastern Network Science Institute (12:20)
Bruch and Newman Aspirational pursuit of mates in online dating markets (13:40)
What is a complex system? Ladyman and Wiesner (14:45)
What science can do for democracy: a complexity science approach (15:10)
Faloutsos (19:00)
Ron Burt (24:10)
"Examining Responsibility and Deliberation in AI Impact Statements and Ethics Reviews" Liu et al. (27:30)
Research group of the future (37:20)
The ground truth about metadata and community detection in networks (43:30)
Fariba Karimi (44:00)
Lightning Round (51:00)
- Book: Jane Eyre
- Passion: Philosophy
- Heart sing: AI systems as part of complex systems
- Screwed up: Cooking
Tina online:
- http://eliassi.org/
'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series
- Tina’s playlist

Music swelo

Next Episode

Ingrid Daubechies - The "Godmother of digital image" on the beauty of the world

Ingrid Daubechies is endlessly, irrepressibly, beautifully curious. She is a Belgian physicist and mathematician whose scientific achievements have rippled across society in all directions for the past 35 years. But, more than that, she's a fierce champion of diversity and equality, in math and science, in women's rights, in opportunity. To sit with Ingrid, her math and her life, is to illuminate our world and inspire us to imagine other worlds.
Origins Podcast Website

Flourishing Commons Newsletter

Show Notes:

Depression (05:30)
Krista Tippett On Being Podcast (07:15)
Arthur Zajonc (10:10)
Exponential thinking (14:20)
Applied mathematics (19:00)
Daubechies wavelet (20:00)
The life of a researcher (25:00)
Collaboration (27:00)
Bell Labs (29:00)
What is changing in the field of mathematics (32:00)
Creating a community (34:00)
Teaching: helping a person grow into the fullness of their imagination (36:00)
Mathemalchemy (39:00)
The Bridges Organization (40:00)
Time to Break Free by Dominique Ehrmann (41:00)
Mathemalchemy comic book (45:30)
Bridging ties (47:00)
Experiences at Burning Man (47:20)
Pico Iyer (50:30)
Museum of Mathematics (51:00)
Flatiron Institute (51:30)
Lighting Round (54:00)
- Book: The Broken Earth series by NK Jemisin; Digger by Ursula Vernon
- Passion: Social justice
- Heart sing: Temari
- Screwed up: Aspects of parenting
Find Ingrid online:
- https://ece.duke.edu/faculty/ingrid-daubechies
- The Godmother of the Digital Image New York Times
'Five-Cut Fridays’ five-song music playlist series
- Ingrid’s playlist