Communication Studies Faculty

Sam Binkley

Associate Professor (2003)
B.A. Empire State College, M.A. City University of New York, M.A. New School University, Ph.D. New School University
http://pages.emerson.edu/faculty/s/samuel_binkley/cv.binkley.pdf

Sam Binkley offers courses in the sociology of identity, cultural sociology, critical theory and cultural studies.

His research considers the historical and social production of subjectivity in the context of contemporary lifestyle culture, employing theoretical frameworks derived from Pierre Bourdieu, Norbert Elias, Michel Foucault and others.  He has undertaken varied inquiries into such phenomena as lifestyle movements of the 1970s, contemporary anti-consumerist movements, consumer cultures under Cuban socialism, the temporality of neo-liberalism and contemporary therapeutic culture, all with an eye toward the fashioning of reflexive subjectivity through lifestyle choice. 

His monograph, Getting Loose: Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970s (Duke University Press, 2007), examines the role of holistic discourse in the shaping of reflexive subjectivity, and its ultimate influence on lifestyle branding.  He serves as co-editor of the journal Foucault Studies, and his articles have appeared in Subjectivities, History of the Human Sciences, Time and Society, Cultural Studies, Rethinking Marxism, The European Journal of Cultural Studies and the Journal for Cultural Research.  He is currently working on a new book on neoliberalism, positive psychology and happiness.