Peter Levin’s Rethinking Markets

Maligne Lake
Academic Identity

I am assistant professor of Sociology at Barnard College. My book (and my dissertation research) is a comparative study of technology and futures trading, an ethnography of open outcry and electronic traders. My current research is on how art specialists price cultural commodities, particularly how categories and commensuration work in the secondary/resale fine arts market. I teach courses in economic sociology, organizations, and gender.

Professional Identity

I occasionally consult, focusing on organizational change, the future of technology and financial markets, and environmental markets. I do strategic assessments of markets, technology and organizational design, with qualitative and quantitative components. If you are interested, please email me.

Personal Identity

I grew up outside Chicago, and went to school(s) at Wesleyan University, USC, and Northwestern University. I currently live in New York, with a partner who is a marketing manager for an educational nonprofit. I love movies, like to cook, and I can do a mean lindy swing out. I am INTP.

May 11, 2008

UCSD culture conference

Filed under: Ramble — Peter @ 9:57 am

Back from a lovely weekend in San Diego, where I was a participant in their 4th annual Culture Conference: Crisis, Emergency, Global Processes. Aside from being a sort of former Northwestern love-fest (Amy Binder and David Pellow are from there, Ann was visiting there when I met her), it was a good mix of synthetic thinking about emergency and humanitarianism (Calhoun), genocide and institutional processes (Hironaka), market crisis (me), social movements and environmental justice responses (Pellow), and a kicker about how some solutions become viable while others fall off the table (Swidler).

The department itself, and its environs, I would highly recommend. The department hits kind of the sweet spot of being central/high-productivity enough that people are within the main circles of sociology without being too caught up in the ‘never-ending quest for becoming elite’ as to sacrifice comity for status. Being dependent on the state of California kind of stinks, per budgets and other craziness; but I think people underestimate how frickin’ wonderful that SD weather is.

I plan to post some thoughts on my own presentation, with maybe some slides, soon. In the meantime, Ann Swidler and her colleagues make a lot of sense.

Leave a Reply

Documents, Links, and Hijinks

CV, Resume, or what I do in a nutshell

CV - academic (.pdf)
Resume - Professional (.pdf)

Volunteer or give, it will make you feel better


DonorsChoose.org. This is where my partner works. It is an educational nonprofit devoted to obtaining resources for underfunded public schools.
VolunteerMatch. VM is a first stop for volunteering. You can plug in your interests, your zip code, and it will return things to do for a week, a week, or a lifetime.
Idealist.org. More than a place to volunteer, Idealist is probably the number one place my students go for career work. It is a kind of warehouse for nonprofit jobs, internships, volunteering, and the like.
Kaboom! Kaboom builds playgrounds in areas where they are needed and supported by the community. You can participate in a one-day build (though the interface kinda stinks), and they could use your money as well.
Partners in Health. This organization is just making the world better and healthier by attending to HIV and tuberculosis patients in the most impoverished places in the world. More here.

This site is hand-woven, and heavily borrows from the wonderful blueprint framwork. Rock on, grids!

Not quite Valid HTML 4.01 Strict, but getting there..