Later this morning, I will present at the Conference on Illinois History. The title of my talk is “Racial Exclusion, Public Housing, and Affordable Housing: The Cases of Chicago and Naperville” and I present in a session with my collaborator Caroline Kisiel of DePaul University.
This talk builds on previous research I did involving Cabrini-Green in Chicago and in my dissertation on the development and trajectories of three Chicago suburbs. The work is sociological but also historical. The larger scope of research involved weeks in archives looking at primary and secondary sources, reading through newspaper accounts, reading academic histories, and conducting interviews with leaders. I published portions of this work in several outlets, including the Journal of Urban History (Cabrini-Green, the surprising growth of Naperville) and Urban Affairs Review (key character moments in suburban development). Additionally, I have published work in what might be considered media studies. For example, looking at the McMansion on The Sopranos (Journal of Popular Film and Television). Or, examining the architecture and design of teardowns (Journal of Urban Design).
I have done this all with professional training in sociology. Some sociologists do more historical-comparative work and I did have some training in this during my sociology Ph.D. program. I would consider all of this work to be sociological in nature, even if conventions regarding writing, evidence, and making strong arguments differs across academic fields. I have learned much by engaging with work in other fields and it has pushed me to develop my own thinking and writing.
I am grateful for conferences, colleagues, and journals that have been gracious with a sociologist stepping into these fields.