Dr Yuchen Yang
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dr-yang.bsky.social
Dr Yuchen Yang
@dr-yang.bsky.social
1.3K followers 390 following 260 posts
Assistant Professor in Sociology at University of Birmingham | UChicago PhD '24 | UC Berkeley BA '17 | interactionist scholar of gender, sexualities, culture, semiotics, and childhood | friend of EMCA who stumbled into linguistic anthropology
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dr-yang.bsky.social
In Week 10, we will wrap up the module by considering methods that help us attend to the connection between the "micro" and the "macro." We will compare Burawoy's Extended Case Method with Smith's Institutional Ethnography, and then zoom into Hoang's ethnography of global sex work as an example.
Week 10: From “Small” Routine to “Big” Transformation Burawoy, Michael. 1991. “Introduction” and “The Extended Case Method.” Pp. 1–7 and Pp. 271–287 in Ethnography Unbound: Power and Resistance in the Modern Metropolis, edited by M. Burawoy et al. Berkeley: University of California Press. Smith, Dorothy E. 2005. “What is Institutional Ethnography? Some Contrasts.” Pp. 29–38 in Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People. Lanham: AltaMira Press. Smith, Dorothy E. and Alison I. Griffith. 2022. “Introduction.” Pp 3–12 in Simply Institutional Ethnography: Creating a Sociology for People. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Hoang, Kimberly Kay. 2014. “Competing Technologies of Embodiment: Pan-Asian Modernity and Third World Dependency in Vietnam’s Contemporary Sex Industry.” Gender & Society 28(4):513–536. Recommended: Burawoy, Michael. 1998. “The Extended Case Method.” Sociological Theory 16(1):4–33. Hoang, Kimberly Kay. 2014. “Flirting with Capital: Negotiating Perceptions of Pan-Asian Ascendency and Western Decline in Global Sex Work.” Social Problems 61(4):507–29. Hoang, Kimberly Kay. 2020. “Engendering Global Capital: How Homoerotic Triangles Facilitate Foreign Investments into Risky Markets.” Gender & Society 34(4):547–572. Gibson, David R. 2011. “Avoiding Catastrophe: The Interactional Production of Possibility during the Cuban Missile Crisis.” American Journal of Sociology 117(2):361–419. Lempert, Michael. 2024. From Small Talk to Micro-Aggression: A History of Scale. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Collins, Randall. 1981. “On the Microfoundations of Macrosociology.” American Journal of Sociology 86(5):984–1014.
November 29, 2025 at 5:39 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
Society as Sy-meow-ic Interaction 🐱 #SymbolicInteraction #Sociology #AcademicSky #Cat
November 28, 2025 at 8:45 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
In Week 9, we'll examine what happens when a puzzling "surprise" happens in everyday interaction. I shamelessly assigned my own article on feminist parents' accounts for their kids' *gender-stereotypical interests* and paired it with Chase Raymond's article on "Category Accounts."
Week 9: Repairing Everyday “Troubles” in Interactions Raymond, Chase Wesley. 2019. “Category Accounts: Identity and Normativity in Sequences of Action.” Language in Society 48:585–606. Yang, Yuchen. 2025. “Gender Uptake: Theorizing the Semiotics of (Un)Doing Gender.” Sociological Theory. Recommended: Scott, Marvin B., and Stanford M. Lyman. 1968. “Accounts.” American Sociological Review 33(1):46–62. Schilt, Kristen, and Catherine Connell. 2007. “Do Workplace Gender Transitions Make Gender Trouble?” Gender, Work & Organization 14(6):596–618. Gal, Susan, and Judith T. Irvine. 2019. Signs of Difference: Language and Ideology in Social Life. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
November 22, 2025 at 10:19 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
Almost cried during course prepping 😭😭😭
November 20, 2025 at 11:12 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
In Week 8, we will reflect on the methodologies and theories for studying online interactions. We will read @peterforberg.com and Schilt's comparison of digital vs analog ethnographies, and Manning and @structureless.bsky.social's comparison of animation vs performance models of/for human action.
Week 8: Methodological and Theoretical Reflections on Online Interactions Forberg, Peter L. and Kristen Schilt. 2023. “What Is Ethnographic about Digital Ethnography? A Sociological Perspective.” Frontiers in Sociology 8:1156776 Manning, Paul, and Ilana Gershon. 2013. “Animating Interaction.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 3(3):107–37. Recommended: Forberg, Peter L. 2022. “From the Fringe to the Fore: An Algorithmic Ethnography of the Far-Right Conspiracy Theory Group QAnon.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 51(3):291–317. Silvio, Teri. 2010. “Animation: The New Performance?” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 20(2):422–438.
November 16, 2025 at 10:18 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
After the reading week, we turn our focus to online interactions in Week 7. Showcasing articles by Ross ("Being Real on Fake Instagram") and Zhao ("Intrapersonal Interactions on Social Media"), this week asks, how is the construction of self in online spaces related to/divergent from offline spaces?
Week 7: Empirical Investigations of Online Interactions Ross, Scott. 2019. “Being Real on Fake Instagram: Likes, Images, and Media Ideologies of Value.” Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 29(3):359–374. Zhao, Sicong. 2025. “Intrapersonal Interactions on Social Media: Self-Curatorship within the Museum of Self.” Symbolic Interaction OnlineFirst: https://doi.org/10.1002/symb.1238 Recommended: Lane, Jeffrey. 2016. “The Digital Street: An Ethnographic Study of Networked Street Life in Harlem.” American Behavioral Scientist 60(1):43–58. Gershon, Ilana. 2010. “Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover: Media Ideologies and Idioms of Practice.” Pp. 16–49 in The Breakup 2.0: Disconnecting over New Media. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. Menchik, Daniel A. and Xiaoli Tian. 2008. “Putting Social Context into Text: The Semiotics of E-mail Interaction.” American Journal of Sociology 114(2):332–370.
November 11, 2025 at 12:13 AM
dr-yang.bsky.social
Thrilled to see that my articles are among the 10 most-read articles in Sociological Theory in the last 6 months (2nd & 8th respectively) 🥰
Gender Uptake: doi.org/10.1177/0735...
What's Hegemonic about Hegemonic Masculinity: doi.org/10.1177/0735...
November 8, 2025 at 7:03 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
Had a great time talking to European linguistic anthropologists about the problems/limits of "positionality statements"! #ELAN #LinguisticAnthropology #Ethnomethodology #ConversationAnalysis
November 7, 2025 at 1:55 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
Just realized it's been 15 years since I started playing the bass 😲 So I bought a Jack Casady semi-hollow bass to celebrate 🤩
October 26, 2025 at 2:40 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
In Week 5, we will step back from ethnography and return to #ConversationAnalysis and #MembershipCategorizationAnalysis. I assigned articles by @kevinawhitehead.bsky.social and @tianhao.bsky.social and am excited to explore how people manage "racial commonsense" in everyday life with my students!
Week 5: Race in Everyday Life Whitehead, Kevin A. 2009. “‘Categorizing the Categorizer’: The Management of Racial Common Sense in Interaction.” Social Psychology Quarterly 72(4):325–342. Zhang, Tianhao. 2024. “Identifying the Unidentified Race: A Study of Normative Features of Commonsense Knowledge of Racism in Asian Members’ Online Interaction.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity Online First: https://doi.org/10.1177/23326492241298254 Recommended: Whitehead, Kevin A., and Gene H. Lerner. 2009. “When Are Persons ‘White’?: On Some Practical Asymmetries of Racial Reference in Talk-in-Interaction.” Discourse & Society 20(5):613–41. Rawls, Anne Warfield. 2000. “‘Race’ as an Interaction Order Phenomenon: W. E. B. Du Bois’s ‘Double Consciousness’ Thesis Revisited.” Sociological Theory 18(2):241–274. Timmermans, Stefan, and Iddo Tavory. 2020. “Racist Encounters: A Pragmatist Semiotic Analysis of Interaction.” Sociological Theory 38(4):295–317. Zhang, Jienian. 2023. “Playing with Oppression: Latinx Students’ Use of Humor to Navigate Assumed Racism.” Social Psychology Quarterly 86(3):256–274.
October 24, 2025 at 4:39 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
Wearing my favorite sweater to work. Can I blend in with the undergrads?
October 24, 2025 at 12:50 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
In Week 4, we'll go down the ethnography route to explore the classed dimension of everyday interaction. I assigned Lareau's "Invisible Inequality" and @peterfrancisharvey.bsky.social's "Make Sure You Look Someone in the Eye." We'll see how this AJS + ASR pairing will work for undergrads...
Week 4: Class in Everyday Life Lareau, Annette. 2002. “Invisible Inequality: Social Class and Childrearing in Black Families and White Families.” American Sociological Review 67(5):747–76. Harvey, Peter Francis. 2022. “‘Make Sure You Look Someone in the Eye’: Socialization and Classed Comportment in Two Elementary Schools.” American Journal of Sociology 127(5):1417–1459. Recommended: West, Candace, and Sarah Fenstermaker. 1995. “Doing Difference.” Gender & Society 9(1):8–37. Calarco, Jessica McCrory. 2014. “The Inconsistent Curriculum: Cultural Tool Kits and Student Interpretations of Ambiguous Expectations.” Social Psychology Quarterly 77(2):185–209.
October 18, 2025 at 2:44 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
When I was taking Soc 101 at Berkeley in 2015, Michael Burawoy and his GSIs organized a meeting for international students to discuss our concerns about learning theory in a second language. Having benefited from that event, I decided to do the same for my students at @unibirmingham.bsky.social
October 15, 2025 at 8:40 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
In Week 3, we will extend our focus from gender to sexuality. I paired @kitzingercelia.bsky.social's CA work on person reference in medical calls with @cjpascoe.bsky.social's ethnography of homophobic epithet in school. Close analysis of mundane interaction makes heteronormativity visible.
Week 3: Sexuality in Everyday Life Kitzinger, Celia. 2005. “Heteronormativity in Action: Reproducing the Heterosexual Nuclear Family in After-Hours Medical Calls.” Social Problems 52(4):477–98. Pascoe, C. J. 2005. “‘Dude, You’re a Fag’: Adolescent Masculinity and the Fag Discourse.” Sexualities 8(3):329–46. Recommended: Pascoe, C. J. 2011. “Compulsive Heterosexuality: Masculinity and Dominance.” Pp. 84–114 in Dude, You’re a Fag: Masculinity and Sexuality in High School. Oakland: University of California Press. Ward, Jane. 2020. The Tragedy of Heterosexuality. New York: NYU Press. Tavory, Iddo. 2009. “The Structure of Flirtation: On the Construction of Interactional Ambiguity.” Studies in Symbolic Interaction 33:59–74.
October 9, 2025 at 9:23 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
"There are very few infallible rules in intellectual life, but a surely robust one would be to close any book on Northeast Asia as soon as it begins to hold forth on Confucius and Confucianism and their relevance to the contemporary era." ——John Lie, The Dream of East Asia (2018)
"There are very few infallible rules in intellectual life, but a surely robust one would be to close any book on Northeast Asia as soon as it begins to hold forth on Confucius and Confucianism and their relevance to the contemporary era." ——John Lie, The Dream of East Asia (2018)
October 7, 2025 at 11:32 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
Have you seen this acknowledgement from Goffman 🤣
October 3, 2025 at 8:09 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
In Week 2, we will read West & Zimmerman's early work on interruption in cross-gender conversation, Goffman's work on Gender Display, and a chapter from Thorne's Gender Play. Hopefully these texts will prepare the students for reading "Doing Gender" in the first week of Gender & Sexuality next year.
Week 2: Gender in Everyday Life West, Candace, and Don H. Zimmerman. 1977. “Women’s Place in Everyday Talk: Reflections on Parent-Child Interaction.” Social Problems 24(5):521–29. Goffman, Erving. 1976. “Gender Display.” Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication 3:69–77. Thorne, Barrie. 1993. “Creating a Sense of ‘Opposite Sides.’” Pp. 63–88 in Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Recommended: Goffman, Erving. 1956. “Introduction.” Pp. 1–9 in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Social Research Center. West, Candace, and Don H. Zimmerman. 1987. “Doing Gender.” Gender & Society 1(2):125–151. Messner, Michael A. 2000. "Barbie Girls versus Sea Monsters: Children Constructing Gender." Gender & Society 14(6):765-784. Lucal, Betsy. 1999. “What It Means to Be Gendered Me: Life on the Boundaries of a Dichotomous Gender System.” Gender & Society 13(6):781–797.
October 3, 2025 at 3:57 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
Achievement Unlocked: I watched 6 films by Shinkai Makoto yesterday at the Birmingham Anime Film Festival! Their Shinkai Makoto Marathon included The Place Promised in Our Early Days, The Garden of Words, 5 Centimeter Per Second, Children Who Chase Lost Voices, Your Name, and Weathering with You.
September 28, 2025 at 4:30 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
Teaching starts next Monday, so I'm PINK again! ✧٩(ˊωˋ*)و✧
September 26, 2025 at 2:57 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
I'm revamping our Sociology of Everyday Life module at @birminghamschool.bsky.social this semester to make it more interactionist and ethnomethodological. For our first lecture next week, we'll read Adler et al.'s Annual Review article and Fishman's classic piece, "Interaction: The Work Women Do." 🤩
Week 1: Introducing the Sociology of Everyday Life Adler, Patricia A., Peter Adler, and Andrea Fontana. 1987. “Everyday Life Sociology.” Annual Review of Sociology 13:217–235. Fishman, Pamela M. 1978. “Interaction: The Work Women Do.” Social Problems 25(4):397–406. Antaki, Charles. 2007. “Basic Transcription Notation Conventions.” https://learn.lboro.ac.uk/ludata/cx/ca-tutorials/notation.htm Recommended: Thorne, Barrie. 1997. “Brandeis as a Generative Institution: Critical Perspectives, Marginality, and Feminism.” Pp. 103–25 in Feminist Sociology: Life Histories of a Movement, edited by B. Laslett and B. Thorne. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Collins, Randall. 2004. “The Program of Interaction Ritual Theory.” Pp. 3–46 in Interaction Ritual Chains. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Jefferson, Gail. 2004. “Glossary of Transcript Symbols with an Introduction.” Pp. 13–31 in Conversation Analysis: Studies from the First Generation, edited by G. H. Lerner. Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
September 24, 2025 at 4:25 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
Reunion of three sociologists of childhood from Hangzhou in Birmingham!
September 14, 2025 at 9:25 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
Apparently, Google AI has already learned what I mean by "gender uptake" (mostly) within 3 days of the publication of my article 😲
September 14, 2025 at 8:45 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
After 3 years, 14 drafts, and 3 paper awards, I finally published this paper on the semiotics of (un)doing gender in my favorite journal—Sociological Theory! @sociologicaltheory.bsky.social
doi.org/10.1177/0735...
Sociological Theory - Original Article Gender Uptake: Theorizing the Semiotics of (Un)Doing Gender Yuchen Yang Abstract “Doing Gender” is often read as a theory of how people signify femininity/masculinity via expressive “performances.” This prevailing interpretation falls short of what the theory calls for—an ethnomethodologically informed analysis of gender’s emergent “naturalness.” To further this agenda, I theorize the audience’s “gender uptake” as a central component of doing gender by elaborating ethnomethodology’s attention to interpretive acts. Integrating Dorothy Smith’s intellectual legacy for feminist interpretive sociology, ethnomethodology’s neglected insight on categorization, and cultural sociology’s recent rediscovery of Peircean semiotics, I argue the facticity of gender’s “naturalness” remains underdetermined until the audience makes a series of ideological moves that cannot be predetermined by the performer. With case studies of how feminist parents account for their children’s gender-stereotypical interests, I illustrate how this audience-centered approach helps us unpack the interactional production/naturalization of categorical differences processually as open-ended negotiation of sign relations, where meaning emerges from selective attention. Keywords accounts, categorization, childhood, doing gender, ethnomethodology, pragmatist semiotics
September 11, 2025 at 2:37 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
And then my cat sealed me onto my keyboard. I guess she's saying, "You shall never stop writing."
September 3, 2025 at 8:56 PM
dr-yang.bsky.social
The Q&A page for The Chicago Manual of Style is actually quite funny
September 2, 2025 at 11:41 PM