Raj Andrew Ghoshal

As an overview of some of my research, here's a Wordle of my dissertation proposal:

I am interested in social inequality and social justice.  Professionally, this translates into research and teaching interests in three fields: (a) race, class, & gender (especially race); (b) cultural sociology (especially collective memory studies); and (c) social movements and politics. 

Currently, my research centrally concerns social movements aimed at marking historic white-on-black racial atrocities in the United States.  Why are mobilizations occuring around some historic incidents, but not others? Under what conditions do these movements facilitate broader engagement in present-day racial justice issues? Are there instances where they divert attention from present day racial justice struggles? How can we understand the roles that governments, elites, and white Americans have played these struggles?  These questions were at the heart of my dissertation, which used rare-events logistic regression and case study techniques to investigate the origins and trajectories of these commemorative movements.  

In addition to this research, I have published research on narratives in the same-sex marriage debate, have a co-authored empirical paper examining the demographics of protest in the United States for the last 40 years, and have a co-authored theoretical paper in progress about privilege.  Other projects in the works include a study on unconscious prejudice and various papers growing out of my dissertation.