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Matthew Soener

Profile picture for Matthew Soener

Contact Information

702 S Wright Street
3120 Lincoln Hall
Urbana, IL 61801
M/C 454
Phone: 217-300-6396
Assistant Professor

Biography

Prior to joining UIUC, I worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Sciences Po in Paris. I received my Ph.D. in sociology from the Ohio State University in 2018 and received a BA from the University of Kansas. 

Research Interests

Economic Sociology; Environmental Sociology; Race, Gender, and Class; Theory; Political Economy; Global and Transnational Sociology; Political Sociology

Research Description

My research combines classic themes from political economy, economic sociology, and inequality to understand contemporary socio-economic problems. I am broadly interested in the way global capitalism has transformed over the last half century. At the heart of this change is a major shift in the balance-of-power and material distribution. I follow these threads in three research tracks. First, I have studied "financialization" in relation to the restructuring of global production, corporate power, and state theory. Second, I have done research on inequality including between labor/capital and native, gender, and class wage gap dynamics in workplaces. Third, and more recently, I apply some of these themes to climate change. I am interested in forces driving in greenhouse gas emissions including exploitation, austerity, and stagnating growth. Going forward, I will explore the historical roots of some of these dynamics in a project on US state's economic and energy policies from the postwar period through the 1970s.

 

Courses Taught

Soc 200: Introduction to Social Theory

Soc 226: Political Sociology

Soc 500: Classical Social Theory

Soc 501: Contemporary Social Theory 

Soc 596: Political Economy

Soc 596: Political Sociology

Recent Publications