Bryan Cannon

I am a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Georgia.  My research focuses on interactional mechanisms that underpin macrosocial inequalities.  I examine how these mechanisms contribute to the reproduction of the social order and how they can potentially be used to challenge it.  To examine these topics, I primarily make use of quantitative, longitudinal methods to study face to face group interactions in mock organizational settings. 

My dissertation focuses on the local (re)creation of inequalities in face to face interaction.  In one paper, I examine how both formal position and gender influence the “who to whom” process of turn taking in mock organizations.  Another paper takes a new approach to Doing Gender by examining quantitatively how gender effects on interruptions are mediated through locally developed interactional roles evolving within the group setting, building off a previous project focusing on the internal processes surrounding interruptions in conversation (currently back for revision and resubmission to American Sociological Review).  My final dissertation paper seeks to examine the effects of formal position and gender on how different actions are produced within group settings.  In particular, I build on conversation analysts’ discussions about examining sequencing, coding for pre- and post- sequences surrounding an action in order to examine how status processes influence how actions are “done” within an ongoing interaction.  My other present research endeavors include a number of projects building on this line of research already underway as well as a project on gender and romance in film, another on masculinity, identity, and violence, and a computational examination of culture and social institutions in the US, Egypt, and Morocco.     

At the undergraduate level, I have taught Introduction to Sociology as well as an upper division Social Psychology course each multiple times.  I am currently teaching the sociology department’s first undergraduate course in Social Networks.  At the graduate level, I have served as a teaching assistant for the second statistics course in our graduate sequence (Analysis and Interpretation of Sociological Data II) and a doctoral course in Social Network Analysis.

Finally, during my time at the University of Georgia, I have served the department as a member of the colloquium committee and have also served in a number of positions within the Laboratory for the Study of Social Interaction.  These positions included time as a project manager, assistant lab manager, and lab manager.  I remain a member of the lab’s staff presently as a technology consultant.