Daniel Cornfield
Professor of Sociology | Vanderbilt University
Nashville, TN, UNITED STATES
Expert in the American labor movement, the creative class, and work and occupation issues generally.
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Biography
Dan Cornfield is Professor of Sociology, Political Science, and American Studies at Vanderbilt University, Editor-in-Chief of Work and Occupations, and a Fellow of the Labor and Employment Relations Association. His work on artist careers, labor, civil rights, and immigration addresses the formation of inclusive and expressive occupational communities and their impact on cultural pluralism. During his Fellowship year at the Curb Center, Cornfield and a team of sociology graduate students will examine the role of local arts agencies in promoting cultural equity and community engagement in the arts in the U.S.
His Beyond the Beat: Musicians Building Community in Nashville (Princeton University Press) addresses how indie musicians strengthen their inclusive and diversifying peer community of artists in the contemporary era of the gig economy and heightened identity politics, based on his in-depth interviews with 75 Nashville popular-music musicians. Dan’s work has been widely published in social science journals, including the American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, and the ILR Review. Among his books are Becoming a Mighty Voice (Russell Sage Foundation) and Worlds of Work (Springer), co-edited with Randy Hodson. He has chaired the Metropolitan Nashville Human Relations Commission, advised WNPT (Nashville public television) in the production of its Emmy Award-winning documentary series on Nashville immigrants “Next Door Neighbors,” and presently advises the Future of Music Coalition on its artist revenue streams project and the National Endowment of the Arts on its research lab initiative, “The Arts, Creativity, Cognition and Learning.”
Cornfield earned his BA (1974), MA (1977), and PhD (1980) all in sociology from the University of Chicago.
Areas of Expertise (5)
Labor & Employment
Creative Class
Unionization
Labor Unions
Musicians
Accomplishments (4)
2008-09 Harvie Branscomb Distinguished Professor Award (professional)
Vanderbilt University
Award for Affirmative Action and Diversity Initiatives (professional)
Vanderbilt University, 2000
Excellence in Education Award (professional)
Labor and Employment Relations Association (formerly, the Industrial Relations Research Association), 2000, for outstanding teaching in the academic area of sociology (inaugural year of this award)
Outstanding Graduate Teacher Award (professional)
College of Arts and Science, Vanderbilt University, 1993
Education (3)
University of Chicago: Ph.D., Sociology 1980
University of Chicago: M.A., Sociology 1977
University of Chicago: B.A., Sociology 1974
With honors
Affiliations (7)
- Sociological Research Association : Member
- WNPT (formerly WDCN) Public Television Corporation : Chair, Community Advisory Board
- American Sociological Association : Member
- Asociación Latinoamericana de Sociología del Trabajo : Member
- Southern Sociological Society : Member
- Labor and Employment Relations Association : Member
- Society for the Study of Social Problems : Member
Links (4)
Selected Media Appearances (10)
‘Victories would be nothing less than an earthquake’: can UAW win in the south?
The Guardian online
2024-04-17
“The UAW has clearly taken a very creative, grassroots, militant approach to organizing and collective bargaining,” said Daniel Cornfield, a sociology professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. “That’s a huge change.”
Wynn Resorts reaches deal with Las Vegas unions, avoiding strike
Reuters online
2023-11-10
"This union's gains in wage increases will certainly address the heightening income inequality that has been rising not only within this particular industry but also in the national service economy," said Daniel Cornfield, a Vanderbilt University sociology professor.
Former Yellow drivers have trouble finding jobs in right-to-work Tennessee
Marketplace
2023-10-03
Tennessee, along with 27 other states, has right-to-work laws, which forbid mandatory union dues. Such laws can also divide a workforce between union and nonunion members, according to Dan Cornfield, an expert on unionization at Vanderbilt University.
Can I Watch ‘Barbenheimer’ Despite the Hollywood Strikes?
The New York Times online
2023-07-19
“The question for all workers and consumers in any strike is: Which side are you on?” said Dan Cornfield, a professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University and a labor expert. When workers are striking, there are ways for consumers and members of the public to show their support. In some cases, people can march with the workers on the picket line. Or they can boycott.
US union membership rate hits all-time low despite campaigns
AP News online
2023-01-19
Dan Cornfield, a sociology professor at Vanderbilt University who studies unions, noted that while unionization rates are declining in some sectors, like telecommunications and clothing manufacturing, they’re rising in others, including hospitality, the arts and entertainment. Younger workers are largely driving those efforts, he said.
Gen Z battles to bring back unions, one Starbucks at a time
BBC online
2021-09-16
Many Republican states have since brought in "right to work" laws that weaken unions, while increasingly large corporations use their "vast resources" to quell organising efforts, says Dan Cornfield, an expert in unionism at Vanderbilt University.
Why the Teamsters union drive at Amazon could succeed where Bessemer faltered
Yahoo! Finance online
2021-06-25
“It makes sense that this union in particular, which happens to be a very large one, would want to organize Amazon warehouses," says Dan Cornfield, a professor and labor sociologist at Vanderbilt University. "It’s a very powerful union in the economic sector in which Amazon operates."
Tensions and tempers rise on the picket lines as General Motors strike enters day three
NBC News online
2019-09-18
“For many workers, the pay gap between Barra and the workers symbolizes the actual gap between the haves’ and the have nots’ in the U.S. and the disappearance of many career ladders that have made the American dream an increasingly unattainable dream for millions of working families,” Vanderbilt University sociology professor Dan Cornfield, who studies the plight of U.S. workers in the changing economy, wrote in response to questions from NBC News.
GM strike update
Politico online
2019-09-17
The strike comes at a time when other worker movements have gained momentum in the past year and a half, Dan Cornfield, a labor expert and professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University, told Morning Shift. “That usually happens when the economy improves and workers feel more secure about making demands and not fearing unemployment so much.”
Tennessee Workers Reject Union At Volkswagen Plant — Again
NPR radio
2019-06-15
"It's not unusual for governors and U.S. Senators to vociferously oppose unions in private companies," Daniel Cornfield, a labor expert at Vanderbilt University, told NPR. "What is unusual is this governor went inside the plant and directly talked to the workers."
Selected Articles (4)
Occupational Activism and Racial Desegregation at Work: Activist Careers after the Nonviolent Nashville Civil Rights Movement
Race, Identity and WorkDaniel B. Cornfield, Jonathan S. Coley, Larry W. Isaac, Dennis C. Dickerson
2018 As a site of contestation among job seekers, workers, and managers, the bureaucratic workplace both reproduces and erodes occupational race segregation and racial status hierarchies. Much sociological research has examined the reproduction of racial inequality at work; however, little research has examined how desegregationist forces, including civil rights movement values, enter and permeate bureaucratic workplaces into the broader polity.
Randy Hodson, Agent of a New Sociology of Work: Remembrance, Reflection, and Celebration
A Gedenkschrift to Randy Hodson: Working with DignityDaniel B. Cornfield
2016 In eulogizing Randy Hodson, I reflect on and celebrate the development and deepening of Randy’s intellectual legacy as I have seen it unfold and intersected with it at different points over the years. Our careers commenced in 1980 as labor sociologists were turning their attention toward worker agency in an emerging post-bureaucratic era of neo-liberalism.
Preparation Pathways and Movement Participation: Insurgent Schooling and Nonviolent Direct Action in the Nashville Civil Rights Movement
Mobilization: An International QuarterlyLarry W. Isaac, Jonathan S. Coley, Daniel B. Cornfield, and Dennis C. Dickerson
2016 Employing a unique sample of participants in the early Nashville civil rights movement, we extend the micromobilization literature by conceptualizing “preparation pathways” (or schooling channels) through which activists acquire insurgent consciousness and capital so crucial for committed, effective, high-risk activism. We identify two key pathways in which activists were “schooled” in nonviolent praxis—experience in nonviolent direct action prior to the Nashville movement and training through intensive, highly organized, and disciplined workshops on nonviolence praxis.
“Movement Schools” and Dialogical Diffusion of Nonviolent Praxis: Nashville Workshops in the Southern Civil Rights Movement
Nonviolent Conflict and Civil ResistanceLarry W. Isaac, Daniel B. Cornfield, Dennis C. Dickerson, James M. Lawson, Jonathan S. Coley
2012 While it is generally well known that nonviolent collective action was widely deployed in the US southern civil rights movement, there is still much that we do not know about how that came to be. Drawing on primary data that consist of detailed semistructured interviews with members of the Nashville nonviolent movement during the late 1950s and 1960s, we contribute unique insights about how the nonviolent repertoire was diffused into one movement current that became integral to moving the wider southern movement.
