Richard A. Peterson (sociologist) explained

Richard A. Peterson
Birth Name:	Richard Austin Peterson
Birth Date:	September 28, 1932
Birth Place:	Mussoorie, British India^[1]
Death Date:	February 4, 2010 (aged 77)
Death Place:	Nashville, Tennessee
Fields:	Sociology
Workplaces:	Vanderbilt University
Alma Mater:	Oberlin College (B.A.) University of Illinois (Ph.D.)
Academic Advisors:	Alvin Gouldner
Known For:	sociology of culture, sociology of music

Richard Austin Peterson (September 28, 1932 – February 4, 2010) was an American sociologist and Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University.

Early life and education

Richard Peterson was born in Mussoorie, British India, where his father was a missionary. He graduated from Oberlin College with a bachelor's, and attended graduate school at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he worked with the sociologist Alvin Gouldner and completed his PhD in 1962^[2] In 1965, Peterson received a job in the sociology department at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.^[3] It was there that he began to study the country music scene in-depth.

He was the founding chairman of the American Sociological Association's culture section, and the section's prize for the best graduate student paper is named in honor of him. He was a major contributor to the "production of culture" perspective within the sociology of culture,^{[4] [5] [6]} and a widely known scholar of popular music, country-western in particular. Peterson's highly-cited book Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity "is one of the most important scholarly works ever written about the genre".^[7]

The journal Poetics released a special double issue devoted to the contributions of Peterson to the sociology of culture.^[8]

Works

• Peterson, R.A. and Simkus, A. (1992) 'How Musical Tastes Mark Occupational Status Groups', in M. Lamont and M. Fournier (eds) Cultivating Differences, pp 152–86. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Peterson . Richard A. . Understanding audience segmentation: From elite and mass to omnivore and univore . Poetics . August 1992 . 21 . 4 . 243–258 . 10.1016/0304-422X(92)90008-Q.
• Peterson . Richard A. . Kern . Roger M. . https://www.jstor.org/stable/2096460 --> Changing Highbrow Taste: From Snob to Omnivore . American Sociological Review . October 1996 . 61 . 5 . 900–909 . 10.2307/2096460 .
• Peterson . Richard A. . Changing representation of status through taste displays: An introduction . Poetics . November 1997 . 25 . 2-3 . 71–73 . 10.1016/S0304-422X(97)00012-0.
• Peterson, R.A. (2005) 'Problems in Comparative Research: The Example of Omnivorousness', Poetics 33(5—6): 257—82 .

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Notes and References

1. U.S., Consular Reports of Births, 1910-1949
2. Web site: Vanderbilt University – Department of Sociology . 2008-05-04 . 2017-01-02 . bot: unknown . https://web.archive.org/web/20080504021357/http://www.vanderbilt.edu/sociology/VDOS_People_RichardPeterson.shtml . 2008-05-04 .
3. Web site: Sociologist Pete Peterson has died – Vanderbilt University: myVU . 2010-02-11 . 2017-01-02 . bot: unknown . https://web.archive.org/web/20100211151231/http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/myvu/news/2010/02/05/sociologist-pete-peterson-has-died.106373 . 2010-02-11 .
4. Richard A. Peterson (1932–2010). Timothy J.. Dowd. Susanne. Janssen. 1 April 2010. Poetics. 38. 2. 111–113. 10.1016/j.poetic.2010.03.001. 1765/101857. free.
5. Book: The SAGE Handbook of Cultural Sociology. Inglis. David. Almila. Anna-Mari. 2016-05-09. SAGE. 978-1-4739-5868-5. en.
6. Hirsch, Paul M and Peer C. Fiss (2000). "Doing sociology and culture: Richard Peterson's quest and contribution." Poetics 28: 97-105.
7. News: Richard A. "Pete" Peterson, Country Music Scholar, Dead at 77. Nashville Scene. 2017-01-02.
8. van Eijck . Koen . Richard A. Peterson and the culture of consumption . Poetics . December 2000 . 28 . 2-3 . 207–224 . 10.1016/S0304-422X(00)00022-X . 15 December 2022.