Francesco Duina and the Convocation keynote

In his 2011 Convocation keynote address, Professor of Sociology Francesco Duina will draw from his book Winning, inviting all incoming students at Bates to reflect on the fact that all the words that guide us in life — such as love, friend, rich, poor, exciting, right, wrong and so on — are socially constructed; and inviting the students to create, during their time at Bates, their own understanding of such terms. He will also talk about time, and more specifically the challenges that come with achievement and transitions, urging students to use their college career in a way that will result in “a simple continuation of their unfolding” rather than a next step.

Duina is a sociologist whose research interests include economic sociology, international political economy, historical institutionalism, globalization, comparative regional integration and the sociology of culture. At Bates he has taught economic sociology, comparative sociology, sociological theory, globalization, European integration and the sociology of competition.

His pioneering 2006 study, The Social Construction of Free Trade: The European Union, NAFTA, and Mercosur (Princeton University Press, 2007), is forthcoming in Chinese translation by China Social Sciences Publishing House. His next book, Institutions and the Economy, will be published this September by Polity Press.

Now in his 11th year at Bates, Duina received a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s degree in social sciences from the University of Chicago; and a master’s degree and doctorate in sociology from Harvard University.