Janelle L. Wilson is a Professor in the Department of Studies in Justice, Culture, & Social Change at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). She holds a BA from Saginaw Valley State University (Saginaw, MI) and an MA & Ph.D. from Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, MI). Janelle is a micro-level sociologist whose primary topics of study include social constructionism, collective memory, and nostalgia.
Education
Ph.D. in Sociology, Western Michigan University, 1995
M.A. in Sociology, Western Michigan University, 1992
B.A. in Sociology, Saginaw Valley State University, 1990
A.A., Mid Michigan Community College, 1988
Books
Carmen M. Latterell & Janelle L. Wilson. (2020). Mathematical Metaphors, Memories, and Mindsets: An Examination of Personal, Social, and Cultural Influences on the Perception of Mathematics. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.
Janelle L. Wilson. (2005). Nostalgia: Sanctuary of Meaning. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania: Bucknell University Press. Also published digitally (open source) by the University of Minnesota Duluth Library’s Digital Commons (2014): Nostalgia: Sanctuary of Meaning
Select Recent Scholarly Publications
Daniel D. Martin and Janelle L. Wilson. (2024). “Boundary Work and Strategies of Compliance: The Underlife of the Ivory Tower,” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 53(5), pp. 612-63.
Carmen M. Latterell and Janelle L. Wilson (2022). “Mathematics, Mindsets, and what it Means to be Do-ers of Math.” Irish Educational Studies, 43(3) pp. 503-514.
Michael Hviid Jacobsen and Janelle L. Wilson (2021). “Sociology and Nostalgia: Micro-, Meso-, and Macro-Level Dimensions of an Ambiguous Emotion," pp. 89 – 109 in Intimations of Nostalgia: Multidisciplinary Explorations of an Enduring Emotion, edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen. Bristol: Bristol University Press.
Janelle L. Wilson (2020). “Future Imaginings: Nostalgia for Unrealized Possible Selves,” pp. 66-77 in Nostalgia Now: Cross Disciplinary Practices on the Past in the Present, edited by Michael Hviid Jacobsen. Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge.
Blog
Janelle’s “Stories of the Self” blog with Psychology Today can be accessed here: Stories of the Self
Areas of Focus
- Sociology of Everyday Life
- Nostalgia
- Social Psychology of Emotions
- Socialization
Courses Taught Regularly
- Social Psychology
- Development of Social Selves
- Deviance
- Sociology of Community