Jack Katz
Pride in Practice. Paths to the Acquisition of Competencies Known Only in the Doing
Einstein’s famous saying, that in life as in riding a bike one gets balance by going forward, frames a learning paradox. Some form of deception or terrifying commitment is necessary initially to go forward sufficiently to acquire the essential balance. I review various paths of social interaction through which people are pushed, guided or tricked into acquiring the sensual/aesthetic foundation of working competencies.
Jack Katz studied at Colgate University, University of Chicago Law School, and Northwestern University, where in 1976 he received his Ph. D. in sociology. From 1977 to 1979 he was a Research Associate at the Yale Law School; since 1979 he has been teaching as a Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Los Angeles. His research interests include social psychology; selves in their sensualities; ethnographic methods; urban neighborhoods in comparative and historical perspective; and crime, law and deviance. Selected publications: Poor People’s Lawyers in Transition (1982); Seductions of Crime (1988); How Emotions Work (1999); Ethical Escape Routes for Underground Ethnographers (2006).