SCIENCE IN HUMAN CULTURE PROGRAM

Also affiliated with the Department of Sociology.

Mariana Craciun works at the intersection of the sociology of knowledge, social studies of science, and the sociology of medicine. Her dissertation examined the psychotherapeutic practices by which psychoanalytic and “evidence-based” clinicians understand and treat mental and emotional problems. Building on this project, and the extensive ethnographic observations and interviews that informed it, she is currently writing a book manuscript entitled Chasing Freud's dream: Psychotherapy between science and emotion. The book captures the field of talk therapy in a transitional moment, torn between psychoanalytic approaches and the newer, cognitive and behavioral interventions. She shows that these two orientations form intersecting epistemic cultures that are differentially valued in medical institutions and American culture more broadly. Two other projects focus on knowledge and its role in making worth claims. An article she is co-authoring with Jason Owen-Smith examines the role of scientists in science policy making, focusing specifically on embryonic stem cell research. Another article, published in Ethnic and Racial Studies, details Romanian immigrants’ ambivalent relationship to Americanness, and their attempts at moral bricolage as they strategically use various racial and cultural elements to enhance their own moral worth.