Geezer Talk: An Emeritus Professor Looks Back

This essay is a light-hearted self-examination of the career of an emeritus sociology professor. The high points of his career are touched upon, as is the fact that in retirement, he is not doing much sociology. The changes in the relevance of sociology are discussed, from the apparent relevance to social policy in the 1960's & 1970's, to more recent times when economics became the dominant social science. Other topics of discussion include: sociology as "just another occupation"; a selective overview of the author's short written pieces over the past several years; & the corporatization of public universities, particularly the University of California. T. K. Brown