Scholarship and Biography
Laura J. Miller is Professor and Chair of Sociology. She came to Brandeis in 2002, having previously taught at the University of Western Ontario and Vassar College. Professor Miller teaches courses in the sociology of culture, the mass media, food studies, and urban sociology
Her research is centered on understanding the interaction between cultural and economic processes. This interest has led to studies that examine information, media, and lifestyle industries, the contributions of such industries to consumer culture, and the role of commercial institutions in community life and social change. Her last book, Building Nature's Market: The Business and Politics of Natural Foods, published in 2017, examines the relationship between the health/natural foods industry and natural foods as a social and cultural movement. Her 2006 book, Reluctant Capitalists: Bookselling and the Culture of Consumption, was on book marketing and retailing in the twentieth century, with a focus on the growth of large, corporate-owned chain bookstores. Miller's current research project examines the publishing history of vegetarian cookbooks in the United States in order to trace changing meanings attached to a vegetarian way of life and the advocacy of vegetarianism.