Background
Viviana Zelizer (born January 19, 1946) was the daughter of S. Julio Rotman and Rosita Weill de Rotman, and raised in Argentina, where she attend University of Buenos Aires and studied law for two years.
Viviana Zelizer (born January 19, 1946) was the daughter of S. Julio Rotman and Rosita Weill de Rotman, and raised in Argentina, where she attend University of Buenos Aires and studied law for two years.
She attend Rutgers University where she graduated, Phi Beta Kappa, with a Bachelor of Arts in 1971. In 1977, Zelizer received a Doctor of Philosophy in sociology.
She is a prominent economic sociologist who focuses on the attribution of cultural and moral meaning to the economy. A constant theme in her work is economic valuation of the sacred, as found in such contexts as life insurance settlements and economic transactions between sexual intimates. In 2006 she was elected to the Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association American Center and in 2007 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.
She went on to graduate school in sociology at Columbia University where she received an The Master of Philosophy and an Master of Arts in 1974.
Zelizer identifies four scholars at Columbia that influenced her intellectual career: Sigmund Diamond, Bernard Barber, David Rothman, and Robert K. Merton. She then joined the Department of Sociology at Rutgers University from 1976-1978.
In 1976, Zelizer took an assistant professorship at Barnard College and Graduate Faculty of Columbia University, and advanced to Full Professor in 1985. She then joined the sociology faculty at Columbia University as a Full Professor, where she chaired the Department of Sociology from 1992-1996.
She was named the Lloyd Cotsen ‘50 Professor of Sociology in 2002.
From 1987 to 1988 she was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation where she met another visiting scholar, notable sociologist Charles Tilly. In 1996-1997, Zelizer was a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study. In 2001, she was the elected the first chair of the newly created Economic Sociology section of the American Sociological Association and in 2003 the Economic Sociology section named its annual book prize the Zelizer Distinguished Book Award.
Zelizer"s son, Julian Zelizer, joined Princeton"s Department of History Public Affairs in 2007, becoming "what is believed to be the first mother-son professorial team in Princeton’s history.".
In 2001 she was also elected a member of the Council of the section on Comparative/Historical Sociology of the American Statistical Association.