themurmuration
a podcast about sociology
Murmuration (noun)
1 Flight pattern of starlings characterized by spontaneous complex patterns.
2 An emergent behavioral property; “individuals-as-a-group” rather than in-a-group.
3 Metaphor for society.
Daniel Newell McLane is a sociologist and educator based in upstate New York. He got his PhD in sociology because the discipline allowed him to answer questions he had about the world in a way that other paths had not.
As an undergraduate he attended four schools in four years, along the way studying field ecology in Botswana.
He has been employed as a factory worker, a waiter and bartender, served as an AmeriCorps member, lived in a yurt on an organic CSA farm, spent some time translating trail guides at a rainforest preserve in Costa Rica, and sang for a rock band.
He obtained graduate degrees in international affairs and natural resources and sustainable development before finding sociology, in which he earned his PhD.