Expert on Pop Culture, Cultural Sociology can Discuss California Gubernatorial Race

Contact: Karl Luntta (518) 437-4980

ALBANY, N.Y. (August 12, 2003) -- With the number of potential candidates in the California gubernatorial election closing in on 200, many Americans, including Californians faced with the prospect of a bodybuilder-turned-actor pulling ahead of the pack, are both intrigued and confused by the spectacle. Is Schwarzenegger's rise to the top fulfillment of the American dream, or a pop culture phenomenon?

Richard Lachmann, University at Albany associate professor of Sociology, specializes in the sociology of culture and draws on research and trends to explain our popular culture. He teaches Comparative Historical Sociology, Comparative and Historical Sociology, and Cultural Sociology, and is the author of Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflict and European Transitions (Oxford University Press, 2000) as well as numerous articles on political and cultural trends.

Lachmann received his Ph.D. and master's in Sociology from Harvard University.

Professor Lachmann is available for print and television interviews, guest commentary and expert analysis. For more information or queries, please contact University at Albany Media Relations, (518) 437-4980. For more information, visit www.albany.edu/sociology/html/faculty/lachmannr/lachmannr.htm.

Established in 1844 and designated a center of the State University of New York in 1962, the University at Albany's broad mission of excellence in undergraduate and graduate education, research and public service engages 17,000 diverse students in eight degree-granting schools and colleges. The University is engaged in a $500 million fundraising campaign, the most ambitious in its history, with the goal of placing it among the nation's top 30 public research universities by the end of the decade. For more information about this nationally ranked University, visit www.albany.edu