EMPLOYMENT
2020-Full Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Virginia.
2014-2020 Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Virginia.
2008-2014 Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Virginia.
EDUCATION
2008 PhD in Sociology (with distinction), University of Pennsylvania.
2003 MA Sociology, University of Pennsylvania.
2000 BA Economics and Social Theory, Hampshire College, Amherst MA.
1997 International Baccalaureate. United World College of the Atlantic, UK.
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
Economic Sociology, Network Theory, Comparative-Historical Sociology, Sociology of Ideas.
PUBLICATIONS
Books.
Polillo, Simone. 2020. The Ascent of Market Efficiency: Finance That Cannot Be Proven. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Polillo, Simone. 2013. Conservatives Versus Wildcats: A Sociology of Financial Conflict. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
· Book reviewed in the American Journal of Sociology, Contemporary Sociology, Political Studies Review, and Sociologie du Travail.
Pasanek, Brad, and Simone Polillo (editors). 2013. Beyond Liquidity: The Metaphor of Money in Financial Crisis. Oxford and New York: Routledge.
Articles and Chapters.
Polillo, Simone and Mauro F. Guillén. 2005. “Globalization Pressures and the State: The Worldwide Spread of Central Bank Independence.” American Journal of Sociology, 110: pp. 1764–1802. (Note: Article published prior to joining UVa).
Pasanek, Brad and Simone Polillo. 2011. “Beyond Liquidity. Guest Editors’ Introduction.” Journal of Cultural Economy. 4(3): pp. 231-8.
Polillo, Simone. 2011. “Money, Moral Authority, and the Politics of Creditworthiness.” American Sociological Review June (76): pp.437-464.
Polillo, Simone. 2011. “Wildcats in Banking Fields: The Politics of Financial Inclusion.” Theory and Society. 40(4): pp. 347-383. [Lead Article.]
Polillo, Simone. 2012. “Globalization: Civilizing or Destructive? An Empirical Test of the International Determinants of Generalized Trust.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology. 53(1): pp. 45-65.
Polillo, Simone. 2015. “Theorizing Efficient Markets: A Sociology of Financial Ideas.” European Journal of Sociology, 56(1): pp. 11-37.
Wang, Yingyao and Simone Polillo. 2016. “Power in Organizational Society: Macro, Meso and Micro.” Pp. 43–61 in Handbook of Contemporary Sociological Theory, Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research, edited by S. Abrutyn. Springer International Publishing.
Polillo, Simone. 2017. “From Industrial Money to Generalized Capitalization.” Chapter 5 in Money Talks, edited by Nina Bandelj, Frederick Wherry and Viviana Zelizer. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Polillo, S. 2018. “Creative networks and the determinants of intellectual recognition: Structural holes vs. mutual halos in financial economics and learning, speech, and hearing research.” Forthcoming in Ritual, Emotion, Violence: Studies on the Micro-Sociology of Randall Collins (edited by Elliott Weininger, Omar Lizardo, and Annette Laureau. Routledge).
Polillo, S. 2018 “Market Efficiency as a Revolution in Data Analysis.” Economic Anthropology 5(2): 198-209.
Polillo, S. 2020. "Solving the Paradox of Mass Investment: Expertise, Financial Inclusion and Inequality in the Politics of Credit." Review of Social Economy.
Polillo, Simone. 2020. “Crisis, Reputation, and the Politics of Expertise: Fictional Performativity at the Bank of Italy.” Review of Social Economy 1–21. doi: 10.1080/00346764.2020.1857822.
Polillo, Simone. 2022. “From Collateral to Money: Social Meaning, Security Devices and the Law in the Depersonalization of Money.” Journal of Cultural Economy 1–15.
Polillo, Simone, and André Vereta-Nahoum. 2022. "Crisis: Sovereign or Distributed?" Introduction to a special issue of American Behavioral Scientist. https://doi.org/10.1177/00027642221144842
Book Reviews and Encyclopedia Entries.
Polillo, Simone. 2009. “Into the Red: The Birth of the Credit Card Market in Postcommunist Russia by Alya Guseva.” Contemporary Sociology. 38(3): pp. 284-6.
Polillo, Simone. 2012. “Banking,” “SWIFT,” “Multilateral Development Banks.” Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization. Edited by George Ritzer. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Polillo, Simone. 2013. “Money at Work: On the Job with Priests, Poker Players, and Hedge Fund Traders, by Kevin Delaney.” Social Forces. doi:10.1093/sf/sot062.
Polillo, Simone. 2014. “Money.” Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies. Edited by Dan Cook and J. Michael Ryan. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Blackwell.
Polillo, Simone. 2014. “Central Bank Independence: Cultural Codes and Symbolic Performance, by Carlo Tognato.” British Journal of Sociology 65(1): 197-8.
Polillo, Simone. 2015. “The Bankers' New Clothes. What's Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It?” Sociologica.
Polillo, Simone. 2015. “Branding the Nation: The Global Business of National Identity,” Economic Sociology European Newsletter.
Polillo, Simone. 2015. “Architects of Austerity: International Finance and the Politics of Growth, by Aaron Major.” Journal of World System Research.
Polillo, S. 2015. “The Moral Background: An Inquiry into the History of Business Ethics By Gabriel Abend Princeton University Press. 2014. 416 Pp. $39.50 Hardcover.” Social Forces.
Polillo, S. 2017. “Freedom from Work. Embracing Financial Self-Help in the United States and Argentina By Daniel Fridman Stanford University Press. 2017. 236 Pp.” Contemporary Sociology.
INVITED TALKS
Re-Inventing Finance as a Science, book workshop, Copenhagen Business School. December 2018.
“Money, Uncertainty, and the Social Construction of Risk.” New School for Social Research, April 27, 2018.
“How Markets Became Unpredictable.” UCLA History of Science Colloquium, April 2, 2018.
Social Studies of Finance Panel, University of California Irvine, March 23, 2018.
Taming the Market: Crisis and Decision at the Federal Reserve. Conference on the work of Mitch Abolafia. Georgia State School of Law, Atlanta, April 23, 2017.
Framing the debate & discussant to Julie Nelson (keynote speaker), Markets and Morals, Conversations on Meaning and Economic Life Today, University of Virginia, April 2016.
“Creative networks and the determinants of intellectual recognition: Structural holes vs. mutual halos in financial economics and learning, speech, and hearing research.” Symposium celebrating the retirement of Randall Collins, University of Pennsylvania, April 2016.
“Money as a Realm of Experience: A Macro-Sociological Account”, Money Talks Symposium, Yale University. September 12, 2015.
Author-meets-critics, Conservatives Versus Wildcats, Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, 2015 Annual Meetings (London, UK).
“Theorizing Efficient Markets: How Financial Scholars Gain Prestige and Shape Knowledge”, Max Planck Institute, Cologne. June 26, 2014.
“Theorizing Financial Markets: A Sociology of Financial Ideas.” Invited Lecture, Duke Sociology Jensen Speaker Series, Duke University. January 17, 2014.
“Constructing Financial Prestige: How Financial Innovations Diffuse in Economics.” Global Instabilities and the Economic, Financial and Monetary Policies Orders. Conference Organized by Vincent Gayonne and Benjamin Lemoine. Paris, Sciences Po, June 2013.
"The Diffusion of Innovations in Financial Economics.” Realism and Utopianism in Modern Economics. Conference Organized by Colin Bird, University of Virginia, April 11-2 2013.
“Money as Struggle over Financial Inclusion and Financial Pyramids.” Onshoring the Offshore Workshop. Copenhagen Business School, December 2011.
“A Sociology of Financial Conflict.” Copenhagen Business School, October 2011; SCANCOR, Stanford University, October 2011; New York University, Sociology, October 2011; University of Pennsylvania, Economic Sociology Workshop, November 2011.
“Trust at the Money Trust: A Dramaturgical Theory of Trust as Performance.” Stanford University, Economic Sociology Workshop, October 2011.
“The Politics of Circuits.” Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Las Vegas, August 2011. Invitation-Only Panel Organized by Viviana Zelizer and Fred Block.
“Conservatives and Wildcats in Banking Fields.” Contextualizing Economic Behavior. Conference Organized by the NSF and the DFG (German Research Foundation). New York City. August 2008.
“The Network Structure of the Self: A Theory of Identity Politics.” ASA Junior Theorists Symposium, “Sociological Theory: The Next Generation.” Philadelphia, PA. August 2005.
CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS
“Reasonable Financial Economics.” Paper presented at the SASE 2017 annual meetings (June 2017, Lyon, France).
“Market Efficiency as a Revolution in Data Analysis.” Paper presented at 2017 Society for Economic Anthropology Annual meeting (co-sponsored by the International Sociological Association), “Financialization and Beyond,” University of Iowa, April 2017.
“Collaboration and coauthorship in the disciplinary rise of financial economics.” Paper presented at the ASA annual meetings in Seattle, August 2016.
“Quantification and the Cultural Authority of Central Banks.” Paper presented at the SASE 2016 annual meetings (June 2016, Berkeley CA).
“Are Financial Economists Creative?” Paper presented at the SASE 2015 annual meetings (June 2015, London, UK); and the American Sociological Association 2015 annual meetings (August 2015, Chicago).
“Plastic Money: Constructing Markets for Credit Cards in Eight Postcommunist Countries.” Critic on Author-Meets-Critics Panel, Eastern Sociological Society Annual Meetings, New York, February 2015.
“Credit, Democracy, and the Problem of Uncertainty: A Political Theory.” Mini-conference of the Comparative Historical Sociology Section and the Political Sociology Section, New York, August 2013.
“Money and Time.” Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, New York, August 2013.
“Constructing Financial Prestige: How Financial Innovations Diffuse in Economics.” Annual Meetings of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, Milan, June 2013.
Discussant to “Economic Culture in Post-Crisis Europe,” Annual Meetings of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, Milan, June 2013.
Discussant to “State, Finance, and Credit Rating Agencies,” Annual Meetings of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, Milan, June 2013.
“Durable Circuits as Sources of General-Purpose Currencies: Opening the Sociology of Money to the Analysis of Time.” Culture and Economy Section, Social Science History Association, Vancouver, November 2012. [Unable to attend due to weather.]
“Fiscal Capacity and International Trade.” Global Sociology Section, Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association. Denver, CO, August 2012. [Unable to attend due to personal injury.]
“Wildcats and the Politics of Financial Inclusion.” Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Atlanta, GA, August 2010.
“Money as Moral Authority.” Annual Meetings of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, Philadelphia, June 2010.
“The Multiple Logics of Money.” Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, CA, August 2009; Annual Meetings of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics, Paris, July 2009.
“States, Money, and the Reputational Work of Elites.” Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Boston, August 2008, and the Social Science History Association Meetings, Miami, October 2008.
Discussant to “Cultures of Measurement,” Social Science History Association Meetings, Miami, October 2008.
“Selves, Time and Politics.” Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, New York City. August 2007.
Discussant to “War and Taxation” by Joel Slemrod. “The Thunder of History: Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective.” Northwestern University. May 2007.
“Structuring Financial Elites: Italian Banking 1870s-1920s.” “The Thunder of History: Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective.” Workshop, Northwestern University. May 2007.
“The Dark Side of Embeddedness: The Construction of a National Economic Space in Italy, 1860-1910s.” Annual Meetings of American Sociological Association, Montreal. August 2006.
“State and Capital: The Formation of Two National Currencies.” Annual Meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society. Washington DC. 2005.
“The Early Middle-Class, U.S. Women’s Movement: Between Essentialism and Constructivism.” Annual Meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society, New York, 2004.
“Globalization Pressures and the State: the Worldwide Spread of Central Bank Independence.” Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Atlanta GA. (with Mauro Guillén). 2003.
AWARDS AND HONORS
Fellow, The UCLA Institute for Society & Genetics, 2017-18.
Sesquicentennial Leave of Absence, 2011-12, 2017-18.
University Teaching Fellow, University of Virginia, 2010-11.
Page-Barbour Committee Award to organize an Interdisciplinary Conference on “Metaphors of Money,” 2009. $7500. University of Virginia.
Summer Grant Faculty Award. 2008; 2009. $5000. University of Virginia.
Summer Research Award. 2008; 2009; 2015. University of Virginia.
Graduate Student Workshop and Conference “The Thunder of History: Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective.” Northwestern University. Travel Award. May 2007.
NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant. $7500. December 2006.
Interdisciplinary Graduate Workshop in Post Keynesian, Institutionalist, & Feminist Economics. University of Missouri-Kansas City. Tuition and Travel Award. August 2006.
University of Pennsylvania, Office of the Provost Award for Interdisciplinary Innovation. $6000. June 2006.
TEACHING
Political Sociology (Undergraduate and Graduate), Sociology of Self (UG), Economy & Society (UG), Sociological Methods (UG), Sociology of Globalization (U), Sociology of Money (UG), Economic Sociology (G).
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
National-level.
Editorial Board Member, Contemporary Sociology (2018-20).
Consulting editor, American Journal of Sociology (2016-8).
Member, Viviana Zelizer Book Award Committee for the Economic Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, 2018.
Member, Nominations Committee for the Economic Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, 2018.
Member, Nominations Committee for the Sociology of Emotions Section of the American Sociological Association, 2018.
Organizer of “Finance and Economic Sociology.” Section Session at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Montreal, 2017.
Editorial Board Member, Sociological Theory (2015-7).
Section officer, Economic Sociology, American Sociological Association (2015-8).
Co-Organizer, Economic Sociology Roundtables, Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, San Francisco, 2014.
Organizer of “Special Monies, Generalized Currencies: The Politics of Financial Conflict.” Thematic Panel at the Annual Meetings of the American Sociological Association, Las Vegas, 2011.
Member of the Reinhard Bendix Award Committee (Best Graduate Student Paper Award), Comparative Historical Section of the ASA, 2010.
Co-Organizer of “Beyond Liquidity: The Metaphor of Money in Financial Crisis.” International Interdisciplinary Conference, University of Virginia, 2009.
Occasional Reviewer for American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, International Review of Political Economy, The Policy Studies Journal, Social Forces, International Journal of Comparative Sociology, Socio-Economic Review, Sociological Forum, Administrative Science Quarterly.
University-level.
Graduate Studies Director (2015-17).
Member of the Sociology Department Graduate Admissions Committee, 2013-15.
Member of the Sociology Department 2013-14 Colloquium Series.
Lower-Level Division Undergraduate Advising, 2010-11, 2012-13.
Member of the Sociology Department Graduate Studies Committee, 2010-11.
Member of the Sociology Department Undergraduate Studies Committee, 2008-2010; 2012-13.
Organizer of the Sociology Department Work-In-Progress Workshop, 2009-11.
Co-Organizer of the Interdisciplinary “Money Reading Group,” 2009-10.