After receiving 34 high-quality applications, the FPO engaged in a careful two-stage selection process, first by examining the application materials and second via a Zoom meeting with the four finalists, and we are now delighted to announce our next Hodges doctoral dissertation for the academic year 2022-23: James Sirigotis.
James Sirigotis is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His dissertation, entitled Resilient Optionality: (Infra)structure of water, feeling, and finance, explores the relationship between emotion, economy, and climate resilience in California as a window into changing orientations to future uncertainty. He is interested in how the structures of human orientations toward future uncertainty change in response to broader social, economic, and environmental conditions that shape people’s horizon of possibility. His dissertation investigates these concerns by historicizing the rise of resilience thinking. He shows how the central, orienting logic of resilience—what he calls the logic of optionality—animates core and seemingly unrelated aspects of modern society, from the deep history of financial valuation and natural resource management to more contemporary issues of climate adaptation and financial resilience. James engages with these ideas by tracing the historical unfolding of water infrastructure projects, the sentiments surrounding them, and their financing in California from the 1950s to the present.
Congrats and welcome James!