Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer (born January 19, 1946) is an American sociologist and the Lloyd Cotsen '50 Professor of Sociology atPrinceton University. She is aneconomic sociologist who focuses on the attribution ofcultural andmoral meaning to the economy. A constant theme in her work is the 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 thePEN American Center. In 2007, she was elected to both theAmerican Academy of Arts & Sciences and theAmerican Philosophical Society.^[1]

Viviana Zelizer was born on January 19, 1946, inBuenos Aires, to S. Julio Rotman and Rosita Weill de Rotman.^[2] She attended the University of Buenos Aires and studied law for two years.^[3] In 1967, she emigrated to the United States^[2] when she married her husband, Rabbi Gerald L. Zelizer, who had been Rabbi of Congregation Beth El in Buenos Aires from 1964 to 1966.^[4] Gerald became the rabbi of Congregation Neve Shalom inMetuchen,New Jersey for 45 years, from 1970 to 2015.^[5][6]

She attended Rutgers University, where she graduatedPhi Beta Kappa, with aB.A. in 1971. She went on to graduate school in sociology atColumbia University where she received anMPhil, anM.A. in 1974, and aPh.D. in sociology in 1977.

Zelizer has named four scholars at Columbia, who influenced her intellectual career: Sigmund Diamond, Bernard Barber,David Rothman, andRobert K. Merton.^[7] Diamond (whose PhD was in history) and Barber were her primary mentors in sociology, and Rothman in the history department. Zelizer has said that Merton was always present, but at a distance.

Zelizer's unique approach to sociology by way of social history was an initial burden, as she recounts:

I remember all too painfully an early interview for a job in a university sociology department during which my interrogators asked pointedly how my social historical research qualified as sociology at all.^[7]

From 1976 to 1978, she joined the Department of Sociology atRutgers University. In 1976, she took an assistant professorship atBarnard College and Graduate Faculty of Columbia University. She advanced to full professor in 1985. She then returned to Columbia University as a full professor, where she chaired the Department of Sociology from 1992 to 1996. In 2002, she was named the Lloyd Cotsen '50 Professor of Sociology.^{[citation needed]}

From 1987 to 1988, she was a visiting scholar at theRussell Sage Foundation, where she met another visiting scholar, sociologistCharles Tilly. At Princeton, she interacted with influential colleaguesPaul DiMaggio andAlejandro Portes, as well asMichael Katz, then at theUniversity of Pennsylvania.^[7]

In 1996–1997, Zelizer was a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at theInstitute for Advanced Study.

In 2001, she was elected the first chair of the newly created Economic Sociology section of theAmerican Sociological Association. In 2001, she was elected a member of the Council of the section on Comparative/Historical Sociology of the ASA.

In 2003, the Economic Sociology section named its annual book prize theViviana A. 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.^[8][9]

• 1985 C.W. Mills Award, Society for the Study of Social Problems, forPricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children
• 1996 Culture Section Book Award, American Sociological Association, forThe Social Meaning of Money

• Economic Lives: How Culture Shapes the Economy, Princeton University Press. (2010).ISBN 978-0-691-13936-4
• The Purchase of Intimacy, Princeton University Press. (2005).ISBN 0-691-12408-6
• The Social Meaning of Money: Pin Money, Paychecks, Poor Relief, and Other Currencies, Basic Books. (1994).ISBN 0-465-07891-5
• Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children, Princeton University Press. (1985).ISBN 0-691-03459-1
• Morals and Markets: The Development of Life Insurance in the United States, Columbia University Press. (1979).ISBN 0-231-04570-0

• Princeton Sociology Department
• Prof. Zelizer's faculty homepage
• Roberts, Russ (February 26, 2007)."Viviana Zelizer on Money and Intimacy".EconTalk.Library of Economics and Liberty.

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