Calls for Papers: Publications
The Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies invites papers for an upcoming issue on the theme “DNA + AI Superintelligence: Utopia or Dystopia?” The issue seeks to answer questions such as: Can human creativity control superintelligent AI? How will AI affect human self-understanding? How can AI be an ethical, humane technology that benefits all? The submission deadline is April 15, 2025. Read the full call for papers here.
Global Labour Journal seeks papers for a special issue on the theme “War and Worker Power in the Twenty-First Century.” Papers should explore how broad transformations in the political economy of geopolitical conflict have interacted with labor movements, union organizing, and worker power. Editors welcome both comparative papers and single case studies from all methodological approaches. Papers that grapple with twenty-first century dynamics (either on their own or through historical comparison) are especially encouraged. Send proposal by May 2, 2025. Read the full call for papers, including a list of possible topics, here.
Fast Capitalism seeks papers for the next issue, “This Is the New Normal,” that address Trump’s impact on governance, discourse, and democracy. Editors are interested in submissions in various formats, including scholarly research essays, commentaries, polemics, policy proposals, and biographies. Read the full call for papers on the website. The submission deadline is May 15, 2025.
The Journal of Social Issues seeks papers for a special issue on the theme “” Navigating Inequalities in East and Southeast Asia: Exploring the Intersections of Material, Relational, and Recognition Inequalities.” Editors invite papers that explore the social and psychological processes that sustain or challenge present forms of inequality in the region and that investigate the interplay of material, relational, and recognition-based inequalities, with an emphasis on how they shape individual perceptions (beliefs, stereotypes, mental models, and cognitive shortcuts), emotions, and behaviors. The deadline for detailed abstracts is June 15, 2025. Read the full call for papers here.
Sociology seeks papers for a special issue on the theme “The Normative Turn in Sociology. Opening the Black Box.” Editors are looking for contributions, theoretical and/or empirical, that engage with the question of normativity in sociology. They welcome articles of 6000-8000 words in the usual house style that can both illuminate particular areas of normative inquiry and speak to the general theme of the special issue. Submission guidelines are available on the journal website. The submission deadline is January 22, 2026.
Calls for Papers: Conferences
The Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies will hold a symposium on the theme C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkien: The Promise of Christian Fairytales” on October 18, 2025, in Pasadena, CA. The symposium will examine whether the authors’ moral imaginations can inspire a renewed optimism in the human capacities of reason, faith, love, and compassion. It endeavors to bring together scholars from a wide range of disciplines and denominations for an exciting international conference that takes both scholarship and faith seriously. The deadline for 250-word abstracts is April 15, 2025. For more information visit the website.
Women, Algeria, Torture, Foucault: Advancing the Anticolonial Sociology of Marnia Lazreg is a conference that will be held be held at the CUNY Graduate Center and the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College in New York City on September 25-26, 2025. The conference is interdisciplinary, and abstracts are welcomed and encouraged from scholars working in any academic discipline to which the topics are relevant, including but not limited to sociology, anthropology, gender studies, area studies, history, philosophy, and law. Read the full call for papers here. The abstract submission deadline is April 28, 2025.
The Past, Present, and Future of the Human Environment, a virtual conference from Southern New Hampshire University’s social science and liberal arts departments will be held September 25-26, 2025. This event will explore how human societies have shaped and been shaped by the environment across history, today and into the future. Students, faculty, independent researchers and scholars from all academic disciplines worldwide are invited to submit proposals by May 12, 2025. Read more details here.
Annual Meeting of the International Association of Vegan Sociologists will be held online on October 4-5, 2025, on the theme “Senses and Emotions.” Proposals are invited that consider how emotions and sensory experiences are integral to understanding and challenging nonhuman animal exploitation. More information, including a list of possible topics, is on the website. Submit proposals by May 31, 2025.
The Aging & Social Change Fifteenth Interdisciplinary Conference will be held on the theme “Aging, Intergenerational Solidarity and the Polycrisis” on October 22-24, 2025, in Sweden and online. The conference will be a forum for discussing the challenges and opportunities faced by a rapidly growing segment of the population worldwide and seeks papers on economic and demographic perspectives on aging; public policy and public perspectives on aging; medical perspectives on aging, health, wellness; social and cultural perspectives on aging. The proposal deadline is July 22, 2025. For more information, visit the website.
Fellowships
The National Endowment for the Humanities is accepting applications for the Fellowships for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan program. The fellowships provide $5000 per month, for 6-12 months of full-time work researching and writing on modern Japanese society and political economy, Japan’s international relations, and U.S.-Japan relations. Applicants must have advanced Japanese language skills and plan to conduct research that will require using data, sources, documents, onsite interviews, or other direct contact in Japanese. The application deadline is April 23, 2025. Find out more on the website.
The Center for Black, Brown, and Queer Studies (BBQ+) is an independent Center dedicated to interdisciplinary research, pedagogy, and mentorship in critical race, Indigenous, postcolonial, and queer studies. It offers an entirely virtual fellowship that brings together a diverse group of scholars from undergraduates to postgraduates working across these fields in a collaborative and supportive environment. Fellows receive a research stipend, mentorship, career development advice, and writing support. The application deadline is May 18, 2025. For more information, click here.
The Peter F. McManus Charitable Trust offers research grants of up to $100,000 each to nonprofit organizations for research into the causes of alcoholism or substance abuse. Basic, clinical, and social science proposals will be considered. Applications should include a brief summary proposal (2-3 pages), proposed budget, copy of institution’s (501)(c)(3) letter, and investigator’s bio-sketch. For a copy of complete application guidelines, email [email protected]. Applications must be postmarked or placed with courier service on or before September 12, 2025.
Call for Nominations
The Boniuk Institute for the Study and Advancement of Religious Tolerance invites nominations for the 2026 Senior Scholar Award. The award is given annually to the senior scholar who has made outstanding contributions to the public understanding of religious pluralism and tolerance, and who most exemplifies Boniuk Institute’s mission. The Senior Scholar will join the Boniuk Institute at Rice University in the Spring of 2026 for about three days, where they will participate in a variety of Institute programs, including the official award ceremony event. At this event, the scholar will be presented with an award and honorarium and then deliver a public lecture for the campus and local community. Letters of nomination must be received by May 20, 2025. Find out more here.
Event
Making Sense of the Political Climate for Sociology and Equity-Minded Social Science will be held on Zoom on April 18, 2025, at 12:30 p.m. Eastern. New federal administrations often bring changes to higher education, but the uncertainty and turmoil we are currently experiencing is unprecedented. Increased political attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts are making the practice of many social science fields extremely difficult, and sociology has been particularly targeted. For graduate students, this political climate can be especially anxiety-inducing as they try to imagine their professional futures. Sharing their insights from decades of equity work, Joya Misra and Kris De Welde join in conversation to discuss what the attacks on DEI mean for early career social science scholars, where the current climate might fit into the longer arc of history, and how the skills that young sociologists are developing now will be needed to rebuild the future. Registration is required to attend. Please register here.
In the News
Musa al-Gharbi, Stony Brook University, was quoted in the March 13, 2025, article “How Corporate America Is Retreating from D.E.I.” in the New York Times.
Bernadette Barton, Morehead State University, was quoted in the March 17, 2025, article “Colorado Strip Clubs Persistently Steal Wages from Their Workers, Dancers Say: “We Have to Pay to Work”” in the Denver Post.
Jennie E. Brand, University of California-Los Angeles, was quoted in the March 26, 2025, article “‘I Am Going Through Hell’: Job Loss, Mental Health and the Fate of Federal Workers” in KFF Health News.
Ruth Braunstein, University of Connecticut, produced and hosts a new six-part documentary podcast, When the Wolves Came: Evangelicals Resisting Extremism.
Philip N. Cohen, University of Maryland-College Park, was quoted in the March 11, 2025, article “15 Lessons Scientists Learned About Us When the World Stood Still” in the New York Times and the March 13, 2025, article “After Cuts, It May Be Hard to Tell If Schools Are Succeeding” in the New York Times.
Lucius Couloute, Trinity College, authored the April 2, 2025, article “The Never-Ending Sentence: How Parole and Probation Fuel Mass Incarceration” in the Conversation.
Matthew Desmond, Princeton University, was a guest on the March 3, 2025, episode of the Daily Show.
Arielle Kuperberg, University of Maryland-Baltimore County, was quoted in the March 7, 2025, article “The Problem with Dating? Your Standards Might Be Too High,” in Vox and the March 13, 2025, article “Baltimore Gains Residents for First Time Since 2014; Area Counties Show Gains” in the Baltimore Sun.
Nathan Meyers, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, authored the March 11, 2025, article “Trump’s DOGE Campaign Accelerates 50-Year Trend of Government Privatization” in the Conversation.
John Mollenkopf, CUNY Graduate Center, was quoted in the March 12, 2025, article “Divided Electorate Tells Tale of Two Cities Ahead of Mayoral Election” in the City.
Manuel Pastor, University of Southern California, was quoted in the March 30, 2025, article “Sink or Swim Time for Salton Sea? Momentum Builds for Pricey Lake Restoration” in USA Today.
Christine M. Percheski, Northwestern University, was quoted in the March 13, 2025, article “Immigrants Drove Population Growth in the Chicago Area and Cook County Last Year, Latest Census Figures Show” in the Chicago Tribune.
Jennifer Reich, University of Colorado Denver, was quoted in the March 15, 2025, article “Texas Pastor Touts School’s Low Shot Rates” in the South Bend Tribune.
Jennifer Sinski, Bellarmine University, was quoted in the March 13, 2025, article “Strict Pet Adoption Rules Frustrate and Defeat Some Animal Lovers” in USA Today.
Gregory Squires, George Washington University, authored the February 22, 2025, opinion piece “Trump’s Attack on DEI Isn’t about Talent” In the Baltimore Sun.
Alexandra Tate, University of Chicago, was quoted in the March 14, 2025, article “Trump’s Science Cuts Throw Research World into Chaos” on Bloomberg.
Megan Thiele Strong, San Jose State University, authored the March 23, 2025, article “The Care and Feeding of a Superpower” in Fulcrum.
William Tyson, University of South Florida, was quoted in the March 4, 2025, article “Fentrice Driskell Doesn’t See Any ‘Cracks’ in GOP’s ‘Armor’ As ’25 Session Commences” in the Miami Times.
Hazel Velasco Palacios and Kathleen Sexsmith, Pennsylvania State University, authored the March 12, 2025, article “Pennsylvania’s Mushroom Industry Faces Urgent Labor Shortage—And Latest Immigration Policies Will Likely Make It Worse” in the Conversation.
Natasha Warikoo, Tufts University, was quoted int he March 24, 2025, article “What Should Come After DEI? PFJ.” in the Washington Post.
Jan Yager, CUNY-John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was quoted in the March 12, 2025, article “The COVID Blur, 5 Years On: How the Pandemic Warped Our Sense of Time” on NJ.com.
New Books
Amy Adamczyk, City University of New York-John Jay College of Criminal Justice, Fetal Positions: Understanding Cross-National Public Opinion about Abortion (Oxford University Press, 2025)
Janet Mancini Billson, Group Dimensions International, Refugee Pathways to Peace: Escaping the Chaos of War (Bloomsbury Group 2025).
Ruth Braunstein, University of Connecticut, My Tax Dollars: The Morality of Taxpaying in America (Princeton University Press 2025).
Ernesto Castañeda, American University, and Carina Cione, Johns Hopkins University, Immigration Realities: Challenging Common Misperceptions (Columbia University Press 2024).
Ernesto Castañeda, American University, and Daniel Jenks, University of Pennsylvania, Reunited: Family Separation and Central American Youth Migration (Russell Sage Foundation 2024).
Laura Chávez-Moreno, University of California-Los Angeles, How Schools Make Race: Teaching Latinx Racialization in America (Harvard Education Press 2025).
Stanley Eitzen, Colorado State University (retired); Cheryl Cooky, Purdue University; and Michael A. Messner, University of Southern California, Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport, 7th Edition (Rowman and Littlefield 2025).
Karen V. Hansen and Nicholas Monroe, Brandeis University, Working-Class Kids and Visionary Educators in a Multiracial High School: A Story of Belonging (Lexington Books 2024).
Tiffany Joseph, Northeastern University, Not All In: Race, Immigration, and Healthcare Exclusion in the Age of Obamacare (Johns Hopkins University Press 2025).
Jaime Lee Kucinskas, Hamilton College, The Loyalty Trap: Conflicting Loyalties of Civil Servants Under Increasing Autocracy (Columbia University Press 2025).
Prema Kurien, Syracuse University, Claiming Citizenship: Race, Religion, and Political Mobilization among New Americans (Oxford University Press 2025).
Suzy K. Lee, State University of New York-Binghamton, Temporary Measures: Migrant Workers and the Developmental State in the Philippines and South Korea (Oxford University Press 2025).
Stephen J. Morewitz, San Jose State University, Forensic Social Sciences. Theory, Research, and Practice (Cognella 2025).
Oneya Fennell Okuwobi, University of Cincinnati, Who Pays for Diversity? Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It (University of California Press 2025).
Rogelio Sáenz, University of Texas at San Antonio; Maria Cristina Morales, University of Texas at El Paso; and Coda Rayo-Garza, Every Texan, Latina/os in the United States: Diversity and Change, 2nd edition (Polity Press 2025).
Irene I. Vega, University of California-Irvine, Bordering on Indifference: Immigration Agents Negotiating Race and Morality (Princeton University Press 2025).
1936-2024
Peter J. Stein, sociologist and longtime Holocaust educator and speaker, died peacefully on August 8, 2024, after a long battle with cancer. For 87 years, he brightened and enriched the lives of the people around him.
Born in 1936 in Prague, Stein was the child of a Catholic mother and a Jewish father. Although he and his parents survived the Holocaust, Stein’s grandmother and several close relatives were killed in concentration camps in former Czechoslovakia and Poland. Stein immigrated to New York at age 12. In his memoir, A Boy’s Journey: From Nazi-Occupied Prague to Freedom in America (Lystra Books 2019), Stein tells of his childhood experiences.
Stein graduated from The City College of New York and received his MA and PhD degrees from Princeton University. He taught at Lehman College, William Paterson University, and Douglass College. In 2007, he became Associate Director for Aging Workforce Initiatives at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill Institute on Aging. He taught courses on the life course, gender, and genocide and the holocaust, among others. After retiring, Stein became part of the Holocaust Speakers’ Bureau in North Carolina and at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. He enjoyed and took pride in his many talks to audiences of all ages.
Stein authored or coauthored nine books, including multiple editions of Sociology (MacMillan 1982), with Beth Hess and Elizabeth Markson; Single Life: Unmarried Adults in Social Context (St. Martin’s Press 1981); and Social Gerontology: Issues & Prospects (Bridgepoint Education 2012), with Elizabeth Markson. He also wrote articles and reports.
I got to know Stein well after I moved to Chapel Hill. With my husband, Jon, Stein and I cofounded the ASA Opportunities in Retirement Network (now the ASA Retirement Network), which led us to our book, Journeys in Sociology: From First Encounters to Fulfilling Retirements (Temple University Press 2017), which we coedited and which was published in collaboration with the American Sociological Association Opportunities in Retirement Network.
Stein was always kind and insightful and, most of all, fun to work with. He took the lead in finding a publisher for our book, and his persistence led to a contract with Temple University Press. This persistence and his amazing courage were catalysts that enabled him to keep fighting his final illness with humor and optimism. He once told me that he loved life too much to stop fighting. Stein’s friends and family cherished his quick wit, passion, warmth, and keen interest in history, politics, justice, and sports. We miss him greatly.
Stein is survived by his wife, Michele Murdock; his son, Michael; his daughter-in-law, Sarah; and his grandson, Jackson.
Rosalyn Benjamin Darling, Indiana University of Pennsylvania
