May 2023 Issue
- Calls for Papers: Publications
- Calls for Papers: Conferences
- Calls for Book Manuscripts
- Call for Contributors
- Call for Peer Reviewers
- Call for Coauthors
- Call for Proposals
- Fellowships
- Funding and Scholarship
- Grants
- Postdoctoral Opportunity
- Call for Awards Nomination
- Workshop
- Events
- Accomplishments
- In the News
- New Books
- Obituary
Calls for Papers: Publications
Socius is seeking submissions for a special issue on the theme of “A Sociology of Artificial Intelligence: Inequalities, Power, and Data Justice.” The issue will outline an emerging sociology of AI, algorithms, and machine learning. It aims to highlight new work in this area, building from its original call for sociological research into AI and inequalities, as well as the White House’s Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. The abstract deadline is June 1, 2023. Click here for more information.
The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences seeks submissions for its special issue on the theme “The Deportation System and Its Aftermath.” This proposed special issue aims to publish new scholarship that will speak to contemporary debates about immigration policy by enhancing our knowledge of the effects of, and responses to, the deportation system. Prospective contributors should submit a CV and an abstract (up to two pages in length, single or double spaced) of their study along with up to two pages of supporting material (e.g., tables, figures, pictures, etc.) by July 15, 2023. Visit the website for the complete call for papers.
Sociological Inquiry seeks submissions for a special issue on the theme of “Cannabis Policy at the Twilight of Drug Prohibition.” It invites proposals for empirical or theoretical papers that explore how changes in cannabis policy have affected society and that consider the moral, legal, and cultural renegotiation at the heart of cannabis liberalization. The submission deadline is September 1, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
Religions is seeking submissions for a special issue on the theme “The Functional Use of Religion for Human Society.” This volume seeks original papers that explore the contemporary functions of religion at various levels of sociological analysis. Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods studies are welcome. The submission deadline is September 30, 2023. Visit the website for more details.
Social Science History is seeking papers for a new series in the journal on the theme “Advances in Data and Methods.” It invites research articles and review essays that propose, develop, or explain new or recently articulated sources and/or methodological techniques for use in social science history. All papers will be peer reviewed and are also all eligible to win prizes. The deadline is ongoing. For the complete call for papers, visit the website.
Calls for Papers: Conferences
The Appreciating Jack O’Dell: A Conference on the Black Radical Tradition will be held in Seattle on January 13, 2024. The Harry Bridges Center for Labor Studies and the Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest at the University of Washington invite proposals from people of different backgrounds—activists, scholars, and others—on any aspect of the Black radical tradition as they gather to honor Jack O’Dell’s life and work. All proposals should be sent by May 15, 2023. Find out more on the website.
The Annual Meeting of the Society for the Social Studies of Science will be held on the theme “Sea, Sky, and Land: Engaging in Solidarity in Endangered Ecologies” and will take place on November 8‒11, 2023, in Honolulu. It invites submissions for papers, closed panels, and Making & Doing sessions that align with the conference theme. Organizers are interested in proposals that expand one’s understanding of how technology, knowledge, and science, understood to be contentious and contested ideas themselves, shape social, political, cultural, environmental, and economic dynamics. Abstracts should be up to 250 words and be submitted by May 26, 2023. Find more information on the website.
The global symposium “Gentrification, what can we do about it? An international dialogue” on gentrification and displacement, will be held on October 26‒28, 2023, at Boston University. Bringing together academics, activists, and others, this conference seeks real solutions and is now accepting papers for consideration for presentation. Organizers invite registrants who wish to present a paper to submit a title and short abstract by June 1, 2023. Find out more about the symposium here. Access the submission form and see the symposium’s fourteen themed sessions here.
The Thirteenth International Conference on Health, Wellness, and Society will be held on the theme “Digitizing Health and Wellbeing” in Vancouver, Canada, and online on September 14‒15, 2023. The conference offers an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of issues at the intersection of human physiology, epidemiology, and its relation to medical public policy, health education, and the cultural associations of well-being. The deadline for submitting proposals is June 14, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Fourteenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society will be held on the theme “Spaces, Movement, Time: Religions at Rest and in Movement” in Madrid, Spain, and online on May 23‒24, 2024. The Religion in Society Research Network explores the relationship between religion in society and the changing nature of spirituality. Proposals are due October 23, 2023. For more information visit the website.
The Nineteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society will be held on the theme “Art for Sustenance: Living Ecology, Collaboration, and Protocols Today” in Seoul, South Korea, and online on May 24‒26, 2024. The conference offers an interdisciplinary forum for discussion of the role of the arts in society. It is a place for critical engagement, examination, and experimentation, developing ideas that connect the arts to their contexts in the world, on stage, in studios and theaters, in classrooms, in museums and galleries, on the streets, and in communities. The proposal deadline is October 24, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
Calls for Book Manuscripts
Cambridge Scholars Publishing invites proposals for academic books and edited collections in humanities and social sciences. To submit a book proposal, please visit the website. The deadline is ongoing. Find out more about Cambridge Scholars here.
Families in Focus, published by Rutgers University Press, is home to cutting-edge books covering the breadth of scholarship on families and kinship. The editors seek manuscripts that explore families as they adjust to changing intimate relationships, uncertain economic situations, and contested political contexts. The deadline is ongoing. Visit the website for more information about Families in Focus and for manuscript submission information.
Call for Contributors
Encyclopedia of Race, Crime, and Justice: An Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic is seeking contributors. This comprehensive, three-volume reference work will explore the complex issues surrounding race, crime, and justice as it relates to people of color. Upcoming deadlines are May 15 and July 15, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
Call for Peer Reviewers
The International and Foreign Language Education office at the US Department of Education administers Fulbright-Hays and Title VI grant and fellowship competitions throughout the year. It is seeking specialists to serve as peer reviewers to evaluate and identify the most qualified applicants to receive grant awards. To sign up to be a peer reviewer, email your CV to [email protected] and also register in the G5 system. Find out more information here.
Call for Coauthors
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology is seeking individuals who might be interested in updating entries from the first edition in anticipation of a new second edition to be published in 2024. These entries have already been written, but the original authors are not available to make revisions. Individuals who update old entries will be given coauthorship. Topics in need of coverage are: immigration policy; race, ethnicity, and wealth in the United States; and refugees. A sole author is also needed for the Me Too Movement entry. This is a new entry that needs to be written from scratch. If you have expertise in any of these areas and are interested, please email Nazneen Khan. Entries must be completed before May 30, 2023.
Call for Proposals
The CDFI Research Consortium, based at the Center for Impact Finance, Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire, invites proposals for research related to the Community Development Financial Institution field, including research related to measuring outcomes from CDFI investments, how best to channel capital to low-income and historically disadvantaged communities, and major obstacles faced by borrowers and lenders to those communities, and potential solutions. The submission deadline is June 30, 2023. Read the full call for submissions here.
Fellowships
Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI)—a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization focused on the intersection of religion, politics, and culture—is seeking a diverse cohort of 16 PRRI public fellows who are engaged in public scholarship for the 2023‒2024 academic year. Benefits of the 11-month program (August to July) include an annual stipend of $5,000/year and course release funds of up to $10,000 for the spring 2024 semester, access to annual microgrants of $12,000 in each area of PRRI’s work for collaborative scholarly projects within the cohort, and advance access to PRRI data, as well as various training opportunities to support public scholarship. Additional information is available on PRRI’s website, and the fellowship application is available here. Applications are due by May 31, 2023.
The French Institutes for Advanced Study Fellowship Programme is offering forty ten-month fellowships for the 2024‒2025 academic year. The call is open to all disciplines in the social sciences and the humanities and all research fields. For more about the fellowships, eligibility criteria, and how to apply, visit the website. The deadline is June 6, 2023.
Funding and Scholarship
The Foundation for Child Development is currently accepting applications for its Young Scholars Program. The program supports scholarship for early-career researchers. It funds implementation research that is policy- and practice-relevant and that examines the preparation, competency, compensation, well-being, and ongoing professional learning of the early care and education workforce. The letter of intent deadline is June 13, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The National Science Foundation is providing a funding opportunity to inform possible future Centers for Research and Innovation in Science, the Environment, and Society (CRISES). The envisioned centers will catalyze new research and research-based innovations to address seemingly intractable problems that confront our society. They will develop evidence-based solutions that address fundamental quality-of-life issues, such as those involving the environment, extreme weather, and sustainability; workforce and the economy; equity and access to opportunities; and well-being. Proposals are due June 26, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
Grants
The US Department of Education is offering grants through its Title VI International Research and Studies Program to conduct research, surveys, studies, or evaluations and to develop specialized instructional materials in modern foreign languages, area studies, or other international fields related to education. Institutions, public and private agencies, organizations, and individuals may apply. The application deadline is May 12, 2023. For more details, visit the website.
The International Liaison Committee of the Japan Sociological Society’s (JSS) annual grant competition for early-career scholars is in a renewed format—the JSS Travel Award. JSS will select ten scholars to present papers in two special sessions and participate in the JSS annual meeting at Rissho University in Tokyo, Japan, on October 8–9, 2023. The theme of the meeting is “Transnationalism in Context of Crises,” and the application deadline is May 31, 2023. Read more information here.
The Peter F. McManus Charitable Trust in Wayne, PA, offers research grants to nonprofit (501)(c)(3) organizations for research into the causes of alcoholism or substance abuse. Basic, clinical, and social science proposals will be considered. The trust expects to grant approximately $225,000 this year and will consider proposals that request up to $75,000. Please send a brief summary proposal (2–3 pages), proposed budget, copy of institution’s (501)(c)(3) letter, and investigator’s bio-sketch. Grant moneys may not be used for tuition and no more than 10 percent of amount granted may be used for indirect costs. Applications must be postmarked on or before September 8, 2023. For the complete RFP, email [email protected].
Postdoctoral Opportunity
The College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University invites applications for a postdoctoral scholar interested in developing skills, knowledge, and experience in the area of Indigenous health equity and community engagement with tribal nations. The postdoc will work closely with the Indigenous Health Equity initiative and its team of over thirty transdisciplinary Native and non-Native faculty members. Application review is underway and will continue on a rolling basis for a reserve pool. For more information and to apply, visit the website.
Call for Awards Nomination
The Labor Tech Research Network invites submissions for its second annual Book and Graduate Student Paper Awards, and its first annual Social Justice Award. These will honor projects that have distinctive intellectual merit or activist impact; advance the knowledge about labor and technology in the global society; and address the network’s core focus on labor and technology, and projects that may also simultaneously address feminism, antiracism, and/or transnationalism. The deadline for submissions is July 1, 2023. Find out more on the website.
Workshop
The Promoting Indigenous Research Leadership (PIRL) Workshop will be held November 13‒15, 2023, in Tempe, AZ. Sponsored by the Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity (CAIRHE) at Montana State University, in partnership with the National Institutes of Health and hosts at Arizona State University, PIRL is a three-day workshop designed to promote the public health research careers of Indigenous and other early-career faculty working with Indigenous communities. For those selected, there is little to no cost to participate, and the workshop pays for most travel, lodging, and meal expenses. Applications are welcome through June 7, 2023. To read more about eligibility and to apply, please visit the website.
Events
Vibrant Emotional Health’s 2023 Disaster Behavioral Health Symposium will be held on May 24‒26, 2023, at American University in Washington, DC. The symposium will highlight the power of community and connection in disaster behavioral health and how intentional partnership lends itself to positive, lasting transformation and resilience for those impacted by disasters and those responding to them. View our program on the website.
The Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, the national voice for the humanities and social sciences in Canada, is preparing for Congress 2023 at York University in Toronto, May 27‒June 2, 2023, and will be held both in-person and online. This year’s theme is “Reckonings and Re-Imaginings” and will honor Black and Indigenous knowledges and cultures, and center the diverse voices and ideas of scholars, graduate students, policymakers, and community members in vital conversations about the most pressing issues facing our world. For more information and to register, visit the website.
The Forum on Qualitative, Quantitative, and Visual Methods will take place at Sapienza University of Rome, September 14‒15, 2023, in Italy. The forum will address young social sciences researchers (PhD students and postdoc fellows) with the aim of supporting their research with methodological insights and recommendations for their projects, engaging them in a dialogue with senior researchers and experts in different methodological fields. The expectation is to discuss how to skillfully choose, use, and eventually merge different methods in a critical and holistic perspective. For more information, visit the website.
Penn State’s 31st Family Symposium will be held on the theme “Immigration Policy and Immigrant Families,” October 23‒24, 2023. This symposium brings together an exceptional panel of scholars whose research is devoted to many issues impacting immigrant families and who aim to better understand how public policies and practices are impacting the large and growing number of immigrants. To find out more, visit the website. Register here to attend in person or livestream.
Accomplishments
Jennifer S. Carrera, Michigan State University, has been awarded the Campus Compact Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement. This award is presented in partnership with Brown University’s Swearer Center and recognizes “early career faculty who practice exemplary engaged scholarship through teaching and research. Recipients are selected on the basis of their collaboration with communities, institutional impact, and high-quality academic work.”
Siwei Cheng, New York University, has been selected as an early-career researcher for the William T. Grant Scholars Class of 2028. She will be exploring whether community characteristics buffer low-income youth from the isolating effects of economic polarization.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ newly elected members for 2023 include ASA members: Paula S. England, New York University Abu Dhabi; Robert A. Hummer, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill; Michèle Lamont, Harvard University; and Aldon D. Morris, Northwestern University.
Kenneth H. Kolb, Furman University, was one of the three remaining finalists for the “Food Issues and Advocacy” James Beard book award.
Amanda Lewis and Maria Krysan, University of Illinois-Chicago, have received a grant from the Spencer Foundation, a leading national organization focused on supporting education research. They will serve as principal investigator and coprincipal investigator, respectively, of a $499,940 project that will explore how teachers are approaching, dealing with, and learning from the experience of teaching local racial history to middle and high school Chicago-area students.
Alondra Nelson—sociologist and author and former acting director of White House Office of Science and Technology Policy—received an honorary doctorate from Northeastern University in recognition of her work as a groundbreaking advocate for scientific discovery and technology innovation that focuses on ethics, racial and gender equity, and access.
Dawn R. Norris, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, received a Fulbright Scholar Award for her project, “The Subjective Meaning of Job Loss in the Czech Republic.” She is currently in Prague conducting this research and teaching at Univerzita Karlova.
Karina Santellano, University of Southern California, received the Order of Arête for her leadership and service to the sociology department and the university. This award is the highest honor accorded to graduate students upon completion of their academic programs.
Maritza Vasquez Reyes, a PhD candidate in the University of Connecticut’s School of Social Work, is the recipient of the first-ever Dissertation Assistantship Award from the University of Connecticut’s Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy. She will examine how youth organizations support well-being and sustain youth engagement in positive social change.
Laurel Westbrook, Grand Valley State University, and stef m. shuster, Michigan State University, received the 2023 Outstanding Article Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Theory Division for their paper “Reducing the Joy Deficit in Sociology: A Study of Transgender Joy.”
Hajar Yazdiha, University of Southern California-Dornsife, participated in Los Angeles Times Festival of Books on the panel “Muslim Inclusion and Empowerment From Hollywood to Higher Ed,” which explored Muslim representation in various contexts.
In the News
Katie L. Acosta, Georgia State University, had her book Queer Stepfamilies: The Path to Social and Legal Recognition featured in the April 21, 2023, article “8 of the Best LGBTQ-Inclusive Books about Parenting and Pregnancy” on Book Riot.
Robin Bartram, Tulane University, was quoted in the March 31, 2023, article “Mice and No Heat: Behind the Struggle to Hold Landlords Accountable” in the Times Union.
Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University, was featured in the April 11, 2023, interview “Public Thinker: Ruha Benjamin on Uprooting Oppression and Seeding Justice” in Public Books.
Rina Bliss, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, authored the April 11, 2023, opinion piece “AI Can’t Teach Children to Learn. What’s Missing?” in the Washington Post.
Andrea S. Boyles, Tulane University, spoke with Tavis Smiley about community empowerment on his April 19, 2023, program on KBLA.
Tony N. Brown, Rice University, was quoted in the April 19, 2023, article “Jersey City Second-Most Ethnically Diverse City in the U.S.” in Amsterdam News.
Kelsy Burke, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, was quoted in the April 10, 2023, article “The Pornography Paradox” in the Atlantic.
Jennifer Carlson, University of Arizona, was interviewed for the piece “New Book ‘Merchants of the Right’ Explores Culture Surrounding Guns in America” on the May 1, 2023, episode of the PBS News Hour.
Mark Chaves, Duke University, was quoted in the April 19, 2023, article “Lots of Americans Are Losing Their Religion. Have You?” in the New York Times.
Coye V. Cheshire, University of California-Berkeley, was interviewed for the April 10, 2023, article “To What Extent will AI Impact Arts, Humanities” in the Daily Californian.
Tressie McMillan Cottom, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, authored the April 11, 2023, opinion piece “Why I Keep My Eyes—and My Mind—on the South” in the New York Times.
Laurie F. DeRose, Catholic University of America, authored the April 19, 2023, post “The Cohabitation Gap in Parental Time” on the Institute for Family Studies blog.
Barry Eidlin, McGill University, authored the April 15, 2023, article “Rolling Back ‘Right-to-Work’ in States Like Michigan Sends a Message to Anti-Union Bosses” in the Jacobin.
Michael Oluf Emerson, University of Illinois-Chicago, was quoted in the April 7, 2023, article “This North Carolina Church Used to Be Multiracial. Then Came Jan. 6.” in the Washington Post.
Dana R. Fisher, University of Maryland-College Park, was quoted for the April 26, 2023, piece “The ‘Tennessee Three” Inspires Young Activism” on NPR’s Morning Edition and was quoted in the April 27, 2023, “Climate Protesters Smear Paint on Case Housing Degas Sculpture in D.C.” in the Washington Post.
Charles A. Gallagher, La Salle University, was interviewed for the March 16, 2023, piece “Judge Concludes Racism Was Behind Capitol Spitting Incident” on CT News Junkie, for the March 27, 2023, piece “Judge Awards BLM Activist Nearly $300K for Spitting Incident at CT Capitol” in CT Insider, and for the March 28, 2023, segment “What Is Digital Blackface and How Is It Harmful?” on Good Day Philadelphia.
Douglas Hartmann, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, was quoted in the April 12, 2023, article “NHL Takes Gutless Approach to Pride Night Celebrations as Excuses Keep Coming” in USA Today.
Carole E. Joffe, University of California-San Francisco, was quoted in the April 11, 2023, HealthBent column “Doctors’ Lesson for Drug Industry: Abortion Wars Are Dangerous to Ignore” for Kaiser Health News.
Lucie Kalousova, Vanderbilt University, was quoted in the April 10, 2023, article “The Boom-Bust Generation” in Insider.
Daniel Karell, Yale University, was quoted in the April 5, 2023, article “Yale University Study Links Right-Wing Parler Activity to Greater Civil Unrest in the U.S.” in Fast Company.
Chris Knoester, Ohio State University, commented on his recent research with Rachel Allison, Mississippi State University, and Victoria T. Fields, University of Illinois, in the April 25, 2023, piece “Majority of U.S. Adults Support Transgender Athletes’ Right to Choose which Gender They Compete With” in PsyPost.
Nancy López, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque, was quoted for the piece “Changing How U.S. Forms Ask about Race and Ethnicity Is Complicated. Here’s Why” on the April 27, 2023, edition of NPR’s Morning Edition.
Douglas S. Massey, Princeton University, was quoted in the April 5, 2023, article “Who’s Afraid of Integration? A Lot of People, Actually” in the New York Times.
Laura Mauldin, University of Connecticut, was quoted in the April 19, 2023, article “Long COVID Is Being Erased—Again” in the Atlantic.
Megan McNamara, University of California, Santa Cruz, was quoted in the April 26, 2023, article “Discord for Leaking Military Files—and Exam Questions” in Inside Higher Ed.
Brian J. Miller, Wheaton College, was quoted in the April 18, 2023, article “The Last of Us: How an Abandoned Hospital Prompted Us to Remember Those Left Behind” in the Better Samaritan.
Jennifer Reich, University of Colorado-Denver, was quoted in the April 11, 2023, article “Antivaccine Groups See Hope in Abortion-Pill Ruling. What It Means for Pharma” in Barron’s.
Jacob S. Rugh, Brigham Young University-Provo, was quoted in the April 25, 2023, piece “Seeing Struggles with Young Voters, New Utah GOP Leadership Looks to Recruit Gen Z” on KUER, Salt Lake City’s National Public Radio station.
Robert J. Sampson, Harvard University, was interviewed for the April 10, 2023, article “‘Collective Action Can Make a Difference’: A Conversation with Sociologist Robert Sampson” in Next City.
Kristen Schilt, University of Chicago, had research cited in the April 13, 2023, article “Six Works that Capture the Complexity of Being Trans Today” in the Washington Post.
Juliet B. Schor, Boston College, had her work mentioned in the April 11, 2023, article “What The Jetsons Got Right, and Very Wrong, about the Future of Work” in Fast Company.
Theda Skocpol, Harvard University, was quoted in the April 12, 2023, article “The Republican Strategists Who Have Carefully Planned All of This” in the New York Times.
Ryan Thomson, Auburn University, was quoted in the April 18, 2023, article “Insurance Losses from Mississippi Tornado Nearing $100M” from the Associated Press.
Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, was quoted in the April 19, 2023, article “At Mega-Contractors like Raytheon, Moderna and Lockheed, Diversity Remains a Challenge” in the Times Herald.
Sherry R. Turkle, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Elyakim Kislev, The Hebrew University, were quoted in the April 4, 2023, article “What Happens When a Human Falls in Love with AI?” in Fast Company.
Natasha Warikoo, Tufts University, was on the April 9, 2023, episode of City Line, “Culture Clash: Education Edition,” on WCVB in Boston.
Barbara Wejnert, University at Buffalo-SUNY, was quoted in the April 5, 2023, article “The Cost-of-Living Crisis Reaches Breaking Point” in Newsweek.
Eli R. Wilson, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque, was interviewed for the piece “In Era of ‘Tipflation,’ How Much Gratuity to Give and When?” on the April 26, 2023, episode of the KCRW podcast Greater LA.
New Books
Virginia Kuulei Berndt, Texas A&M International University, and Brian Brown, De Montfort University, Body Art: Arts for Health (Emerald Publishing 2023).
Kelsy Burke, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, The Pornography Wars: The Past, Present, and Future of America’s Obscene Obsession (Bloomsbury 2023).
Rachel Ellis, University of Maryland-College Park, In This Place Called Prison: Women’s Religious Life in the Shadow of Punishment (University of California Press 2023).
Kathleen J. Fitzgerald, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Recognizing Race and Ethnicity: Power, Privilege, and Inequality, 4th Edition (Routledge 2023).
Leslie C. Gates, SUNY-Binghamton, Capitalist Outsiders: Oil’s Legacies in Mexico and Venezuela (University of Pittsburgh Press 2023).
Melanie Heath, McMaster University, Forbidden Intimacies: Polygamies at the Limits of Western Tolerance (Stanford University Press 2023).
Michael Jeffries, Wellesley College, Black and Queer on Campus (New York University Press 2023).
Kevin T. Leicht, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Mary L. Fennell, Brown University, Crisis in the Professions: The New Dark Age (Routledge 2023).
Zai Liang, State University of New York at Albany, From Chinatown to Every Town: How Chinese Immigrants Have Expanded the Restaurant Business in the United States (University of California Press 2023).
Ann J. Morning, New York University, and Marcello Maneri, University of Milano-Bicocca, An Ugly Word: Rethinking Race in Italy and the United States (Russell Sage 2022).
Andrew Schrank, Brown University, The Economic Sociology of Development (Polity 2023).
Michelle Hannah Smirnova, University of Missouri-Kansas City, The Prescription-to-Prison Pipeline (Duke University Press 2023).
Quincy Thomas Stewart, Northwestern University, Race in the Machine: A Novel Account (Redwood Press 2023).
Jaclyn S. Wong, University of South Carolina-Columbia, Equal Partners? How Dual-Professional Couples Make Career, Relationship, and Family Decisions (University of California Press 2023).
Obituary
Harold J. Bershady
1929‒2023
Harold J. Bershady, professor emeritus in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, died on February 18, 2023, at the age of 93 after a brief illness.
Bershady joined the faculty at Penn in 1968 and, aside from sabbaticals, served continuously until his retirement in 2005. He was influential in the department principally as a teacher of sociological theory, both the classical works of Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel, Schutz, and Mead and the contemporary works of Parsons, Garfinkel, Goffman, Bellah, Smelser, and others. He once estimated that he had taught more than 10,000 students, both undergraduate and graduate. His popularity as a teacher derived from the warmth, encouraging and supportive manner, and humor with which he related to students. His classes were often interlarded with jokes, anecdotes, and witticisms. Students sometimes came to his office simply to convey new jokes they had heard. In 1993, Bershady received the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching from the university.
Bershady’s interests in sociological theory included the integration of theory and qualitative methods of research. In this connection, he sponsored, together with Elijah Anderson, a series of public discussions for both faculty and graduate students in the department to examine the works of Georg Simmel and W.E.B. Du Bois. Du Bois had studied in Berlin, where Simmel taught, and accomplished his most important sociological work, The Philadelphia Negro (University of Pennsylvania Press 1899) while an instructor at Penn.
After receiving tenure, Bershady helped to recruit younger colleagues, including Victor Lidz, Charles Bosk, and Elijah Anderson, the first African American sociologist appointed to be a member of the standing faculty at Penn. All three, in various ways, shared his interest in integrating theory and qualitative research. In the following years and decades, Bershady also encouraged and supported their teaching and research.
Bershady’s first major publication was Ideology and Social Knowledge (John Wiley & Sons 1973), a critical assessment of the basic concepts in Talcott Parsons’s theory of social action from the perspective of Kantian philosophy. When Parsons came to Penn as visiting professor in subsequent years, Bershady cotaught courses on American society and on the theory of social action with him. Bershady was also a key participant in the faculty seminar at Penn in which Parsons developed, over several years of discussions, the final elaboration of his theory.
Bershady edited, introduced, and contributed to the volume of essays Social Class and Democratic Leadership (University of Pennsylvania Press 1989), collected in honor of his senior colleague and friend, E. Digby Baltzell, with contributions by faculty members and advanced graduate students in the department. He later edited and introduced a volume of essays by the German phenomenologist, Max Scheler, On Feeling, Knowing, and Valuing (University of Chicago Press 1992). The book brought a broader range of Scheler’s thought to English language scholars than previous publications. In 2005, Bershady edited, along with fellow Penn sociology professor Renée Fox and Victor Lidz, After Parsons: A Theory of Social Action for the Twenty-First Century (Russell Sage Foundation 2005). The book published contributions to a conference sponsored by the Russell Sage Foundation to honor the 100th anniversary of Parsons’s birth in 1902 and included essays by nearly every prominent scholar of the time on Parsonian theory.
In retirement, Bershady published an intellectual autobiography entitled When Marx Mattered: An Intellectual Odyssey (Routledge 2014), a highly readable work. The book traces his early years with his family living in rooms in his father’s coat factory in Buffalo, his youth as a Marxist and socialist (including his brief attempt to unionize the workers in his father’s shop), his study of German philosophy in college at the University at Buffalo, his engagement with sociological theory as a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, and his mature focus on the theory of action. The book is also a study in the sociology of knowledge of how Jews of his generation and those with Eastern European backgrounds were attracted in early adulthood to the prophetic, moralistic, and egalitarian aspects of Marxism, then shifted in their careers to the intellectual and ethical frameworks of their professions, whether in law, medicine, or academia.
Victor Lidz, Drexel University College of Medicine; Elijah Anderson, Yale University; and Jerry Jacobs, University of Pennsylvania
