Calls for Papers: Publications
The Journal of Gender Studies seeks submissions for a special issue on contemporary feminist reinterpretations of witch hunts. Potential topics may include, but are not limited to: misogyny and violence around witches; homophobic and transphobic violence and witch hunts; transformations in communities targeted by witch hunts; characteristics of witch hunts and their various forms; rhetorical/instrumental uses of the phrase “witch hunt” in political speech; trauma and violence associated with hunts; twenty-first-century activism against witch hunts; local and global justice for victims and survivors of witch hunts; creativity and art as a form of resistance for bitches and witches; the role of resilience, resistance, and activism against witch hunts; feminist critiques of rationalism; synergies between witch hunts in the Global South and North; and legal protections and anti-witch hunt laws. Abstracts are due June 10, 2024, and full paper drafts are due November 1, 2024. Read the full call for papers here.
The American Sociologist seeks paper abstracts for its upcoming special issue on the theme “Chicago Sociology and its Others: The University, The City, and the World.” This special issue will apply the sociological premise that even the most insular intellectual traditions are sustained by extra-local influences, appropriations, adaptations, and critiques. The editors seek papers considering how the Chicago School was influenced by and influenced intellectual contexts outside of the school’s traditional associations with the department, city, and nation. The deadline for titles and abstracts of proposed articles is July 15, 2024. Read the full call for papers here.
Calls for Papers: Conferences
The Feminist Futures Conference will be held on the theme “Critical Feminist Theorising on ‘the Manosphere’: Gender, Power, and Sexual Politics in the Digital Age,” November 7-8, 2024, at the University of Liverpool. It seeks theoretical papers for special panels on areas including, but not limited to: patriarchy and sexual politics; gender, technology, and misogyny; identity politics and the public sphere; gender-based sexual violence; human rights, law, and policy; and advocacy and organizing. Read the full call for papers, including a complete list of topics, here. The abstract submission deadline is May 31, 2024.
The International Conference on Aging in the Americas (ICAA) will be held at the University of Texas-Austin, September 25-27, 2024, on the theme “Challenges of Dementia and Healthful Aging in the Americas.” It seeks abstracts on the topic of aging and health among Latino and/or Latin American populations from emerging scholars, such as students, postdocs, and early career faculty. The deadline is May 31, 2024. Find out more here.
Aging and Social Change: Fourteenth Interdisciplinary Conference will be held on the theme “Diversity over Time: Changes in Individual, Organizational, and Place Contexts,” September 19-20, 2024, in Ireland and online. The conference is a forum for discussion of challenges and opportunities for a rapidly growing segment of the population worldwide. It seeks papers on the following themes: economic and demographic perspectives on aging; public policy and public perspectives on aging; medical perspectives on aging, health, wellness; and social and cultural perspectives on aging. The submission deadline is June 19, 2024. For more information, visit the website.
The Young Scholars Conference will be hosted by the Center for the Study of Social Movements at the University of Notre Dame, October 18-19, 2024. It invites 12 advanced graduate students or early-career faculty to present a work solidly in-progress at the conference, to enjoy an opportunity to discuss their work with some of the leading scholars in the field, and to meet others in the new cohort of early career social movement scholars. The submission deadline is July 1, 2024. For more details, visit the website.
The Fourteenth International Conference on Health, Wellness, and Society will be held on the theme “Health for Democracy, Democracy for Health,” October 3-4, 2024, in Sweden and online. It seeks papers on the following themes: the physiology, kinesiology, and psychology of wellness in its social context; interdisciplinary health sciences; public health policies and practices; and health promotion and education. The submission deadline is July 3, 2024. For more information, visit the website.
The Twenty-Fifth International Conference on Knowledge, Culture, and Change in Organizations will be held on the theme “Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity: Navigating Intercultural Leadership,” June 11-13, 2025, in Cyprus and online. It seeks papers on the following themes: organizational intangibles and tangible value; knowledge economies as the constant; organizations as knowledge-makers; and the value of culture and the demand of change. The submission deadline is August 11, 2024. For more information, visit the website.
The Twentieth International Conference on the Arts in Society will be held on the theme “Engagement Curating,” May 23-25, 2025, in Philadelphia and online. It seeks papers on the following themes: pedagogies of the arts; arts histories and theories; new media, technology, and the arts; and the arts in social, political, and community life. The submission deadline is August 23, 2024. For more information, visit the website.
Fellowship
The Inter-American Foundation (IAF), in conjunction with the Social Science Research Council, welcomes applicants for its new Research Fellowship Program to advance rigorous field-based research on actionable questions about community-led development in Latin America and the Caribbean. The IAF will award up to 10 fellowships in 2025. Each fellowship includes a stipend of $20,000 to support an individual researcher working over the course of 12 months in one or more of the countries in the region where the IAF works, participation in a three-day in-person orientation workshop, and engagement with the network of IAF fellows. For information on research topics and requirements, visit the website. Applications are due December 3, 2024.
Events
The Tisch College Community Research Center at Tufts University invites attendees for its one-week summer course on Participatory Action Research (PAR). Participants will learn how to make their research more inclusive, participatory, and based on community interests and needs by employing PAR. This training is appropriate for those planning to conduct research with vulnerable populations, including academic faculty and researchers, postdocs, graduate students, those with research roles in NGOs or public institutions, and undergraduates working on a thesis or other large research project. The course will be held on Zoom, June 10-14, 2024. Find out more and register here.
2024 ICPSR Summer Program registration is now open. General sessions run June 10-July 5 and July 8-August 2, 2024. Each session features one week of introductory math and computing lectures and three weeks of methods courses. All courses and lectures are available in person or online, live, or asynchronous. Topical Workshops will cover a single subject and run for either 20 or 40 hours in just three, five, or 10 days, and run from May through August. Modality varies among workshops: most are online only, some are in-person or online, and a few are in person only. Class materials for both General Sessions and Topical Workshops, including recorded lectures, will be available through December 31, 2024. Find out more and register here.
Accomplishments
Michelle J. Budig, University of Massachusetts, and Kathryn Yount, Emory University, have been included among the 2024 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in acknowledgement of their distinguished efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications in service to society.
Deborah Carr, Boston University; Bruce Carruthers, Northwestern University; Prudence Carter, Brown University; Manuel Castells, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the University of Southern California; Adia Harvey Wingfield, Washington University in St. Louis; and Sasha Killewald, University of Michigan, have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. These individuals are being recognized and celebrated for their excellence and have been invited to join the academy in connecting across disciplines and divides to advance the common good.
Thomas M. Dietz, Michigan State University, and Arne L. Kalleberg, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research.
Michèle Lamont, Harvard University, has been named the 2024 laureate of the Kohli Prize for Sociology for the significant imprint on sociological knowledge she has made through her pathbreaking comparative research on culture, social inequality, and inclusion.
Feng Wang, University of California-Irvine, and Kim Lane Scheppele, Princeton University, have been appointed to the class of 2024 Guggenheim Fellows, who were tapped on the basis of their prior career achievement and exceptional promise.
Maro Youssef, George Washington University, has been selected by the Arab America Foundation as one of its “40 Under 40,” in acknowledgement of great achievements by young professionals both in their workplaces and communities.
In the News
Chloe E. Bird, Tufts Medical Center, was quoted in the April 14, 2024, article “Advertising Restrictions Can Have Harmful Effects on Women’s Health. Here’s What One Company Is Doing About It” on CNN.
Benjamin Bradlow, Princeton University, was quoted in the March 21, 2024, article “To Understand the EPA’s Car Rules, Look to China” in Heatmap.
Jessica Calarco, University of Wisconsin-Madison, was quoted in the April 23, 2024, article “America’s Child Care Crisis Is Holding Back Moms without College Degrees” from the Associated Press.
Daniel B. Cornfield, Vanderbilt University, was quoted in the May 3, 2024, article “Southern Labor Union Victories: Will Momentum Persist or Stumble?” in the Tennessean and the May 6, 2024, article “Unions Aim for More Victories in South” in the Great Falls Tribune.
Michele Dillon, University of New Hampshire, was quoted in the April 20, 2024, article “Most Catholics Support Abortion,” in USA Today and the March 24, 2024, article “Pope Francis’s Growing Revolt in the Catholic Church” in Newsweek.
Charlie Eaton, University of California-Merced, was quoted in the April 27, 2024, article “Beyond Pulling Donations” in the New York Times and was interviewed for the April 29, 2024, piece “The Challenge Colleges Face with Student Demands for Israeli Divestment” on the PBS News Hour.
Wen Fan, Boston College, was quoted in the May 5, 2024, article “Survey Shows Workers Really Love the Idea of a Four-Day Week” in Nerd Wallet.
Robert Futrell, University of Nevada-Las Vegas, was quoted in the April 25, 2024, article “Radicalized Online: How Digital Rabbit Holes Lead to Violent Extremism” in Las Vegas Weekly.
Marion S. Goldman, University of Oregon, was quoted in the May 8, 2024, piece “The TwinRay Mystery: A Spiritual Group in Ashland Raises Eyebrows and Concerns” from Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Tim Goler, Norfolk State University, was quoted in the May 1, 2024, article “Allowing More High-Speed Police Pursuits Is Unwarranted–and Dangerous” in the Virgina Mercury.
Emily Grubert, University of Notre Dame, was quoted in the May 8, 2024, article “One Way or Another, New EPA Rules Will Stop Pollution from Coal-Fired Emissions” in Grist.
Adia Harvey Wingfield, Washington University-St. Louis, was quoted in the May 2, 2024, article “Could These Laws Fix America’s Broken Work Culture?” on CNN.
Eric Klinenberg, New York University, had his book 2020: A Global Reckoning (Penguin Random House 2024) selected as a “best science pick” for the May 3, 2024, article “From Multiverses to Cities: Books in Brief” in Nature.
Nancy López, University of New Mexico, was quoted in the May 3, 2024, article “The Next Census Could Reveal a Very Different America” on CNN.
Aldon D. Morris, Northwestern University (retired), was quoted in the April 27, 2024, article “Examining the Long History of the ‘Outside Agitator’ Narrative” on CNN.
Jennifer Mueller, Skidmore College, was quoted in the March 12, 2024, article, “Colleges Got Comfortable Talking About Privilege. Now It’s Being Scrutinized,” in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Richard E. Ocejo, CUNY Graduate Center and John Jay College, was interviewed about his new book Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton University Press 2024) for the April 23, 2024, article “In ‘Sixty Miles Upriver,’ Sociologist Takes on Complexities of Gentrification in Newburgh” in the Times Union.
Dudley L. Poston Jr., Texas A&M University-College Station (retired), was quoted in the April 25, 2024, article “Population Map Reveals States Growing, Shrinking the Quickest” in Newsweek.
Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana, University at Albany-SUNY, and Freeden Blume Oeur, Tufts University, authored the May 3, 2024, article “On Its 125th Anniversary, W.E.B. Du Bois’ ‘The Philadelphia Negro’ Offers Lasting Lessons on Gentrification in Philly’s Historically Black Neighborhoods” in the Conversation.
Morgan Sanchez, San Jose State University, authored the May 2, 2024, article “Students Have the Right to Protest Apartheid” in the Progressive Magazine.
Christopher P. Scheitle and Katie Corcoran, West Virginia University, authored the May 6, 2024, article “The Number of Religious ‘Nones’ Has Soared, But Not the Number of Atheists–and as Social Scientists, We Wanted to Know Why” in the Conversation.
Yuying Tong, Chinese University of Hong Kong, was quoted in the May 8, 2024, article “The Latest Threat to China? The Rise of the DINKs” in the Los Angeles Times.
Sam Trejo, Princeton University, was quoted in the April 25, 2024, article “The Children of Flint, Ten Years Later” in Harvard Public Health.
Lindsey Wilkinson, Portland State University, was quoted in the May 5, 2026, article “In Wake of PSU Library Occupation, Students, Staff and Its New President Brace for What’s Next” in the Oregonian.
New Books
Emily K. Carian, University of California-Irvine, Good Guys, Bad Guys: The Perils of Men’s Gender Activism (NYU Press 2024).
William C. Cockerham, University of Alabama-Birmingham and University of Maryland-College Park (retired), Sociology of Mental Disorder, 12th Edition (Routledge 2024).
Fauzia Husain, Queen’s University, The Stigma Matrix: Gender, Globalization, and the Agency of Pakistan’s Frontline Women (Stanford University Press 2024).
Anthony M. Jimenez, Rochester Institute of Technology, The Third Net: The Hidden System of Migrant Health Care (NYU Press 2024).
Lisa Sun-Hee Park, University of California-Santa Barbara; Erin Hoekstra, independent scholar; and Anthony M. Jimenez, Rochester Institute of Technology, The Third Net: The Hidden System of Migrant Health Care (NYU Press 2024).
Dagmar Rita Myslinska, Creighton University, Law, Migration and the Construction of Whiteness: Mobility within the European Union (Routledge 2024).
Richard E. Ocejo, CUNY Graduate Center and John Jay College, Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City (Princeton University Press 2024).
Melissa Osborne, Western Washington University, Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility (University of Chicago Press 2024).
Alejandro Portes, Princeton University (retired), and Rubén G. Rumbaut, University of California-Irvine, Immigrant America: A Portrait, 5th Edition (University of California Press 2024).
David H. Slater, Sophia University, and Patricia G. Steinhoff, University of Hawaii-Manoa (retired), Eds., Alternative Politics in Contemporary Japan: New Directions in Social Movements (University of Hawaii Press 2024).
Anthony J. Spires, University of Melbourne, Global Civil Society and China (Cambridge 2024).
Yingyao Wang, University of Virginia, Markets with Bureaucratic Characteristics: How Economic Bureaucrats Make Policies and Remake the Chinese State (Columbia University Press 2024).
Obituary
Donald Black
1941-2024
Donald Black died at the end of January, aged 82, at his home outside Charlottesville, VA. A theoretical sociologist, he obtained his PhD from the University of Michigan in 1968. Early in his career he held appointments at Yale University and Harvard University in both the law schools and sociology departments. He began teaching in the sociology department at the University of Virginia in 1986 and was a University Professor of Social Sciences from 1989 until he retired in 2016.
Black’s most important early work was The Behavior of Law (Emerald Publishing 1976), which advanced what is still the only general sociological theory of law. He eventually extended his work to the larger universe of conflict management—including violence, avoidance, and toleration—which culminated in his major midcareer work, The Social Structure of Right and Wrong (Academic Press 1993). Black broke still more fresh ground with a third major opus, Moral Time (Oxford University Press 2011), which presented a radically new general and testable theory of the causes of conflict. In between these books, he authored a series of brilliant publications, including the volumes The Manners and Customs of the Police (Academic Press 1981) and Sociological Justice (Oxford University Press 1993), and the papers “Crime as Social Control” in the American Sociological Review (1983), and “The Geometry of Terrorism” in Sociological Theory (2004).
Some of Black’s work extended beyond crime, violence, law, and conflict into other topics such as the sociology of ideas and scienticity (the degree to which ideas are testable, general, valid, simple, and original). Unusually for a sociologist, he drew as freely on anthropological and historical materials as on modern data, allowing him to explain variation in social behavior in all societies and across time.
Black did not just create new theories. He was a system-builder who invented a new theoretical paradigm, a profoundly innovative way of conceptualizing and explaining social behavior that has its location and direction in social space, or its social geometry. He named this “pure sociology,” for it eschewed three Ps found in virtually every other form of social theory—psychology, purposes, and people. The result was astonishing: an entire intellectual system with a new subject matter, namely the behavior of social life.
Black was a charismatic teacher who influenced many fledgling sociologists. His classes were an intellectual treat for he saw teaching as an opportunity to develop new ideas. Beyond the classroom, he was an inspiring mentor ready to offer advice and encouragement, especially to younger scholars.
Black was also a man of principle. He took matters of morality very seriously and did what he thought right regardless of the crowd. Yet his commitment to value-free sociology was such that he never told his classes or his readers what they ought to think or say or do.
Black was a fellow of the American Society of Criminology and the American Anthropological Association. In 2013, he received the Law and Society Association Harry Kalven Jr. Prize for outstanding scholarship. Black received several awards from the American Sociological Association (ASA) and its Sections. In 1994, he received the ASA Theory Section’s Theory Prize and the Section on the Sociology of Law’s Distinguished Book Award, both for The Social Structure of Right and Wrong. He was also the recipient of the ASA Section on the Sociology of Law’s Distinguished Article Award in 1997 for “The Epistemology of Pure Sociology” (Law & Social Inquiry 1995) and the recipient of the ASA Section on Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity inaugural Outstanding Published Book Award in 2012 for Moral Time. In addition, several of his books have been translated into other languages.
Although he is no longer among us, Black will remain a powerful intellectual presence. His razor-sharp writings, elegant geometrical paradigm, and powerful theories will continue to attract and inspire all who seek to explain that mundane yet mysterious dimension of reality that is social life.
Mark Cooney, University of Georgia
