September 2022 Issue
- Federal Agencies Seek Information
- Calls for Papers: Publications
- Calls for Papers: Conferences
- Call for Creative Works
- Visitorship
- Call for Book Award
- Events
- Accomplishments
- In the News
- New Books
- Obituaries
Federal Agencies Seek Information
The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released on August 28 a Request for Information to help develop a Federal Evidence Agenda on LBGTQI+ Equity. This request addresses the June 2022 executive order, “Advancing Equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Individuals” (E.O. 14075), which tasked a new subcommittee on sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex characteristics within the Interagency Working Group on Equitable Data that will take the lead on developing an agenda to support data collection and aid in informing policy decisions to improve equity for the LGBTQI+ community. The RFI poses several questions regarding federal data collections as well as privacy, security, and civil rights. Stakeholder feedback will be accepted through October 3. More information is available in the Federal Register.
The Office of Management and Budget announced on August 30 additional information about its formal review process for statistical standards for collecting race and ethnicity data. Refer to OMB Launches New Public Listening Sessions on Federal Race and Ethnicity Standards Revision for detailed information.
Calls for Papers: Publications
The Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research book series is planning a volume on the theme of “Cohabitation and the Evolving Nature of Intimate and Family Relationships” that will delve into a wide variety of topics related to cohabitation. The submission date for manuscripts is September 30, 2022. Click here for the complete call for papers. Questions may be directed to the volume’s coeditors, Yongjun Zhang and Sampson Lee Blair.
Editors seek chapters for the upcoming book Globalisation, Human Rights, Sports, and Culture (Springer 2023). Chapters should explore the intersection of human rights, sports, and culture, and be 20–25 pages. Submit a proposal of interest by September 30, 2022. Completed chapters will be due February 28, 2023. Please contact Yvonne Vissing for questions and submissions.
Research in Social Movements, Conflicts, and Change invites original submissions of manuscripts. Submission is open to all topics related to the three areas of the peer-reviewed series: social movements, conflicts/peace processes, and social change. Additionally, a substantial portion of Volume 48 will be devoted to chapters focused on the roles of memory and information in a variety of areas. The deadline is October 1, 2022. Read the full call for papers here.
Research in the Sociology of Health Care seeks papers dealing with macro-level system issues and micro-level issues involving social factors, health care inequities, and vaccinations. The volume will contain 10–14 papers, generally 20–35 pages long. Send completed manuscripts or close to completed papers for review by October 1, 2022, to Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld.
Information Communication & Society seeks submissions for a special issue. Submissions should draw on papers presented at the 2021 or 2022 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting or the Media Sociology Symposium and focus on any facet of media, technology, communication, information, or related topics. The deadline is October 1, 2022. Please send all questions to Dustin Kidd.
The Journal of Historical Political Economy will publish a special issue on religion and culture, in association with the 2023 ASREC Conference, to be held on March 17–18, 2023, at Harvard University. The issue aims to explore the interplay between political economy, religion, and culture, from the near to distant past. Submit your paper to the ASREC Conference by October 28, 2022, and note that you would like your paper to be considered for the special issue. Applicants must include a full draft of their paper upon submission to be considered. Read the full call for papers here.
Research in the Sociology of Work invites papers for a special issue on employability, including both empirical and conceptual papers. Papers may address any of a wide range of topics and themes, which are listed in the full call for papers here. Submissions may be made at any time up until November 30, 2022. Please submit your manuscript to [email protected] and include “Employability” in the subject line.
Social Inclusion welcomes new and exciting research papers for its upcoming issue “Disabled People and the Intersectional Nature of Social Inclusion.” Intersectional analyses of the experiences of youth, 2SLGBTQI+, Indigenous and tribal peoples, ethnic minorities, refugees, and migrants, are particularly welcome. The deadline for abstracts is November 30, 2022, and the deadline for articles is April 30, 2023. Read the full call for papers here.
Employee Relations seeks papers for a special issue on “China’s Labour Relations in a New Era of 2020s and Beyond” that explore the changing Chinese labor and employment relations and discuss their implications for workers, employers, and governments around the world. Early-career researchers, including PhD students/candidates, are encouraged to submit their works and share their fresh findings with a global readership. Read the complete call for papers here. The deadline is December 12, 2022.
The Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography (JUE) is a peer-reviewed online journal for undergraduate academic writing that aims to give readers insights into subcultures, practices, and social institutions. JUE encourages undergraduates or those who have graduated within the past 12 months to submit manuscripts for consideration. Manuscripts must be based on original research conducted using ethnographic methods, on any topic in the social sciences. The journal welcomes submissions for future issues. The next deadline is January 31, 2022. See the website for more information.
Human Resource Management (HRM) invites papers for a special issue to discuss themes and issues including but not limited to: antecedents of sustainable work and employment systems in social care; workforce diversity and precarious employment in social care; strategic HRM in social care; and new HRM actors in social care. Authors can submit papers between March 1–31, 2023, to HRM for review. Read the full call for papers here.
The Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST) invites contributions for a special issue on “Healthier Information Ecosystems” that address the sociocultural embeddedness of the problems plaguing information ecosystems and provide new ways of thinking about healthier global information environment and strategies to achieve that. The deadline is May 1, 2023. Read the complete call for papers here.
Organization Studies seeks submissions for its upcoming special issue on “Trust in Uncertain Times.” The objective of the special issue is to serve as a focal point for theory development and empirical insights into the various ways in which trust and uncertainty intersect, with a special emphasis on the role of institutions in explaining the interface between the two. The deadline for submissions is June 30, 2023. For more details, read the full call for papers here.
Ethics International Press invites proposals for scholarly books and edited collections broadly related to ethics and ethical issues in fields including but not limited to: business and management; education; gender issues; law and legal ethics; medicine and medical ethics; politics and government; history; religion and faith; morality; society and culture; environmental studies; philosophy; and artificial intelligence and technology. Download the book proposal form here. Ethics International Press also has open calls for chapters in edited collections, including on topics such as statistics, climate change, technology and AI, responsible business, COVID-19, critical psychology and psychiatry, and sociotechnical systems. Read more about edited collections here. The deadline is ongoing.
Cambridge Scholars Publishing (CSP) invites proposals for academic books and edited collections in the humanities and social sciences. To learn more about CSP, visit the website, where you can also complete a book proposal form. Authors also can contribute to the Book in Focus series. The deadline is ongoing.
The Berkeley Journal of Sociology (BJS) has been relaunched and is seeking submissions and reviewers. BJS is written and edited by a diverse collective of graduate students committed to translating social science research to wider publics. Read more about the journal on the website. Read the call for submissions here, and access the reviewer interest form here. The deadline is ongoing.
Calls for Papers: Conferences
The International Sociological Association’s 2023 World Congress of Sociology will be held on the theme of “Resurgent Authoritarianism: The Sociology of New Entanglements of Religions, Politics, and Economies,” in Melbourne, Australia, June 25–July 1, 2023, and is now accepting submissions. Find out more information about the conference here. Among the sessions seeking submissions are: Navigating the Other Side of the Classroom: Exploring Teachers’ Experiences at Work; Theorizing Desires: Sexualizing Sociological Theories with Dr. Ying-Chao Kao; Swipe Right or Swipe Left? Sociological Perspectives of Digital Sexual Spaces; and The Toolkit of Emerging Autocrats. Abstracts are due by September 15, 2022.
The 13th Annual International Conference on Stigma will be held as a hybrid conference on the theme “Power of Peer Support: Breaking the Chains of Stigma Together,” November 15–18, 2022. This hybrid conference aims to increase awareness of the stigma of HIV and other health conditions and to explore interventions to eradicate this stigma. It is seeking original research that addresses HIV stigma or other mental or physical health-related stigma to be presented as a virtual poster during the conference’s virtual poster session on November 17, 2022. For more information, including submission guidelines, visit the website. The submission deadline is September 30, 2022.
The Im/migrant Well-Being: A Nexus for Research and Policy Conference will be held February 17–18, 2023, in St. Petersburg, Florida, and invites scholars from the social sciences and humanities to submit their research. We understand well-being as encompassing social, emotional, relational, economic, psychological, and physical aspects, and as a critical concept for both creating public policies and analyzing their impact. Submissions are due September 30, 2022. Read the full call for papers here.
The European Culture Research Network invites submissions for the mini-symposium on the topic of “European Cultures: Utopias and Dystopias” that will be held during the Twenty-Ninth International Conference of Europeanists University of Iceland in Reykjavik, June 27–29, 2023. This symposium aims to address the relation of culture to utopian and dystopian imaginaries of Europe, past, present, and future. For more information about the conference, visit the website. Please send proposals for the mini-symposium by October 1, 2022, to Michael Gott, Arina Rotaru, and Claske Vos.
The 2023 Eastern Sociological Society (ESS) Annual Meeting will be held at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore, February 23–26, 2023. The theme for the meeting is “Dignity and Society. ” To learn more, visit the website. A Military and Society Mini-Conference will be held during the meeting and is accepting presentations around the meeting theme that are relative to the military and war and/or the broader topic of the military and society. Submit names, contact information, affiliations, and a 150–200 word abstract to Morten G. Ender or Ryan Kelty by October 1, 2022.
The Eighth International Conference on Communication and Media Studies will be held on the theme “Who Can We Trust? Ethical and Responsible Artificial Intelligence in Digital Communication Systems” at Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, September 6–8, 2023. The Communication and Media Studies Research Network offers an interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of the role of the media and communications in society and invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is November 6, 2022. For more information, visit the website.
The Thirteenth International Conference on Health, Wellness, and Society will be held on the theme “Digitizing Health and Wellbeing” at UBC Robson Square, Vancouver, Canada, September 14–15, 2023. The Health, Wellness, and Society Research Network is brought together by a common concern in the fields of human health and wellness, and in particular their social interconnections and implications and invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is November 14, 2022. For more information, visit the website.
The International Toy Research Association will hold its 9th World Conference on the theme “Toys Matter: The Power of Playthings” at The Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, August-9–11, 2023. Organizers invite work that examines the power of playthings socio-culturally, developmentally, economically, and historically, especially as we navigate precarious and even perilous times. Submit abstracts by December 31, 2022. Read the full call for papers here.
The Nineteenth International Conference on Technology, Knowledge, and Society will be held on the theme “Whose Intelligence? The Corporeality of Thinking Machines” at the University of Malta, April 13–14, 2023. The Technology, Knowledge, and Society Research Network is brought together by a shared interest in the complex and subtle relationships between technology, knowledge, and society, and invites proposals on several themes, such as histories of technology, knowledge makers, and social realities. The deadline is January 13, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Eighth International Conference on Tourism and Leisure Studies will be held on the theme “Post-Pandemic Tourism Transformations” at University of Granada, Spain, June 14–16, 2023. The Tourism and Leisure Studies Research Network is brought together to explore the economic, cultural, and organizational aspects of tourism and leisure, and invites proposals on several themes, such as changing dimensions of contemporary tourism, changing dimensions of contemporary leisure, tourism and leisure industries, and critical issues in tourism and leisure studies. The deadline is March 14, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Sixteenth Global Studies Conference will be held on the theme “Agency in an Era of Displacement and Social Change ” at Oxford Brookes University, UK, July 19–21, 2023. The Global Studies Research Network is devoted to mapping and interpreting past and emerging trends and patterns in globalization and invites proposals on several themes, including networks on economy and trade, the power of institutions, vectors of society and culture, and ecological foundations. The deadline is April 19, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Sixteenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum will be held on the theme “Museum Transformations: Pathways to Community Engagement ” at UBC Robson Square, Vancouver, Canada, September 18–20, 2023. The Inclusive Museum Research Network is brought together by a shared concern for the future role of the museum and how it can become more inclusive and invites proposals on several themes, including visitors, collections, and representations. The deadline is June 18, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
Call for Creative Works
Creativity in the Time of COVID-19: Art as a Tool for Combatting Inequity and Injustice aims to collect creative works produced during the pandemic from across the globe to showcase how individuals and artists—particularly those hardest hit by the pandemic—have used creative outlets to cope with COVID-19. The exhibition and archive are part of a Mellon Just Futures grant devoted to documenting the systemic inequalities revealed by the pandemic for BIPOC communities (among others). The team welcomes everyone, from first-time creators to experienced professional artists, to share their creative products. Everything submitted will be showcased in an online archive and juried for inclusion in the physical exhibitions across the United States. Individuals can participate by responding to this survey by October 31, 2022. Visit the project website to read more information.
Visitorship
The Sociology Group at Nuffield College, Oxford, invites applications for a visitorship at the college in the 2023–2024 academic year. The applications are open to established academics and others who wish to pursue their research in Oxford in the field of sociology, broadly defined to include sociology, social policy, and demography. Visitorships normally last between one and six months (longer visits may be considered). Further information and application instructions are available here. The application deadline is September 30, 2022. Enquiries should be directed to Justine Crump.
Call for Book Award
The Pattis Family Foundation Global Cities Book Award is a $25,000 award celebrating books that aim to improve our collective knowledge of individuals, communities, and/or institutions that significantly shape global cities. This award is one of the first to recognize the integral role of cities in global policy and the importance of books as tools for creating policy. Visit the website to find out about eligibility criteria. Submissions are open now and will run through December 31, 2022.
Events
Penn State’s 17th Annual De Jong Lecture in Social Demography will be presented by Marcy Carlson, University of Wisconsin-Madison, on “Generational Overlap: Changing Demography and Shared Lifetimes” on September 16, 2022. Carlson will consider how changing demographic patterns (i.e., declining/delayed fertility and longer life expectancies) shape the prevalence of generational overlap, especially for children and grandparents. Generational overlap in the form of shared lifetimes represents a fundamental condition guiding whether and how kin relationships across generations may develop and how resources may be shared—with notable variation by socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, and family complexity. Registration is required to attend virtually.
Penn State’s 30th Annual Symposium on Family Issues will be held October 24–25, 2022. Despite its significance for individuals, families, and the larger society, research on family socialization on issues of race and racism remains limited. The goal of the 2022 Family Symposium is to draw scholars’ attention to the study of family socialization around racial/ethnic inequalities and racism in the U.S., with a focus on family programs, practices, and policies to address this national challenge and its widespread implications. Visit the website for more information.
The 5th CNA Conference will take place in Nova Gorica, Slovenia, November 21–24, 2022, where at least 51 participants will present papers in an academic conference and/or attend the CNA Business Meeting as presentative of their respective national associations. The theme of the conference is “Social Transformations and Sociology: Dispossessions and Empowerment,” with former ISA President Margaret Archer as one of the keynote speakers. Majority of the participants will join the conference in person while a few representatives are expected to participate online. The local organizing committee is headed by Borut Roncevic of the School of Advanced Social Studies, together with the Slovenian Social Science Association and the Slovene Sociological Association. For more information, click here.
The 7th World Conference on Qualitative Research (WCQR) will be held January 25–27, 2023, in Algarve, Portugal, as well as online. WCQR is an annual event that brings together researchers, academics, and professionals, promoting the sharing of knowledge, new perspectives, experiences, and innovations in the field of qualitative research. Each edition brings together researchers from more than 30 countries, world-renowned authors, and research groups sharing their experiences in the field, making the WCQR one of the most relevant platforms for discussing and disseminating the best scientific production in QR. Visit the website for more information.
The 2023 Moving Trans History Forward Conference will be a hybrid event—taking place both in person at the University of Victoria, British Colombia, and online—March 30–April 2, 2023. It will be a unique blend of members of general public; students and faculty; artists; activists; Trans+ people; family members; allies; and service providers coming together to consider both our history, and the crucial issues which impact us today, and into the future—locally, nationally, and globally. Find out more on the website.
Accomplishments
Julio Alicea and Tanya Sanabria, California State University-Los Angeles, each received the 2022 National Academy of Education Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship.
Louis Esparza, California State University-Los Angeles, was named Fulbright Distinguished Scholar at the University of Brasília for the coming academic year.
Joya Misra, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, received the 2022 Roy J. Zuckerberg Endowed Leadership Chair, which recognizes faculty and staff across the five-campus University of Massachusetts system for leadership in helping the university accomplish its goals, for her research and teaching focused on social inequality.
Stephen J. Morewitz, San Jose State University and Forensic Social Sciences Association, had his biography published in EverybodyWiki.
Betsy Priem, University of Chicago, and Jessica Schirmer, University of California-Berkeley, were among the recipients of the 2022 Dissertation Grant awarded by the National Institute of Social Sciences.
Gretchen Purser and Brian Hennigan, Syracuse University, received the Working Class Studies Association’s 2022 John Russo and Sherry Linkon Award for Best Published Article for “Both Sides of the Paycheck: Recommending Thrift to the Poor in Job Readiness Programs.”
Fenggang Yang, Purdue University, launched a three-year project “Global East Religiosity and Changing Religious Landscapes” on July 1, 2022, supported with a grant of $1.8 million from the John Templeton Foundation.
In the News
Chloe E. Bird, Tufts University School of Medicine, authored the July 8, 2022, article “Doubling NIH Funding for Women’s Health Would Yield Substantial Return on Investment” in Health Affairs.
Christopher R. Browning, Ohio State University, commented on his recent research with Nicolo P. Pinchak and Bethany Boettner, Ohio State University, and Catherine A. Calder and Jake Tarrence, University of Texas-Austin, in the article “Paws on the Street: Neighbourhoods with More Dogs Have Lesser Crime Rates, Study Suggests” in the July 6, 2022, online edition of the Independent.
Kelsy Burke, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, authored the perspective piece “White Conservatives Use Anti-Pornography Crusades to Secure Power” in the July 6, 2022, issue of the Washington Post.
Jessica Calarco, Indiana University-Bloomington, was quoted about a new study on social mobility in the August 1, 2022, edition of “The Morning” from the New York Times.
Jennifer Carlson, University of Arizona, was quoted in the article “America’s Gun Culture: Pandemic Brings 7-Figure Surge of Firearms Sales in Pennsylvania” in the August 30, 2022, edition of the Tribune Democrat.
Karen A. Cerulo, Rutgers University, and Janet M. Ruane, Montclair State University, have been featured in a number of radio broadcasts, podcasts, and newspaper features focusing on their book Dreams of a Lifetime: How Who We Are Shapes How We Imagine Our Future (Princeton University Press 2022): on the July 20, 2022, episode of the podcast Think (NPR), “How Poverty Steals Peoples’ Dreams;” in a June 29, 2022, segment on Good Day Tulsa; in a July 13, 2022, interview on Literary Hub, “Why We Can’t Escape Social Class, Gender, or Culture When We Dream;” on the June 23, 2022, episode of The Curious Man podcast; and on the June 28, 2022, episode of the Talk Cocktail podcast “Your Dreams Are Not What You Think.”
Andrew Cherlin, Johns Hopkins University, and Joseph E. Davis, University of Virginia, were quoted in the January 10, 2021, article “A Shift in American Family Values Is Fueling Estrangement” in the Atlantic.
Samuel Friedman, New York University, coauthored the April 18, 2022, article “Where is the Left on Pandemic Politics?” for the blog Tempest with Justin Feldman, Harvard University.
Elizabeth A. Hoffman, Purdue University, authored the opinion piece “Formula Shortage Exposes Lack of Breastfeeding Support” in the July 5, 2022, edition of The Progressive.
Tomás Jiménez, Stanford University, was quoted in the column “I’m Officially Reclaiming the U.S. Flag from the Fascists” in the July 4, 2022, edition of the LA Times.
Tamara Kay and Susan L. Ostermann, University of Notre Dame, authored the opinion piece “Indiana Lawmakers Should’ve Learned from RFRA; Don’t Repeat Those Mistakes” in the July 28, 2022, edition of the IndyStar.
Krystale E. Littlejohn, University of Oregon, was quoted in the article “Permanent Birth Control Is in Demand in the US—but Hard to Get” on July 6, 2022, in WIRED online and in the article “Why We’re Still Arguing about Abortion and Regret” in the July 7, 2022, edition of the Washington Post.
Rebecca A. London, University of California-Santa Cruz, and Catherine Ramstetter, founder of Successful Healthy Children, authored the opinion piece “What Rights Do US Children Have? None.” in the June 11, 2022, edition of the Hill.
Joan Maya Mazelis, Rutgers University-Camden, and Arielle Kuperberg, University of North Carolina Greensboro, authored the op-ed “If Biden won’t cancel student loan debt, Congress should cancel the interest” on July 29, 2022, in the Hill.
Ruth Milkman, CUNY Graduate Center, authored the April 8, 2022, piece “The Amazon Labor Union’s Historic Breakthrough” in Dissent Magazine online.
Chinyere Osuji, University of Maryland-College Park, authored the article “Crash Landing on the U.S.” appearing on July 20, 2022, in the online magazine In the Fray.
Raúl Pérez, University of La Verne, was interviewed about his new book, The Souls of White Jokes, for Axios Latino on July 5, 2022; authored the July 28, 2022, article “How the Backlash to ‘Woke’ Culture Has Made a Way for Racist Humor to Thrive” on NBC News online; and wrote the perspective piece “Racist Jokes Cemented Police Culture that Ignited L.A. Uprising” in the April 29, 2022, edition of the Washington Post.
Samuel Perry, University of Oklahoma, and Philip Gorski, Yale University, were interviewed on July 26, 2022, by CNN about Christian nationalism.
Natasha Quadlin, University of California-Los Angeles, and Brian Powell, Indiana University-Bloomington, authored the opinion piece “Four-Year Degree Worth the Cost? Americans Value Education, but Government Should Pick Up the Tab” in the July 11, 2022, online edition of USA Today.
Gregory Squires, George Washington University, coauthored the August 3, 2022, article in the Philadelphia Inquirer “Home Appraisals Are Biased. Here’s How to Tackle This Problem in Philly,” with Cherelle L. Parker and Ira Goldstein
Amanda Stevenson, Leslie Root, and Jane Menken, University of Colorado-Boulder, were quoted in the article “CU Boulder Study: Nationwide Abortion Ban Would Increase Maternal Death Rate by 24%” in the June 30, 2022, edition of Colorado Hometown Weekly.
Travers, Simon Fraser University, was quoted in the article “Protections for Trans Athletes in Title IX Proposal Still Unknown” in the July 5, 2022, edition of Inside Higher Ed.
Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, and Alicia Riley, University of California-Santa Cruz, were quoted in the article “In Rural America, Covid Hits Black and Hispanic People Hardest” in the July 28, 2022, edition of the New York Times.
New Books
Seth Abrutyn, University of British Columbia, and Jonathan H. Turner, University of California-Santa Barbara and Riverside, The First Institutional Spheres in Human Societies: Evolution and Adaptations from Foraging to the Threshold of Modernity (Routledge 2022).
Elisabeth Anderson, New York University-Abu Dhabi, Agents of Reform: Child Labor and the Origins of the Welfare State (Princeton University Press 2021).
Kelsy Burke, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, The Pornography Wars: The Past, Present, and Future of America’s Obscene Obsession (Bloomsbury 2022).
Craig Calhoun, Arizona State University-Tempe; Dilip Gaonkar, Northwestern University; and Charles Taylor, McGill University, Degenerations of Democracy (Harvard University Press 2022).
Craig Calhoun, Arizona State University-Tempe, and Ben Fong, Arizona State University, Eds., The Green New Deal and the Future of Work (Columbia University Press 2022).
Stephen Cherry, University of Houston-Clear Lake, Importing Care, Faithful Service: Filipino and Indian American Nurses at a Veterans Hospital (Rutgers University Press 2022).
Yi-Lin Chiang, National Chengchi University, Study Gods: How the New Chinese Elite Prepare for Global Competition (Princeton University Press 2022).
Radosveta Dimitrova, Stockholm University, and Nora Wiium, University of Bergen, Eds., Handbook of Positive Youth Development. Advancing Research, Policy, and Practice in Global Contexts (Springer 2021).
Radosveta Dimitrova, Stockholm University; David Lackland Sam, University of Bergen; and Laura Ferrer-Wreder, Stockholm University, Eds., Roma Minority Youth Across Cultural Contexts: Taking a Positive Approach to Research, Policy, and Practice (Oxford University Press 2021).
Sean J. Drake, Syracuse University, Academic Apartheid: Race and the Criminalization of Failure in an American Suburb (University of California Press 2022).
Julie L. Fennell, Gallaudet University, Please Scream Quietly: A Story of Kink (Rowman & Littlefield 2022).
David Forrest, Oberlin College, A Voice but No Power: Organizing for Social Justice in Minneapolis (University of Minnesota Press 2022).
Clare Forstie, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, Queering the Midwest: Forging LGBTQ Community (New York University Press 2022).
Daanika Gordon, Tufts University, Policing the Racial Divide: Urban Growth Politics and the Remaking of Segregation (New York University Press 2022).
Corrie Grosse, College of Saint Benedict, Working Across Lines: Resisting Extreme Energy Extraction (University of California Press 2022).
Jessica Halliday Hardie, CUNY-Hunter College, Best Laid Plans: Women Coming of Age in Uncertain Times (University of California Press 2022).
Sanford M. Jacoby, University of California-Los Angeles, Labor in the Age of Finance: Pensions, Politics, and Corporations from Deindustrialization to Dodd-Frank (Princeton University Press 2021).
Douglas W. Maynard, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Jason Turowetz, University of Siegen, Autistic Intelligence: Interaction, Individuality, and the Challenges of Diagnosis (University of Chicago Press 2022).
Joan S. M. Meyers, California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo, Working Democracies: Managing Inequality in Worker Cooperatives (ILR Press 2022).
Raúl Pérez, University of La Verne, The Souls of White Jokes: How Racist Humor Fuels White Supremacy (Stanford University Press 2022).
Salvador Santino Regilme and Irene Hadiprayitno, Leiden University, Eds., Human Rights at Risk: Global Governance, American Power, and the Future of Dignity (Rutgers University Press 2022).
Anna Catherine Rhodes, Rice University, and Max Besbris, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Soaking the Middle Class: Suburban Inequality and Recovery from Disaster (Russell Sage 2022).
Diane Vaughan, Columbia University, Dead Reckoning: Air Traffic Control, System Effects and Risk (University of Chicago Press 2021).
Murray Webster, Jr. and Lisa Slattery Walker, University of North Carolina-Charlotte, Unequals: The Power of Status and Expectations in Our Social Lives (Oxford University Press 2022).
Fenggang Yang, Purdue University, Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule (Russian translation) (Academic Studies Press 2022).
Obituaries
Helen Fein
1934–2022
Helen Fein passed away on May 14, 2022, surrounded by her husband Richard Fein, daughters, and extended family in Cambridge, MA. Fein, who earned her PhD in sociology from Columbia University in 1971, was a pioneer in genocide studies and a founder and first president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Fein was a lifelong member of the American Sociological Association (ASA), and her landmark work, Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization During the Holocaust (Free Press 1979), which received the association’s 1979 Sorokin Award (now the Sorokin Lecture Grant), was cited as “a brilliantly original interpretation of a complex and singular process, that has until now defied comprehensive social analysis.”
Fein rigorously applied historical sociology to issues related to collective violence, genocide, and other atrocities, such as in the papers “Denying Genocide: From Armenia to Bosnia” and “Discriminating Genocide from War Crimes: Vietnam and Afghanistan Reexamined” and in her book Human Rights and Wrongs: Slavery, Terror, Genocide (Routledge 2007). Fein coined such terms as “outside the sanctified universe of obligation,” “calculus of genocide,” and “genocide by attrition,” the last of which appeared in a 1997 issue of Health & Human Rights in the paper “Genocide by Attrition 1939–1993: The Warsaw Ghetto, Cambodia, and Sudan: Links between Human Rights, Health, and Mass Death.” Her groundbreaking work continues to influence scholarship in genocide studies and prevention, as well as related fields.
As executive director of the nonprofit Institute for the Study of Genocide (ISG) for more than 30 years, Fein organized a series of cutting-edge conferences, advocated for and lobbied on behalf of human rights and humanitarianism, and established the biennial ISG Lemkin Book Award in recognition of outstanding work on genocide or other severe human rights violations. Fein received the first ever PIOOM Award in 1991 from the Dutch-based PIOMM Foundation for her article “Genocide: A Sociological Perspective,”and was a recipient of the Social Science-MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in International Peace and Security Studies at Harvard University. She was a research associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government for nearly two decades. From her work as director of Indo-Chinese refugee settlement in Dutchess County, NY, to serving as an advisory board member for a range of NGOs, her life and legacy are that of a committed scholar and activist.
In addition to her husband of more than 50 years, poet and Yiddishist Richard Fein, Fein is survived by her daughters, Marsi Fein Miller and Miriam Fein-Cole, and her sons-in-law and grandchildren. Fein’s commitment to her family and friends, and research and advocacy epitomizes the life of a scholar-activist—deep integrity and concern for human dignity and social justice. Contributions in her honor may be made to: International Rescue Committee or to the Institute for the Study of Genocide, c/o Ernesto Verdeja, Executive Director, 1128 N Lafayette Blvd., South Bend, IN 46617.
Joyce Apsel, New York University
Richard F. Hamilton
1930–2022
The Mershon Center for International Security Studies mourns the passing of long-standing research associate Richard F. Hamilton (January 18, 1930–June 15, 2022). A sociologist of mass politics, Hamilton delighted in debunking received opinion through empirical investigation. His best-known and widely cited book, Who Voted for Hitler? (Princeton University Press 1982), challenged the assumption that Nazi Party support came largely from the lower middle classes. Through a granular analysis of municipal voting records, Hamilton discovered disproportionate support among wealthy and upper-middle urban voters, variability across rural districts, and division among working class voters. He accounted for these differences by weighting district outcomes against information sources and local party activities. The book’s ongoing relevance won recent endorsement in a surprising venue: in 2021, Dan Simon of the Nation wrote a lengthy appreciation, in which he treated Hamilton’s commitment to impartial, nuanced assessment of the evidence as a model for progressives tempted to stereotype the Trump voter.
Professor of sociology at the Ohio State University from 1986 until his retirement in 1998, Hamilton was named a University Distinguished Scholar in 1993. He published 15 books and a wide range of scholarly and general-audience articles on electoral behavior, the logics of mass society, the role of elites in the origins of the First World War, the question of American empire, and historical patterns in education.
Hamilton explained his scholarly ethos as the product of his generation: the experience of wartime in early adolescence; the example of the GI Bill students during his undergraduate years at the University of Michigan and the University of Chicago; and the extraordinary concentration of exile scholars that was reshaping American social science as he entered his doctoral program at Columbia University. In a talk given at the Mershon Center to open the conference of the Comparative National Elections Project (CNEP) in 2005, Hamilton revisited his formative experience as a research assistant on Paul Lazarsfeld’s Elmira Project, a pioneering Columbia University study of opinion formation in the U.S. national election of 1948. Explaining the Elmira Project as the precursor both of his own case studies and the large-scale, multinational, ongoing surveys of the CNEP, Hamilton defended the value of models built up from the ground of empirical research against the elegant overgeneralizations of grand theory. This brief retrospective might also be taken as Hamilton’s credo.
Hamilton was a faithful presence in Mershon’s old building on Neil Ave., where, in the intervals of writing, he kept the plants of the atrium watered, apprised us of the birthdays of presidents and composers, posted quirky notices on the bulletin board, and could occasionally be heard humming operatic passages in a fine tenor voice. He is survived by Irene Wagner Hamilton, his wife of 64 years, with whom he shared a deep love of music and German culture; two sons, Carl and Tilman (Cynthia); three grandchildren, Rhys, Devon, and Cormick; and Howard, his younger brother.
Paul A. Beck and Dorothy Noyes, Ohio State University
Roland Robertson
1938–2022
Roland Robertson, influential student of globalization, died on April 29, 2022, in Leicester, UK. Born in 1938 in Thorpe-Next-Norwich, he obtained an undergraduate degree at the University of Southampton and did graduate work at the London School of Economics and Political Science and the University of Leeds before beginning a productive, though unorthodox, career in sociology as one of the few major contributors who never completed a PhD. Robertson had early stints at Leeds, Essex University, York University, and visiting positions around the world. He worked for decades at the University of Pittsburgh, retiring in 1999 as distinguished service professor, and then worked for several years at the University of Aberdeen.
Robertson served as president of both the Association for the Sociology of Religion and the Global Studies Association. Among other honors, he received the American Sociological Association’s inaugural Section on Global and Transnational Sociology Distinguished Career Award in 2010. In the Festschrift for Robertson, Globalization/Glocalization: Developments in Theory and Application (Brill 2021), which appeared just before his passing, his list of publications covers 20 pages. Many of those publications originated in talks at meetings. Robertson was a great academic traveler and conference participant, at one time reputed to be a model for a character in a Malcolm Bradbury or David Lodge novel.
In the 1960s, Robertson delved into theory with an appreciative essay on Talcott Parsons; explored the changing role of religion through research on the Salvation Army; and, with J.P. Nettl, wrote International Systems and the Modernization of Societies: The Formation of National Goals and Attitudes (Faber 1968), stressing the way in which modernization is a relational process subject to cultural conceptions. From the outset, such work displayed his independence of mind—few in his generation took Parsons seriously—and in the way he viewed societies as related in a system, Robertson was ahead of his time.
He went on to make his mark in the sociology of religion with The Sociological Interpretation of Religion (Blackwell 1970) and Meaning and Change: Explorations in the Cultural Sociology of Modern Societies (New York University Press 1978). Pathbreaking papers on globalization of the early 1980s, several collected in his book Globalization: Social Theory and Global Culture (Sage 1992), focused on consciousness of the world as a single place and helped define the subject, down to terms that trickled into common use, such as “glocalization,” “the global field,” and “the universalization of particularism.” Between 1980 and 2016, numerous coedited volumes on identity and authority, Parsons, and global culture advanced his agenda. With Richard Giulianotti he applied his ideas to sports in Globalization and Football (Sage 2009).
Calling Robertson’s paradigm still “under-studied,” Giulianotti comments, “Roland was a real pleasure to work with, always keen to explore new ideas and fresh societal developments, and their implications for globalization theory and global society. As a teacher, he exposed students to a full set of arguments and theories, including those he disagreed with.” Former graduate student Victor Roudometof speaks for many: “People often came to Roland looking for inspiration for their work. Roland was eager to share his ideas and offered thought-provoking advice. He opened up entirely new avenues of inquiry and imagination for me and many others.”
If some sociologists understand society less well than their publication prowess suggests, others know more than their work. Robertson was among the latter, transcending in person the intricate lines on the page. Exuding a certain intellectual charisma, he conveyed his sense of sociology as the serious life. Wholly in touch with the latest rumblings of the zeitgeist, he also felt himself deeply embedded in the sociological tradition. In the way he carried it forward, he enabled others to see the world differently and left a legacy to be distributed like cash to many heirs.
Frank Lechner, Emory University
